Tiny home community breaks ground in Branson

After first announcing plans for a tiny home community in 2020, officials with a Branson nonprofit say the recent start of construction will make the multimillion-dollar development a reality by early next year.

Elevate Community is the project of Elevate Branson, a 17-year-old nonprofit focused on combating poverty in the Branson area. The village development aimed at reaching people who are on a fixed income living at or below the poverty line will occupy 5 acres just north of the nonprofit’s 310 Gretna Road campus in Branson. The Herschend Family Foundation donated land for the 48-unit tiny home community, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting.

A groundbreaking date is yet to be set, but Bryan Stallings, co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit, said a spring ceremony is targeted.

Right now, I’d say we’re looking at April or May,” he said, adding the organization is hoping to have Gov. Mike Kehoe in attendance.

Stallings previously told SBJ he was targeting two phases of 24 houses each. Now, the plan is to erect all 48 houses in one phase. Hollister-based Flat Creek Excavating LLC was the low bidder on the project at $2.54 million and is amid excavation work on the site. He said the tiny homes will then be installed at the completed site. The bid contract calls for the infrastructure work to be complete within a year.

“Depending on weather, I think they’ll get done faster than that,” he said. “I’m hoping we can start setting some houses in late summer, early fall, and then probably be moving people in maybe after the first of the year.”

Stallings said Neosho-based Village Home Builders is manufacturing the 400-square-foot houses for Elevate Community. He said the company, which also has previously built tiny homes for Springfield-based nonprofit The Gathering Tree’s Eden Village communities, has completed 18 houses to date.

Elevate Branson also purchased the adjacent eastern 10 acres in 2022 from Ozark Plaza Development LLC as Stallings said that property was needed in order to cross it for a gravity fed sewer, which reduces expenses versus putting in a lift station sewer.

“It’s a pretty rough 10 acres. It’s got a pretty good size slope, so there’s not a whole lot we can do with it,” he said. “If we were to build something on that 10 acres, we’d probably only be able to use maybe 4-6 acres.”

The project has experienced numerous delays to start construction over the past few years, such as easement and engineering issues, a cultural review and artifact dig of the site requested by the Osage tribe and environmental reviews.

Project costs
As construction material costs have increased in recent years, so too has the project’s price tag. Stallings said the cost is estimated at $8 million-$10 million, up from $7 million-$8 million range in 2023, according to past reporting.

Elevate Community was the recipient of several grants to aid in funding the development. In May 2021, it was approved for a $1.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Community Development Block Grant program. The HUD money was preceded in January 2021 by a $1 million grant through the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. In 2023, it was awarded a roughly $1 million American Rescue Plan Act grant.

Stallings said the organization continues to look for additional grant opportunities and sponsorships for its tiny homes. Aside from the housing, the developers want to build additional buildings that can offer employment opportunities for residents, while attracting locals and tourists.

“The goal is to have a marketplace and a woodworking and pottery art studio,” he said. “Those buildings will probably wait until we can get sponsors or funding.”

House sponsorships are still available for 19 of the 48 homes at a cost of $45,000, Stallings said. That’s up from $35,000 back when the project was first announced. Like the overall project cost, he said the increase accounts for higher construction costs. Smaller sponsorships also are offered, such as furniture at $6,500 and home essentials including kitchen supplies, bed linens and bath towels at $2,500.

Home sponsors include Arvest Bank, The Bank of Missouri, Ballparks of America LLC, The Butterfly Palace and Paddio.

Rent at Elevate Community is set at $500 a month with utilities included for the fully furnished one-bedroom, one-bath homes.

“We’re still going to try and keep it as affordable as we can for people,” he said, adding Elevate Community has already received over 200 applications.“We’ll probably start everybody with a six-month lease, but then they can just go month to month.”

Village delay
As Elevate Community moves beyond its delays, Eden Village 3 – the third tiny home community in Springfield from The Gathering Tree, is about $400,000 shy of completing its $3.8 million fundraising goal for its 24 homes. Eden Village 3 is designed as a tiny home development of duplex homes on nearly 5 acres in the 2400 block of West High Street in the Tom Watkins neighborhood near Kearney Street and Kansas Expressway.

The Gathering Tree began building its Eden Village tiny homes in 2018 for the chronically homeless and disabled population in Springfield. The first Eden Village has 31 houses, while the second development, which opened in November 2021, has 24. Nate Schlueter, Eden Village chief visionary officer, said all homes are occupied and there’s currently a roughly 200-person waitlist.

Schlueter previously told SBJ the third development would be finished by the end of 2023. However, the nonprofit shifted to using 3D printers at a cost of $1.6 million to print the duplexes and he said it’s taken a couple of years to work through engineering issues with the equipment. Additionally, he said the organization is amid a federal lawsuit with MudBots, the maker of the printers, as it alleges the printers haven’t worked as promised.

Schlueter said printing the duplexes should lead to homes that are stronger in structure, easier to maintain and cost less than traditional construction.

“We’ll start printing those homes in the spring,” he said, estimating Eden Village 3 will be done before year’s end. “Right now, we’re just waiting on weather because it’s a robotic machine that lays concrete, and so this kind of weather isn’t great for that type of deal.”

Once Eden Village 3 is complete, Schlueter said the fourth tiny home community will soon follow.

“We’ve got some property that we own that might be used for [Eden] Village 4, then we’re looking for property for five,” he said, declining to reveal the potential location. “We’ll wait until we finish the third one and decide if we want to use that or try to acquire something else that might make more sense.”

Schlueter said Eden Village is “super excited” about Elevate Community moving forward after so many delays.

“More communities need to do something like what we’re doing and what they’re doing,” he said.

Stallings said he’s had a big learning curve on the project.

“Sometimes, I think you just wondered if it was ever going to get there,” he said. “And so now that it’s here, it’s surreal. It’s like, ‘Wow, it’s really happening.”