Lake Wylie developer sees positive signs

Lis­ten close­ly. You can hear it at The Coves on Riv­er Oaks. No, not the mut­ed bus­tle of masons, sur­vey­ors, crafts­men, cus­tom builders and sub­con­trac­tors. It’s the sound of an eco­nom­ic rebound in progress.

For Tom Smith, it’s sweet music indeed.

Smith, a part­ner in May Green Prop­er­ties with his father, Tim Smith, and John Sar­rough, sounds pos­i­tive that the reces­sion that all but shut­tered the hous­ing indus­try is end­ing. “We’ve all been sleep­ing in the bear’s den for a while,” he says. “We’re all com­ing back out.”

The vet­er­an devel­op­er, who helped cre­ate the Lake Wylie com­mu­ni­ties of Patrick Place, Camp­bel­l’s Cross­ing, The Tim­bers and Van­der Lake, among oth­ers, says he’s seen a resur­gence in land sales and cus­tom-home con­struc­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly at The Coves on Riv­er Oaks and near­by Car­oli­na Coves.

Smith and his father expe­ri­enced the local boom first­hand. “We were out here when there was­n’t much in the Lake Wylie area,” he says. Pre­vi­ous­ly, the Smiths worked with Home­stead Land & Tim­ber Com­pa­ny. They estab­lished May Green Prop­er­ties in 2000, along the way build­ing a sol­id work­ing rela­tion­ship with York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive, which serves 12 of their 15 devel­op­ments.

“It’s nice because the guys that have been with York Elec­tric have been there for years,” he says. “It’s just good to see famil­iar faces.”

What Smith does­n’t see— over­head pow­er lines—is part of what he gets from YEC. The May Green vision—“to cre­ate low-den­si­ty, envi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive com­mu­ni­ties which pro­vide prop­er­ty own­ers aes­thet­ic sat­is­fac­tion and eco­nom­ic appre­ci­a­tion through thought­ful plan­ning and good stew­ard­ship of the land”—is enhanced by YEC under­ground ser­vice.

The co-op built a 2.5- mile line along Riv­er Oaks Dri­ve, an invest­ment Smith says has paid off: “A lot of peo­ple love this area because there are no over­head lines.”

Coop­er­a­tion, in a gen­er­al sense, has been just as key to the cur­rent rebound, he says. Smith cred­its the sup­port of asso­ciates includ­ing CWD Con­struc­tion, Inc., M.J. Palmer Con­struc­tion Co., and Kuh­lkin Builders, Inc., among oth­ers, as well as a host of able sub­con­trac­tors and, cru­cial­ly, the peo­ple at South Car­oli­na Bank and Trust (SCBT).

Cooperation at work

The team­work yields good jobs for folks around the area. “We’ve used as many local peo­ple as pos­si­ble,” Smith notes. Cus­tom builder Chuck Dohm of CWD Con­struc­tion agrees: “I bet 90 per­cent or more of the sub­con­trac­tors are York Coun­ty guys.” The cur­rent resur­gence is good for every­body’s bot­tom line, Dohm says. “We’re putting peo­ple back to work, that’s for sure.”

Anoth­er cus­tom builder, Mike Palmer of M.J. Palmer Con­struc­tion Co., agrees. “There is a lot of activ­i­ty. Things are com­ing back to life,” Palmer says. “It was eeri­ly qui­et for a while. The phone was­n’t ring­ing.”

Palmer, who has built homes in most May Green devel­op­ments, notes, “I’ve got four projects going on in York Coun­ty now. One is a home that was put on hold for a num­ber of years.”

He adds, “I think things are bet­ter than a lot of peo­ple think they are. And I think peo­ple are tired of sit­ting on the side­lines.”

A 3,600-square-foot home Palmer is build­ing at The Coves on Riv­er Oaks is typ­i­cal of the kinds of projects May Green Prop­er­ties attract. “This house, the cou­ple real­ly could­n’t find any­thing out there on the mar­ket like what they need­ed, so they decid­ed to build cus­tom,” he says. “They real­ly fell in love with the lay of the land over here and the size of the lot.”

May Green tracts are typ­i­cal­ly large enough for the pri­ma­ry home, addi­tion­al garage, pool, pool house or ten­nis court if desired—and soon, Smith notes, even a “moth­er-in-law suite,” or sep­a­rate, sec­ondary home, in some devel­op­ments.

Palmer says home buy­ers are mov­ing far­ther out­side of Char­lotte, many rec­og­niz­ing that prop­er­ty val­ues are often bet­ter in South Car­oli­na. The avail­abil­i­ty of financ­ing from SCBT for projects like Palmer’s helps attract buy­ers.

SCBT has also helped May Green finance road con­struc­tion. “Those guys came in after we pooled our mon­ey and scratched and clawed and made it through the worst times,” Smith says. “We came up with enough mon­ey for half and then they came in.” Strong ini­tial sales since open­ing The Coves on Riv­er Oaks in October—six new homes under con­struc­tion and 11 lot sales—will give the bank a quick pay­back, he notes.

SCBT’s senior vice pres­i­dent of com­mer­cial bank­ing, Kevin Black­wood, says, “It’s been a plea­sure to help the Smiths and May Green Prop­er­ties wel­come new res­i­dents to York Coun­ty.”

A for­mer coun­ty coun­cil mem­ber, Smith antic­i­pates con­tin­ued, steady growth around Lake Wylie, an unin­cor­po­rat­ed area he likens to a town. He says Pole Branch Road will be widened; he also expects com­mu­ni­ty ball fields to be con­struct­ed near­by soon.

Committed to quality

Even with growth, Smith remains focused on pre­serv­ing the area’s nat­ur­al beau­ty with the green space cor­ri­dors, walk­ing trails and qui­et parks for which May Green devel­op­ments are known. In addi­tion to envi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion, he says, the com­pa­ny is com­mit­ted to using local builders and con­trac­tors, with con­tin­ued empha­sis on high-qual­i­ty con­struc­tion. That includes his tap­ping YEC’s exper­tise with out­door light­ing and under­ground ser­vice, of course.

As Smith knows, when you’re claw­ing your way out of a “bear’s den” of a reces­sion, famil­iar faces are a com­fort indeed.

“It’s been a tru­ly local coop­er­a­tive effort to get back,” he says.

For more infor­ma­tion, access MayGreenLLC.com or call (803) 631‑4136.

By Wal­ter All­read