RP Homes planning new townhome development
After selling out its Southside Square development on the Southside in record time over the past year, the Chattanooga residential developer RP Homes is planning to erect another 56 townhomes near the Fort Wood District at Central and McCallie avenues.
Construction of the new two- and three-bedroom townhomes is expected to begin in January with the first units available by next fall, RP Homes announced Tuesday. The new units will range from about 1,380 to 1,500 square feet each and will be priced in the $300,000-plus range, which RP Realtor Chris Roach said should be priced below most other new residential housing in the downtown area.
“Our goal as a company is to create houses that feel like homes,” Gabe Thomas, founder and president of RP Communities, said in an announcement of RP’s newest development. “The Bexley is a community that reflects the up-and-coming luxury of the Chattanooga area while holding on to the traditional values of a home. We are excited to see families, couples, students, young professionals and many more enjoy this community.”
In a telephone interview, Roach said the development is across the street from the historic Fort Wood neighborhood and only a few blocks from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus, Erlanger Health’s main hospital and Chattanooga’s central business district.
In addition to the desirable location, Roach said the Bexley will offer “a sleek, modern architecture and luxurious interior finishes” with three different floor plans.
RP Homes, which has built hundreds of homes and apartments in the Chattanooga area since its start in 2018, is seeking to replicate the success of its most recent downtown
townhome development built over the past year and a half along 20th Street between Reed and Mitchell avenues. The 58-unit Southside Square, which began selling its first townhomes in October 2022, was sold out in about 10 months.
Roach said that was the fastest sell out of any residential community in Chattanooga, according to the Greater Chattanooga Area Realtors’ multiple listing service.
“We’re finishing off the last units right now and hope to have that completed by the end of the year,” he said.
The vacant lot where the Bexley is planned was previously pegged to hold student housing for the nearby UTC campus when the University Housing Group of Roanoke, Virginia, proposed building a 456-bed, $38 million apartment building in 2017. But that project was never built, and RP Homes eventually took over the property.