Ten years and 101 homes later, Village Gardens has passed critical mass as an anchor neighborhood of southeast Lincoln.
Lincoln's first mixed-use planned unit development "just exploded" in the past three years, said Dick Campbell, whose family created it.
That surge came after progress stalled in 2009, 2010 and 2011 due to the national mortgage crisis.
"You know, we didn't really have the foreclosure problem," Campbell said of Lincoln's economy. "It was psychological."
Well, the psychology has definitely changed in the neighborhood off 56th Street and Pine Lake Road, where "older styles of building" reclaimed a place in new construction.
"We're doing super right now," Campbell said.
Eight homes are under construction and seven more are in the pre-construction stage. Only 37 lots remain.
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As new construction has taken off citywide, Village Garden’s appeal of “community living” -- front porches and homes with unique architecture -- is a draw, said Deb Wagner, a Realtor with Woods Bros.
Ten years ago, a Journal Star story on the conception of Village Gardens described how Lincoln's neighborhoods showed a variety of styles alongside one another.
"A Tudor home stood next to a prairie style home that stood next to an international or modern style," the reporter wrote. "Village Gardens is intended to reproduce this historic Lincoln pattern."
It appears to have succeeded.
"People like the diversity," said Gordon Opp, another Woods Bros. Realtor.
Commercially there are two retail buildings out of the ground and three more getting ready to close, Campbell said, with construction expected to start this year.
One will be a new format for a convenience store, Tudor style, Campbell said.
"Instead of metal canopy, it'll be stucco canopy and stone columns, two-story, the lower level facing 56th," he said.
Accelerated interest and building can in part be attributed to plans for new schools in the area. Wysong Elementary, near 63rd Street and Yankee Hill Road, is part of Village Meadows ground the Campbells sold. Moore Middle School will go up farther east on Yankee Hill.
The elementary school will be done first, in fall 2016, with the middle school to follow a year later.
Campbell believes, and has young friends who tell him, Lincoln's public schools are an attraction to those in other states who can, because of technology, work where they want their children to grow.
"When you took at Village Gardens, Village Meadows and Big Thompson Creek, (Rick) Krueger's development and Schleichs' down on Roca Road, right now there's a shortage of lots around," Campbell said.
"You're going to see this whole area south of Pine Lake Road that is going to fill in clear to 91st very quickly. That's why they want to get those schools up out here. They're seeing the population base and the other schools in the area are already crowded."
The Campbells still have 70 acres on the northwest corner of 70th and Yankee Hill to work with. Of that, 34 acres is designated future commercial. Another portion would be multi-family housing, which has some interest, Campbell said, although "there's not a check sitting in front of me."
Dick Campbell is a leader and not just in selling green plants and developing real estate. He keeps an eye on the welfare of the city in which his family lives.
"Lincoln's a pretty good place to live," he said.
And Village Gardens, his family's biggest commitment in Lincoln, is coming together as it was supposed to.
"Residential, certainly, and now commercial, too," Campbell said. "The bankers are a lot happier."
