Development at Imperial offers country living very near the city
IMPERIAL — John V. Price won’t sell you a house. But he’ll sell you a place to build your dream home.
Price, 62, owns Price Acreage LLC, a family-operated business that has been developing semi-rural and suburban home sites in Jefferson and St. Francois counties.
The company subdivides large tracts of wooded land, extends roads and utilities to the rural site, and then sells individual plots of one to six acres each to buyers who later contract with their own homebuilders.
"The freedom to build what they want when they want to build" attracts buyers, Price said. "The lots are big, and different house styles in that environment don’t clash."
He first got into the real estate business with his father, Homer V. Price, who developed subdivisions and home sites in Jefferson County for nearly 50 years before his death in 2004. Among Homer Price’s developments was Olympian Village during the 1960s. After this father’s death, John Price founded Price Acreage.
John Price’s latest project is the Hollows at Frisco Hill subdivision in the Imperial area.
He said the 48 large, heavily wooded lots at the Hollows were particularly attractive because the development is less than 15 minutes from south St. Louis County.
The access roads and utilities are now in place, and the first lots are being sold.
Five deals have closed on the lots since they went on the market early in December, Price said. He said he expected construction of the first houses in the development to start this month, weather permitting.
"It’s a great, great location," he said. "It’s extremely convenient to everything."
The 90-acre development is just southwest of the intersection of Frisco Hill Road and Ambrose Crossing, along the new Frisco Hollows Road that serves the site.
The lots sell for about $69,000 to more than $140,000 each, depending on the size. The average cost of a lot is about $80,000.
Price said that was a good deal — coupled with housing construction costs of $200,000 or so — for a big house on a big lot near the city.
The Hollows does have some restrictions on construction. Houses must have a minimum of 2,000 square feet of floor space and garages that hold at least two cars.
A large range of home styles is allowed, but also within some restrictions on building materials and designs.
Eventually, a property committee of at least three Hollows property owners will be formed to maintain the subdivision roads. The committee also will collect subdivision assessments to be established for community expenditures, such as electric bills for street lights, common ground maintenance, snow removal and road repairs, Price said.
So far, most of the buyers and prospective buyers he’s worked with already live in the Imperial area, Price said. They know about the convenience of the area and simply want to move up to nicer, more private homes at a reasonable cost, he said.
"Our customers are generally pretty sophisticated, and they know what lots cost here and elsewhere," Price said.
The developers had tried to maintain the natural woods as much as possible in subdividing the site and building access roads, said Jeff Price, 27, who works with his father on the Hollows.
"We build to the land, not through the land," he said. "We strive for quality over quantity."
Jeff Price said the trees that did have to be removed for the development were ground into mulch for use by tract buyers.
"On many construction projects, that would have got hauled off and just thrown away," he said.