How one development copes

New Longview, a new urban development in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, about 20 miles from downtown Kansas City, was featured on ABC’s nightly news Sept. 25 in a report about how one developer — Gale Communities — continues to build and sell houses despite a national downturn. In 2001 Kevin Klinkenberg and John Anderson led the charrette team that laid out the 260-acre development with 1,200 dwelling units, a multiway boulevard, and a neighborhood center with approximately 250,000 sq. ft. of commercial space, including barns converted to business use. “We have made several key contrarian decisions that separate our efforts from both conventional suburban developments, other traditional suburban developments (few if any in our market), and other urban for-sale communities,” Joe Perry, commercial director for Gale Communities, told New Urban News. • “We halted traditional print marketing when the market softened to a critical point 18 months ago.” • “We resisted discounting and took a longer-term view of how short-term discounting affects long-term value. … It is obvious to us that discounting to buyers in a down market is tantamount to lowering the value of what we as the developer, our past buyers, and our current buyers will have to sell in the future.” • “In a period of extreme industry belt-tightening, Gale Communities built two new championship pools (one in New Longview) last year, expanded a third, and added to numerous trail and amenity projects.” The transplanting of dozens of mature trees to common areas and other beautification made a persuasive contrast against competitors’ performance. • While competitors stopped staffing their sales offices on weekdays, Gale kept its offices open daily and tried to give residents reasons to visit the centers for services, meetings, and other activities. “This activity and excitement is infectious to our buyers,” Perry says. • As the number of customer visits declined, the company made efforts to “capture more information from qualified buyers and spend less time tracking and managing others. Our sales team now offers more services to current home owners on the sale and financing of their existing home.” • Gale’s building division was the first builder in its market to construct houses certified as “Green” by the National Association of Home Builders. The company co-sponsored a Green Development Day with other organizations. The result was front-page newspaper coverage and prominent attention from TV news programs.