New market-rate homes are starting to come online in Milo-Grogan. Local developer New City Homes has acquired a total of 18 new-build sites in the neighborhood, including a cluster of contiguous lots on East Second Avenue where work recently began on the first of five new single family homes.
Chris Knoppe, Partner at New City Homes, said that the company has completed two homes so far elsewhere in the neighborhood and plans to develop the remaining lots incrementally over the next two years or so. Half of the parcels that the company owns were purchased from the Columbus Land Bank, which “allowed us to offer the initial houses at a lower price than otherwise possible for new construction.”
He added that the 15-year tax abatement that was put in place for Milo-Grogan in 2017 will help to lower costs for the homeowner.
“We make the application for that, then the buyer is the beneficiary,” Knoppe said. “Given rising construction costs, it allows us to build a house and still sell it at a price that might be high for the neighborhood, but to the home buyer…the total cost of ownership is reduced by 25 to 30 percent.”
There has been a lot of construction activity in Milo-Grogan over the course of the last five years, including the new Rogue Fitness facility on Cleveland Avenue, a new apartment building on Reynolds Avenue, and new scattered affordable housing throughout the neighborhood.
Even with all of that activity, some might be surprised to learn that many of the new houses in the area will carry price tags north of $300,000.
Knoppe said he has relied on word-of-mouth among people already living in the neighborhood to sell the first two homes, but is hoping to ramp up marketing efforts in the near future.
“Milo-Grogan is somewhat of an unknown neighborhood for a lot of people looking to buy and rent,” he said, adding that realtors often don’t include the area in the searches they set up for their clients. “For the next wave, we’ll be looking to market and spread the word, so more people are aware of it.”
Knoppe has been attending Milo-Grogan Area Commission meetings since New City first started buying lots in the area two years ago, and has been impressed with the close-knit group of neighborhood leaders who are working to mitigate the negative effects of a changing real estate market on seniors and other longtime residents.
“It is a great community for a variety of reasons, yet there is so much untapped potential for growth,” he added. “We do a lot of work in Franklinton as well, and we view both neighborhoods as great options where both renters and buyers can get either nicely remodeled homes or new homes at relatively attractive price points.”
