Tiny home developments eye 2023 opening

A pair of Ozarks tiny home communities are set to start construction later than originally projected this year, but officials with both expect houses to be ready for residents in 2023. 

Eden Village 3 in Springfield and Elevate Community in Branson plan to provide 24 homes apiece in Phase I of their respective developments. Each is being developed by nonprofits, as The Gathering Tree began building its Eden Village tiny homes in 2018 for the chronically homeless and disabled population in Springfield. Elevate Branson, a 14-year-old nonprofit focused on combating poverty in the Branson area, announced Elevate Community in 2020.

The first Eden Village has 31 houses, while the second development, which opened in November 2021, has 24. All 55 homes are occupied, said Eden Village Chief Visionary Officer Nate Schlueter, noting there is a waiting list of roughly 200 for the fully furnished, 400-square-foot houses in gated communities. He said Eden Village 3 will be 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 site already is zoned for duplexes, he added. 

Eden Village has a $3.8 million fundraising goal for its third development. 

“All of the future homes are already sponsored by members of the community,” Schlueter said, declining to identify sponsors of the homes priced at $35,000 each. “We’ve been quietly raising money for the construction of that village. We lack about close to $1 million to completion of the money needed based on the rise of construction costs.”

Schlueter said donations for Eden Village currently can be doubled through a $200,000 matching gift opportunity from the Danny and Jewell Little Charitable Fund through the Community Foundation of the Ozarks Inc. 

Elevate wait
Fundraising for Elevate Community has reached roughly $4 million, said Bryan Stallings, co-founder and CEO of Elevate Branson. He said easement issues contributed to delays in starting construction on the 5-acre development just north of the nonprofit’s 310 Gretna Road campus in central Branson. The Herschend Family Foundation donated land for the 48-unit tiny home community, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. 

Stallings told SBJ last year he was targeting the 24-house Phase I for this summer, followed by a second phase of 24 homes in spring 2023.

“We’re about six months behind on that schedule,” he said. “Right now, we’re in the engineering phase. Hopefully, we can break ground by late October or November time frame. Then it’ll take four to six months to get the infrastructure in, and then we’ll be able to set our houses.”

Neosho-based Village Home Builders is manufacturing the houses for Elevate Community and Eden Village. Schlueter said the homes cost roughly $50,000 to build.

“Once the infrastructure is in, hopefully we can just keep moving forward with everything,” Stallings said. “The goal would be the project will be completed by the end of next year.”

The project’s costs are estimated at $7 million-$8 million, Stallings said. Elevate Community received aid for the development in May 2021 when 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.

“I like to just get things done. So, I’ve had to learn how to be patient through the process,” he said of the project delay. “Now that everything’s moving forward with engineering, I feel great about it.”

Stallings declined to disclose house sponsors, which are a mix of individuals and businesses, but noted 28 of the 48 are secured at $35,000 each. Smaller sponsorships also are offered, as some have chosen to fund furniture at $5,000 and essentials such as towels and toiletries at $1,000. 

“We did that because some might not be able to afford a house sponsorship but could help in other ways,” he said. 

Rent at Elevate Community is set at $400 a month with utilities included, and occupants must sign a six-month lease. Stallings said a general contractor for the project is yet to be selected.

At Eden Village, Schlueter said rent is $325 including utilities with no deposit required. Rent is on a month-to-month basis and automatically renews, he said.

“We general contract our own stuff in-house,” Schlueter said, noting additional development costs include infrastructure. “We use different plumbers and electricians and stuff like that but do our own site plans.”

In Springfield, there’s a need for affordable housing, according to city officials. Of the 41,050 total rental units in the city noted in the American Community Survey from June, 5,980 of those are affordable housing units available to renters living at or below 50% of the area mean income level, according to past SBJ reporting.

On the tenant side, there are 14,215 households at or below 50% of the AMI, city officials say, leaving a gap of 8,235 units that are needed but absent from the market.

Adding villages
The Eden Village model has caught the attention of other communities, Schlueter said, noting it’s now licensed to 10 cities in nine states. 

“We found that people didn’t want to reinvent the wheel and they recognized this was an easily replicated model,” he said. “We started trademarking and copyrighting our materials, floorplan and construction process to offer people that qualified the opportunity to bring Eden Village to their own community.”

A 33-home Eden Village is now operational in Wilmington, North Carolina, according to the nonprofit’s website. Officials say other Eden Villages in the works include Kansas City, Redding, California, and near Washington, D.C.

“We don’t give them money, but we’ll give our expertise,” Schlueter said, adding the nonprofit charges a one-time licensing fee of roughly $20,000 and an undisclosed monthly fee based on the number of homes rented in the tiny home communities. 

While construction for the first phase of Eden Village 3 in Springfield remains a few weeks away, a second phase is a certainty, Schlueter said. That likely would bring another 24 duplex homes to the development. A fourth Eden Village also is planned. 

“We’ll identify a fourth village property and purchase it before we do Phase II,” he said, noting several undisclosed areas in town are under consideration. “We’ll have to determine if it’s more efficient to do Phase II first or build a fourth village.”

In the interim, the property on High Street needs some trees cleared before it can be ready for construction, Schlueter said. That work is expected to take place next month in advance of a fall groundbreaking. He said no date has been selected for the ceremony.

“We’ll begin construction soon and we’re confident that we’ll meet our goal of being done at the end of 2023 and have all the money needed to make that happen,” he said.