The Brookings Register
BROOKINGS — New residents are coming to Brookings in droves, and Herculean efforts are being taken to provide housing options for them, including the massive new Branch Creek project.
The …
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BROOKINGS — New residents are coming to Brookings in droves, and Herculean efforts are being taken to provide housing options for them, including the massive new Branch Creek project.
The development, which is on the southern side of 20th Street South just east of the Fishback Soccer Complex, will have 130 housing units, a bit of retail space and many other amenities — including a pond, a community garden and connections to the city’s trail system — when it’s completed in 2028.
“I think we kind of had the feeling for a number of years that there just isn’t enough housing in Brookings — like I think people strongly had the sense of there’s just a shortage,” Ann Rivlin told the Brookings Register in an interview.
Rivlin, along with Tom Fishback of First Bank & Trust, are co-managers of Branch Creek. While the two had a “gut feeling” there were issues, that feeling was just that until a city-led study pinned down actual numbers regarding the housing problem in Brookings.
“(It) really crystallized the urgency of the housing situation. They provided analysis that said, ‘This is how many homes we’re short right now, and this is how that number is going to increase in the future,’” Rivlin said. “It was great to see numbers put to that sense that people had had about Brookings, that there simply wasn’t enough housing.”
She said another benefit of the study was that its findings were combined with input from community members regarding the types of homes and neighborhoods the city needs.
“The housing study came out, really, in the early stage of working on Branch Creek, where we said, ‘Hey, we think we can do something to help with the housing situation,’ and then the housing study comes in and we’re able to look at the recommendations … and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to try and design a neighborhood that meets those needs.’”
That neighborhood is now taking shape, with the first phase of work — which is expected to involve 23 units consisting of a mix of single-family, twinhomes and townhomes — underway next to the soccer complex. Streets, utilities and the pond are also among tasks being handled in this initial phase. The work is being done by Clark Drew Construction of Brookings.
The remaining phases of the work include:
“It’s a unique thing for us to have roughly 20 acres and putting 130 units on there,” Fishback pointed out. “That’s something that we’re taking very seriously in terms of making sure everyone can live and be able to do their own things, but yet also feel like there’s a sense of community beyond just their housing unit.”
So, yeah, this project is a big deal for Brookings. The price points are another aspect of Branch Creek that folks might like.
Rivlin said single-family units will start at $294,900 and top out at $374,900. Townhomes begin at $226,900, with the most expensive three-bedroom townhome clocking in at $254,900. She added that they’re also trying out a four-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot townhome in the first phase that’s being sold for $299,900.
“To be honest, this is a test. We don’t think there are that many four-bedroom options with that much square footage for under $300,000 in Brookings,” Rivlin said. “And so we’re trying that townhome model to see if there’s demand for it — and if there is, we can build more of them in later phases.”
Twinhomes range from $279,900 up to $339,900.
“There’s kind of a nice range within all three types,” Rivlin said, noting that the ranges go beyond pricing to include different layouts and residence sizes, with ID8 Architecture of Brookings doing the design work. “We really feel like we’ve got something for everyone in Branch Creek.”
She pointed out a couple of other things as well, including that the homes will have to be owner-occupied — in other words, no rentals will be permitted.
“The person who owns the home, lives in it,” Rivlin said. “We think that’s really going to help the neighborhood appeal, and we think it’s something that people in Brookings are looking for.”
She continued, “There’s a big part of the Brookings population that wants to be homeowners. They’re not currently able to do it yet. And so we are happy to provide more options.”
Rivlin noted the development will also have a homeowner’s association, which will handle things like snow removal, lawn maintenance and irrigation.
“These are going to be low-maintenance homes,” she said, saying that finding came directly from the housing study. “There’s a big demand for low-maintenance homeownership in Brookings.”
