Master-Planned Community’s First Homes at Wendell Falls to Open by Next Spring

by Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

The first homes at Wendell Falls, Newland Communities’ 1,115-acre master-planned development in eastern Wake County, are scheduled for completion by next spring.

According to the Triangle Business Journal, site work is already under way for the community’s swimming pool and clubhouse.

“We feel it’s important to bring in the amenity from day one,” Keith Hurand of Newland Communities told the newspaper. “We want to have the phase one amenity center 100 percent complete so buyers can begin using it.”

Designed by LS3P Associates, the 8,000-sq.-ft. clubhouse building will feature a café and serve as an information center for potential buyers. By the time they move in, residents will also have access to a play area for children, a fishing pier on an existing 1.5-acre pond and a trail system that will eventually connect Wendell Falls into the Wake County greenway trails system.

When fully complete, the new development is planned to include more than 3,000 single-family and multi-family homes, approximately two million square feet of commercial-retail space, along with open spaces, public parks, and other community amenities. Construction is expected to span over more than 10 years.

Wendell Falls is owned in a joint venture between North America Sekisui House, LLC (NASH), the US business unit and full subsidiary of Sekisui House, Ltd., Japan’s largest homebuilder, and American Newland Communities, LLC, whose development business, Newland Communities, is the master developer of the project.

In a $34 million deal, the group purchased the massive Wendell Falls property out of foreclosure from Wells Fargo bank in 2013.

Mercury Development and Burroughs & Chapin Co. of Myrtle Beach were the original investors of the project, which was suspended in 2008 because of the financial crisis. Before construction stopped, the companies spent more than $100 million in infrastructure work, which included water and sewer lines, a new interchange on U.S. 64/264, and an elementary school, which opened in 2009.

Wendell Falls is now one of more than 30 assets the NASH-Newland partnership owns or manages together, in 11 states across the US.

Photo credits: Town of Wendell