Has Echelon Found Its Prince? | Southeastern Capital Partners Poised to Ride to the Rescue
categories: Alpharetta Real Estate, Cherokee County, Foreclosures, Golf Communities, Luxury Homes, New Construction
The rumor mill has been working and this time it has spit out that Echelon could have a suitor. No, not "The Donald" as I had teased here in the Spring. The Donald must have spent his money bailing out Jim McMahon.
This time, it is rumored that Southeast Capital Partners has Echelon under contract and is in a 60-day due diligence period that is about to expire. Southeast Capital would be buying out The Melrose Company , which by all accounts has triple bogeyed Echelon. The question remains if Southeast Capital does complete the purchase if they can turn it around, as their expertise is mostly in apartment and multi-family development in Atlanta. Echelon would be their first luxury home, golf course community development that I’m aware of.
I’ve often maintained that Echelon has the potential to be some of the most top-notch luxury living in the Alpharetta area mainly for two reasons: one is the lot size. You can go to The Manor Golf and Country Club , which is Echelon’s nearest competition, and purchase just as beautiful of a home. However, for better or worse, The Manor has a private sewer system which allows them to have smaller lots and higher density development. The Manor is not worse, just different; but that is one reason I think Echelon is unique.
The other thing that Echelon has going for it is the golf course. The Rees Jones designed course is a fantastic test of golf, better than just about everything around here except Hawk’s Ridge. If I could play it every day, I would.
There is a third advantage that the market may provide Echelon, kind of like a back handed compliment. Because of the real estate market’s decline and lenders’ unwillingness to make speculative home building loans, future home building in Echelon will very likely be custom construction. [If you are interested in custom building in Alpharetta, CLICK HERE .]
Custom construction will create an inventory of homes in Echelon that will offer more amenities, better finishes and more ultimate value than a neighborhood that was built out with "builders homes." Don’t get me wrong, the spec homes that builders produce are no where near "bad," it’s just that they sometimes lack imagination and extra touches that you’d put in a strictly custom home. More custom equals more better!
What Echelon hasn’t had is quality development. Unlike The Manor, which built a temporary club house with indoor pool, the clubhouse at Echelon is not built. Last year they slapped in a couple of tennis courts and there is still no pool.
Having amenities in place, per se, are not going to all of a sudden turn around Echelon’s fortunes, but they will be a sign to people looking to build and live there that there is forward momentum and a positive future. Right now prospective buyers are just plain scared because they don’t know what the future holds. I can look at old listings in Echelon and see where agents were promoting that the swim tennis would be OPEN, not just under construction, by Spring 2007. Ha!
The marketing and sales aspects have fallen short, too, as The Manor has outsold Echelon by a long margin and the marketing plan to affiliate Echelon with The Georgia Tech Club, seems to have backfired.
So here sits Echelon: great golf course (which thank goodness they have continued to maintain at high standards) and tons of potential locked in the downward spiral of a bad housing market and developer mis-steps. Money is tight exactly when money is needed, the same problem that Vickery faces not too far down the road in S. Forsyth County, in which, by the way, Cousins Property is rumored to be interested.
Just as Cousins could be Vickery’s knight with deep pockets, Southeast Capital could be Echelon’s knight.
In the mean time, there are some deep discounts to be had at Echelon. For one, Storey Residential has an awesome house on the first fairway for $2.3 million. This house is discounted $400,000 from its original list price of $2.7 million in June, 2007. The home has great attention to detail and a killer finished basement…you’d never have to go upstairs is you lived there.
There are nine other homes for sale in Echelon, including the super-jumbo red brick house on the first tee for $4.15 million. What’s the over under on when it will sell? It has been 14+ months so far; they started at $4.6 million.
The rest of the current offerings include three foreclosures and one corporate-owned property.
The opportunities are there and the sale of Echelon to Southeast Capital, if it goes through, will hopefully signal a change of direction for this development if for no other reason that golf’s sake. A great golf course is a terrible thing to waste.
What’s going on at Echelon? I was there Friday & Saturday & the gates were open with no guard in sight. Did Southeast Capital buy out Melrose? The house at 211 Traditions is pretty attractive at 50% off (down to $1M) but NO bathtub in the master bathroom?
Thanks…
Keith
Backnine homes still available?
Okay, here’s the deal. There is Dr. Shaw, whose brother is a Pakistan Prime Minister, who is interested in it. But yesterday a group of investors from the Southside of Atlanta put in an offer for all of Echelon and will have have The Paddocks Group (my father’s company) build on the remaining 12 lots of the “First Phase”. They will also look to buy In Your Dreams Farm (my grandmother’s) to add to Echelon as an “amenity”. If we keep our fingers crossed, hopefully one of them will buy it and turn it into a very pristine neighborhood like it deserves to be!
Any news on a buyout ?
There is a deal in the works for a portion of the community. If it goes through the amenities will get underway. That may breath life back into things for Echelon….if it happens.