A big part of the reason for the prices being on the lower end of the scale involves the financial aid Branch Creek is receiving from the city and the state of South Dakota:
“Our whole thing with using some of these proceeds was to really try to make sure these homes are affordable at the end of the day,” Fishback said. “It was something that we could apply directly to the project to help people be able to fit into these homes.”
As we all know, though, even the best-laid plans can go awry — and that’s exactly what happened when interest rates increased. They were at all-time lows for conventional home loans leading up to the Branch Creek project, but once it got underway, not only did the rates go up, but so did inflation and the price of materials. That led to a lot of cost uncertainty.
“I don’t think we could build 130 homes if we didn’t have the support that the city has provided and that the state of South Dakota … has provided,” Rivlin said. “The project would just be too large to do without that help.”
Naturally, a project like Branch Creek can also cause a degree of traffic and drainage worries among the development’s neighbors and perhaps even a bit of apprehension with potential homebuyers. Fishback and Rivlin, however, are on top of it.
“Those are concerns that we take very seriously in terms of we’re very interested in what the neighborhood has to say,” Fishback said. “We’re very interested in making sure that this doesn’t contribute to any future problems.”
He pointed to a wetlands study that was completed, with the help of the city, to ensure that the project wouldn’t make any problems any worse. “That was very important.”
He added that Branch Creek is working closely with its engineer at Banner Associates, along with the city’s engineer and other city staffers to ensure everything is up to code and that “we’re doing everything in our power to prevent water issues from happening in the future.”
“Mother Nature is Mother Nature — we can’t predict what’s going to happen,” Fishback finished. “We hope we’ve done — and I think we’ve done everything in our power to make sure that this isn’t an issue.”
In regard to traffic, Rivlin noted that a study was conducted early in the process, and that it included a scenario with more homes than what Branch Creek will have — along with a business with a drive-through that won’t actually be built — in order to see what would happen if they came to the heaviest traffic situation they could think of.
“We’re really confident that there’s not going to be a significant traffic impact due to building Branch Creek,” Rivlin said. “The way that we’ve designed it, it should work out well that we will not see significant impacts.”
Fishback and Rivlin are also looking forward to the development’s block part, which is set for Sept. 12 from 4 to 6 p.m. at the project’s site on 20th Street South near the soccer complex.
“It’s going to be a nice opportunity to get out on the site and to learn more about the neighborhood,” Rivlin said. “To learn more about the homes that are going to be built in the first phase, to learn about future plans for the next few years and to just kind of get a sense of what the neighborhood is going to be like and to get more information about it.”
While the Branch Creek development is expected to have a commercial component at some point on its north end — there are three lots set aside for such, according to documents — Fishback or Rivlin both stressed the importance of housing being the development’s priority.
“We’re completely focused on the homes. We think that’s where the need is in Brookings, so our absolute top five priorities are building homes,” Rivlin said. “We’ll figure out the commercial stuff after we’ve got a really good start on the homes, and also after we’ve had a little more time to see how that 20th Street South corridor develops.
“We’d like to really be thoughtful about what goes into those commercial spaces and what’s going to benefit that corridor,” she added.
Once everything is set and done, though, what do Fishback and Rivlin hope to have achieved?
“One, we hope that people are living in these homes and they’re happy,” Fishback said. “They’re designed to create a sense of community, to create a sense of neighborhood — so we hope that vision is fulfilled.”
Rivlin agreed.
“I hope that Branch Creek — when we’re looking five years out from now and the homes are built and people are living there — I hope that it kind of looks like Brookings,” she said. “We have a lot of really wonderful people in Brookings, whether they are recent SDSU grads, whether they are people starting a family, whether they are empty-nesters. I just think the population of Brookings is remarkable because there are so many lovely people at so many different phases of life.”
She continued, “Our goal for Branch Creek is providing kind of a place for everybody, whether you are just starting out or whether you’re saying, ‘Hey, I need to downsize my home because I’m an empty-nester now’ — we think we’ve got a home that will work for you in Branch Creek.”
— Contact Mondell Keck at mkeck@brookingsregister.com.
