EXCLUSIVE: $1 billion residential community getting started along Ohio River
EXCLUSIVE: $1 billion residential community getting started along Ohio River
Aug 5, 2015, 11:57am EDT
Tom Demeropolis
Senior Staff Reporter
Cincinnati Business Courier
The site plan the Reserve at Rivers Pointe, the first portion of the larger master planned community.
This aerial image shows where the Reserve at Rivers Pointe will be built. Construction on the first two homes is expected to start this fall.
The site plan for Rivers Pointe Estates, a nearly 400-acre, master-planned community with views of the Ohio River.
The site plan for Rivers Pointe Estates, a nearly 400-acre, master-planned community with… more
After a quarter of a century of assembling land and weathering the nation’s roughest recession, Toebben Builders is finally getting started on the $1 billion Rivers Pointe Estates community in Hebron.
John Toebben, president of Crescent Springs-based Toebben Builders, said the community is starting with a first phase that includes eight river-view home sites called the Reserve.
“It’s been a long endeavor,” John Toebben told me. “But these homes will have the best views of the river.”
Even though the builder is just now marketing the first phase, Toebben said two home sites have been pre-sold.
“Housing is definitely getting better,” Toebben said. “We’re seeing a lot of interest.”
Each of the eight lots at the Reserve is between two and three acres, with walk-out lower levels. Homes at the Reserve will start in the $650,000 range. Toebben said homes must be a minimum of 3,000 square feet on the first level, with a three-car garage.
The rainy spring and summer delayed putting in the main road to the Reserves by a few weeks, but it opened to traffic at the beginning of August. The builder is working on landscaping and preparing the site. Potential buyers, many who have been tracking the development for some time, are taking notice.
“We’re getting a lot of traffic through and a lot of phone calls,” Toebben said.
Toebben expects to break ground on the first two homes in the Reserve this fall. It will allow other builders to construct homes there, but builders will have to meet architectural design standards and criteria. Homes in the community will be more mountain style, Toebben said, with elements of large timber frame construction, with lots of brick and stone on the exterior.
“The lots are so large, there is so much opportunity for something other than four square corners,” he said.
In total, the 380-acre Rivers Pointe Estates is a master-planned community with seven different types of housing, including apartments, townhomes, landominiums, attached condos, cabin-style homes, single family homes and patio homes. Rivers Pointe Estates will offer buyers a variety of price points, with homes starting in the mid $250,000s. The development has room for about 1,000 total housing units. When completed, Toebben said this will be a $1 billion project.
“We’ll have lots available for customers to choose within the next 24 months,” Toebben told me.
The entire community will be connected by a trail system. About 30 percent of the total acreage will remain as dedicated green space.
“It will have a park-like setting. We will show respect for the land and the history in the area,” Toebben told me.
The entrance to the Reserve will be off Route 8/River Road. The Reserve will connect to River’s Pointe Stables, a boarding facility for horses and equestrian center, as well as the rest of the Rivers Pointe Estates development through walking and riding trails.
While the site is in a rural and agricultural area, about 20 minutes from downtown Cincinnati, Toebben said it’s just a short drive to nearby amenities such as grocery stores and shopping centers.
At the front of the development, located at North Bend Road across from Sand Run Baptist Church, Toebben is planning a village center, which will be home to about 17,000 square feet of boutique retail, such as a general store, as well as a village green for events, a clubhouse, and a pool.
Toebben planned to start on Rivers Pointe Estates years ago, but that was before the housing bubble burst and the economy tanked.
Toebben expects Rivers Pointe Estates to be at least a 20-year project. That’s just fine with Toebben Builders. The company’s previous large-scale development, Country Squire Estates in Villa Hills, was started by John’s father, Matth Toebben, in 1967. That development, which has more than 300 single family homes and 125 landominiums, has one single-family lot and about 23 landominium lots remaining.
