Monday, January 26, 2015CANFIELD, Ohio -- A robust residential housing market, along with an aggressive development plan that entails a new hotel, condominiums, a banquet center and additional infrastructure work, makes for a busy year at CTW Development Corp.'s Westford Lifestyle Community, says CTW president Chuck Whitman.
"We're already looking to break last year's records for housing starts," Whitman says. "The market's been phenomenal."
Seventeen single-family residential housing starts with a valuation of $4.9 million moved forward at Westford last year, or 47% of the total 36 single-family homes permitted in Canfield Township during 2014. In addition, one of the three building permits the township issued for businesses was at Westford, a multipurpose development just off Boardman-Canfield Road.
"It was a real good year," Whitman reflects.
Twelve condominiums are planned for the Bradford Greene section of Westford this year, he reports, while the developer finished a 45,000-square-foot building last year that serves as HBK new headquarters. Westford today boasts more than 200,000 square feet of office space, he says.
"We're starting this year to do plans on seven-story high-rise condominiums," Whitman adds. The plan is to construct two buildings, each containing 34 condos, he says. "Hopefully, we'll have the plans done by late summer and start construction in the spring of 2016," he says.
Among the 2014 highlights at Westford was construction of a 100-room Courtyard By Marriott hotel, which should be finished in June. The new hotel will house 110 guest rooms, a pool, fitness center, guest laundry, a conference center, business library and a large patio equipped with fire pits overlooking the lakes at Kennsington Golf Club. "It's an open-air patio with a fire pit, brick oven pizza and a large tent for different occasions," he says.
Work is also slated to begin on a 900-seat banquet center next to the hotel, replete with a large glass wall that overlooks the course, Whitman says.
The Marriott hotel is a perfect complement to the Kennsington Golf Club, also part of the Westford Lifestyle Community, Whitman says. "We've already booked some 'stay-and-play' packages for this year," he says. "There's a lot of interest in these packages."
Kennsington draws business from the entire region, Whitman says, and in late May, the Kennsington Grille plans to resume summer entertainment on Wednesday and Saturday evenings. "The golf course had another great year."
Additional infrastructure work planned for the development this year would extend Langston Run Road to Raccoon Road, opening up the potential for 100 residential lots, Whitman says.
CTW is busy developing other properties outside the Westford Community, he continues. The company is ready to close on the purchase of a small plaza on the corner of Boardman-Canfield Road and Tiffany Boulevard while it plans to construct a new building on the corner of Windham and South Avenue.
"We'll be doing a new building there, and a retail building there also," Whitman says. "It should be an extremely busy year for us."
Pictured: Construction workers lower a floor section at the Marriott hotel under construction at the Westford Lifestyle Community.
Copyright 2015 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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