Reston, Va.-based Waterford Development has formed a "strategic alliance" with Bouwfonds, one of Holland’s largest home builders and developers, to finance residential and mixed-use projects in the Washington, D.C., market. The European builder/developer has built more than 1 million housing units across that heavily populated continent, and is accustomed to investment-intensive, high-density projects undertaken in political jurisdictions requiring long entitlement processes.
They should feel right at home in D.C.’s Northern Virginia suburbs.
First on the docket: Belmont Greene, a neotraditional village in Loudoun County, Va., with pedestrian walkways and trails that will enable residents to walk to stores, offices, schools and parks.
"Our new strategic alliance with Bouwfonds provides Waterford with the financial strength to undertake major development," says Waterford’s Dutch-born founder and president Jan Zachariasse.
"We now have the ability to pursue large projects requiring longer planning horizons and incorporating the amenities most desired by today’s home buyers, including substantial green space and recreational facilities, with pedestrian-friendly ‘new urbanism’ environments."
The relationship between Bouwfonds and Waterford is an equal partnership in a new entity, Waterford/Bouwfonds LLC, under which Bouwfonds will finance projects that Waterford will develop and build. "I am Dutch. That’s how this relationship developed," says Zachariasse. "Traditional Neighborhood Development is a new concept here. But we grew up with it in Holland, and there’s never been any other type of development. They are comfortable with this concept." Founded in 1990, Waterford has built over 500 homes in the Washington, D.C., market during the decade, and reached $30 million in revenues last year. With the new financial clout, the scale of the firm’s projects will now grow.
Waterford acquired the 185-acre tract for Belmont Greene, located on the southeast quadrant of Belmont Ridge Road and the W&OD Trail, during the summer of 1999. Work began in November on Phase I, which will include a visitors’ center, 32 single-family homes, 14 townhouses, and 150 multifamily units. On-site sales will begin this month, with model homes scheduled to open in June.
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