None of the three Schroeder siblings,
Anthony, Chris and Barbara, has ever been a developer. Until now. And
their first — and maybe last — project is a big one.
They want to convert 170 acres of family land in Wood River into an
environmentally friendly, 290-unit subdivision.
The site at Rock Hill Road and South Moreland Drive is among about 500
acres in Madison County that has been owned by the family since the
1840s. The subject of potentially developing part of it came up
almost seven years ago.
Most people, especially those with no development
experience, would have sold the land to a developer.
Not the Schroeders. That would be contrary to the
family's principles, Anthony Schroeder said.
"We have always done things on our own as a family," he said. "We never
just hired someone to do a job."
Once the decision to develop was made, the Schroeders had to decide what
they would do and how. Sensitivity to the family legacy — several
generations of Schroeder ancestors farmed the property — was a critical
point.
"We felt a sense of stewardship to the property," Anthony said. "We
wanted to do things the right way, not give in to the market demand of
most square footage for least money."
A lot of practices used in traditional development run contrary to their
values, Anthony said.
"Often the houses were shoddily built, and the impact on the environment
was ignored," he said. "Developers didn't show the right respect for the
land."
The siblings started attending seminars, workshops, conferences,
anything they could find, on development.
The more they learned, the more they felt that green building had the
closest parallel to what they saw as the "old way of doing things."
"I call it the common sense way of doing things," Anthony said. "When
our ancestors built things, where they located the homestead, and the
way they built it and the surrounding structures, was very mindful of
the environment."
They decided to build a sustainable project that complemented the land.
That meant not only building green houses but making sure the entire
development process, from site preparation to construction, was
environmentally friendly.
In 2005, they formed Wellspring Development Co., based in Savoy, Ill.,
near Champaign, where Chris works as an economic and agricultural
economics consultant.
Chris is the vice president of the company. Anthony, a graphic designer
in Tulsa, Okla., is the company president. Barbara, an athletic director
at Regis University in Denver, though not involved in the everyday
running of the company, is a partner.
They also assembled a team of green building specialists including
Kirkwood-based house builder Belcher Homes, Ballwin-based architect
Answers Inc., and Applied Ecological Services Inc., an ecological
consulting company in Brodhead, Wis.
The team settled on a "low-impact" development called Rock Hill Trails.
Low-impact developments have minimal impact on their surroundings.
"Part of doing an environmentally sensitive development is analyzing
resources and looking for the constraints and opportunities they
present," said Debbie Bassert, assistant staff vice president for land
use policy for the National Association of Home Builders.
Traditional developments don't take into account the impact of heavy
machinery and construction on, say, a stand of trees or a nearby stream.
Such resources can be seriously if not irreparably damaged during
construction.
"So even if the house built on that site is green, the land development
process could already have had a significant impact on the environment
around it," Bassert said.
The team working on the development plan for Rock Hill Trails spent
months discussing how best to preserve the streams, trees and open
spaces on site.
The development is designed to leave existing natural features of the
land untouched. The open space will be criss-crossed with walking trails
set among prairie areas and biofilter areas. Biofilters are planted
areas that help reduce storm water run-off and eliminate the need for
water detention ponds.
The project will be divided into three phases. The 66-acre first phase
will have 26 acres of open space, 82 single-family houses clustered on
about 21 acres and 4.3 acres of multifamily housing. There also will be
a 4.5-acre commercial component.
The houses — single- and multifamily — will range from 1,000 square
feet to more than 4,000 square feet with prices from the low $200,000s
to the mid $400,000s.
All the houses will be built using green principles, said Matt Belcher,
president of Belcher Homes who is also president of the Home Builders
Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri. The focus will be on
using sustainable and recycled material and greater energy efficiency.
"We are pre-wiring all the homes for solar panels. Right now solar
technology is cost-prohibitive for an individual owner, but we hope it
will become cheaper in the future," Belcher said. "It would cost three
times as much to retrofit a house then."
The developers even charted the course of the sun across the property to
make sure that solar panels will work.
Belcher has experience doing green housing. His company is building a
five-house development in Kirkwood that uses the same principles of
sustainable development. He also is consulting on a similar 17-acre,
80-unit project in Columbia, Mo.
A project like Rock Hill Trails has the advantage of scale, said Calli
Schmidt, director of environmental communications for the National
Association of Home Builders.
Schmidt, who is familiar with the plan for Rock Hill Trails, said
planning a large development to be green has the potential for greater
benefits. "You are having a better positive impact on a larger swath of
land because you are starting from scratch," Schmidt said. "You are
taking a community that would perhaps have a much greater impact on the
environment, and making it much smaller."
All of the houses in Rock Hill Trails will include enough
environment-friendly elements to earn them a minimum green certification
from the U.S. Green Building Council, Schroeder said.
The first phase of the development received zoning approval from the
city this week. Schroeder hopes to begin site work in the next couple of
months and have the first houses ready early next year. A specific
development plan or timeline has not been established for the second and
third phases.
A decision on the remaining 320 acres depends on "whether we lose our
shirts on this one," Anthony said. "The options are really wide open at
this point. But if it is developed, we will do it ourselves."
rtstclair@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8206