Developers are nearly finished laying the groundwork for Cedars Village, the first of two new subdivisions planned next to The Cedars on Salmon Creek golf course in southeast Battle Ground.
Work on the 39-acre subdivision’s streets and lots began last summer in an area on the southern side of the course that used to be part of the fairways for the first and second holes, as well as the former driving range. The project is being developed by Cedars V&L, LLC, based in Northern California.
Coinciding with the development, the golf course underwent a series of renovations during the past year, which included the addition of a new hole and fairway and splitting one of the existing fairways into two holes, in order to maintain the course’s 18-hole setup.
Several additional holes had to be temporarily closed while sewer pipes for the subdivision were installed under the fairways, according to golf course employee Ryan Sayti, so the course has been operating in a 9-hole configuration for much of the past year.
“We’re reopening to 18 holes on Monday,” he said.
The streets and underground infrastructure for Cedars Village are nearly complete, along with its 117 lots. The lots are selling for $117,000 to $150,000, and the target value for homes is $500,000 to $700,000, according to Peter Riley of Berkshire Hathaway, the primary listing agent for the site.
Riley said the goal is to build out the neighborhood with a mix of one- and two-story homes. The lots range from 7,000 to 10,000 square feet, making them large enough for single-family homes with three-car garages. The minimum home size will be 1,800 square feet for one-level houses and 2,200 square feet for two-level.
Approximately 50 of the lots already have sales pending, according to Riley, and he said his goal is to sell out the rest in the next year. The final plats still need to be recorded, which is the point at which each lot becomes a registered tax lot with Clark County.
“The final layer of asphalt’s already in, so it’s really close,” Riley said. “We’re hoping to have them all legal and buildable lots by the end of the year.”
Although the community will have defined architectural standards, according to Riley, the plan is to build each of the homes individually rather than building out the entire development in advance, with the goal of giving each home a unique feeling and allowing individual buyers to have more input in the design of their houses.
“We’re glad to offer a community that isn’t controlled solely by one builder,” he said. “We’re trying to keep the integrity while simultaneously offering a more eclectic design and builder (lineup).”
The prospective buyers so far have been a mix of individuals and local development companies interested in building street blocks or small groups of houses at the site, Riley said, and he and the project developers want to try to maintain that mix for the rest of the buildout.
The subdivision comes at a time of high-paced housing construction in the county, but Riley said part of the goal with Cedars Village is to create housing that is a bit removed from the biggest current hubs of development near Ridgefield and Orchards.
The site’s location puts it about halfway between Battle Ground and Hockinson.
It will also be uniquely positioned as a golf course community, Riley said, with lower barriers to entry than at some of the county’s other golf course neighborhoods due to the lack of an age restriction for residents and the comparatively lower price point of the houses.
“A golf course community at $500,000 to $700,000 — we just don’t have that offered in Clark County,” he said. “It’s either high-end Camas, which pushes a lot of people out of the price point, or the 55-plus community in Fairway Village.”
Once the lots are sold out at Cedars Village, Riley said Cedars V&L and Berkshire Hathaway will turn their attention to the second phase of the project: a subdivision of several undeveloped parcels along the north side of the course, which will be divided into 162 new lots.
The goal is to begin construction in the summer.
