The smart appeal of master plans
Purchasing a new home is often smarter than purchasing a fixer-upper and having no time or money for fix-ups. But some buyers are discovering an unexpected “wow” factor in masterplanned communities, where ingenuity within homes and communities might even be rivaling human intelligence quotients.
Master planners are folding all kinds of smart features into their plans while catering to new-home shoppers looking for
easier commutes to the Tri-valley, Silicon Valley, Oakland and San Francisco. Some may even be finding that they don’t need to go far from home to work or play.
At Boulevard in
Dublin, for instance, nine connected neighborhoods are walking distance from shopping, dining, BART and the Iron Horse Trail. Each neighborhood — five from Lennar and four from Brookfield Residential — features either singlefamily detached homes or townhomes, several with as many as five bedrooms and four bathrooms. Prices range from the low $700,000 range to the low $1,000,000 range.
Streetscapes and walkways within Boulevard are lined with contemporary architecture, greenery, benches and hammocks. A 15,000-plus-square-foot, indoor-outdoor lounge and the planned recreation center add obvious excitement. But things get even smarter within Boulevard’s 15 “pocket” parks, which include everything from The Kitchen — a shared community space for al fresco cooking and grilling — to relaxing fire pits and fireplaces, to The Office and its covered outdoor desk spaces with communitywide Wi-fi.
Themed spaces include The Lawn and The Town Square gathering spots, The Dog House, and the planned 31-acre park and playground. It all adds up to lifestyle, where newhome owners can leave their cars in their two-bay garages (one home plan has a one-bay garage) and walk or cycle or hop on BART to many places they want and need to go.
Next up is the newer master-planned community of Tracy
Hills, located in the foothills of southwest Tracy and near all that this burgeoning community has to offer. Featuring 22 home plans from a combined three builders — Lennar, Meritage Homes and Shea Homes — Tracy Hills is comprised of six villages, each with its own character and all with spacious, flexible, and smartly designed homesite plans.
In Lennar’s four villages (Amber, Larimar, Opal and Pearl), 15 single-story or two-story floor plans have up to five bedrooms and fourand-a-half bathrooms apiece and range in size from 2,173 square feet to 3,599 square feet. Priced from the mid$500,000 range to the low $700,000 range, some of the plans even feature Lennar’s Nextgen designs, which cater to the multigenerational family by providing a home-within-a-home.
Meritage Homes presents its village, Vantage at Tracy Hills, which features four floor plans including three two-level homes with as many as five bedrooms and three bathrooms, up to 2,649 square feet of interior living space and priced from the mid-$500,000 range.
Vente, the Tracy Hills Village built by Shea Homes, features three single-level or two-story homes ranging in size up to 3,451 square feet and priced from the low $600,000 range.
A long, beautiful network of walking trails connects each of the Tracy Hills villages and the plans even include 180 acres of open space with more than 3,500 acres of land that is fully devoted habitat preserve. Nature abounds even further, with more than 45 acres of neighborhood parks, which include a dog park and a community clubhouse with a pool.
In addition to its location near Interstate 580 and within 3 miles of the ACE train station, Tracy Hills delivers the growing sense of community, dining, arts and activity that is bustling within Tracy.
Just how smart is Tracy Hills? In addition to smart-home options offered in many of the homes by the three companies currently building at Tracy Hills, the master-planned community is fully Wi-fi connected and is even planning to educate the youngest of its community members. Nearly 42 acres within Tracy Hills will, over time, become home to several new public school sites including Corral Hollow Elementary (K-8), opening during Phase 1.