In October 2008, Colorado architect Michael Woodley and Shea Homes executives brainstormed about the changing marketplace.
"If you remember, right about then it was all about change," Woodley, speaking of the country's mood, said from his Highlands Ranch, Colo., office. "We started talking about (how) the marketplace is tired of the same thing, and that people have to be motivated to buy homes because there are lots of them available."
They especially wanted to attract a new generation of homebuyers.
On Jan. 16, their answer is being unveiled to the public in Seville, a master-planned Gilbert community.
Shea Spaces - modern, energy-efficient homes that are inspired by everything from the Apple iPod to California's Midcentury Modern homebuilder Joseph Eichler - will be put to the test.
The new development is quite a departure from the norm in tract homes. The overall feel is more urban, but with slightly more backyard space for a young family. The smaller houses feature sleek, modern fixtures and flexible, informal living areas. They reference the Valley's midcentury roots more than the Tuscan architecture common in new suburban homes.
Spaces will nestle into Shea's existing Seville, near Riggs and Power roads in Gilbert, which has a private golf course and sports club, parks, walkways and 14,000 citrus trees salvaged from the former citrus grove once rooted there.
New Homes in Gilbert, AZ.
Today, about 2,500 of the 3,000 planned homes in the Seville community are occupied. Most have a more Spanish style, meant to echo Seville, Spain. They range from two-story entry-level houses to sprawling McMansions with basements.
In contrast, Shea Spaces homes are clearly modern, with sleek, spare kitchen cabinets with modern stainless-steel handles and rolling, metal-framed, frosted-glass doors throughout.
"It's giving someone at a more modest price point a very different aesthetic than they'll get from other builders," Woodley said. "I think it is setting a different tone for how to approach the marketplace today."
One marketing line for Spaces is: "It's not your grandmother's house."
So far, two Spaces communities have opened in California, and two more will open this spring in Colorado. In Gilbert, Shea will build 56 Spaces homes.
A big part of the concept is "flex space" - areas that can easily accommodate a bedroom, family room or office, plus a great room that can be configured several ways. There's space for a dining table, living room and reading or game nook, but without dangling light fixtures or other features that limit one area to a particular use.
The master bathrooms feature large walk-in showers with ceiling-mounted rain showerheads, but no bathtub - a request from young customers. The homes also lack a fireplace but come with a 42-inch LCD television.
"What people really gather around is that TV," Woodley said, adding the fireplace is no longer the gathering spot for a young family.
The homes are also smaller, ranging from 1,460 to 2,288 square feet. That fits a trend toward smaller new construction. The median floor area of new home starts dropped from 2,216 square feet in the second quarter of 2008 to 2,094 square feet by the third quarter of 2009, according to the National Association of Homebuilders. Concerns about affordability and rising energy costs contribute to the smaller-home trend. But Baby Boomers downsizing to smaller homes and more single-person households are also driving it.
Construction of Spaces homes will take about 90 days, said Ken Peterson, vice president of sales and marketing for Shea.
The home fronts feature a series of square stucco walls in various shades plus one stone wall obscuring a slightly pitched roof.
"They have a clear Arizona feel to them, but very modernist," said Woodley, president of Woodley Architectural Group.
Woodley said the Spaces design was partially inspired by Eichler, who worked to bring better designs to the masses.
Eichler, who once lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright home, was known for his Midcentury Modern aesthetic and built more than 11,000 homes in California between 1950 and 1974.
Woodley said a diverse focus group, including interior designers and advertisers, was asked to choose from hundreds of photos to identify design styles that appealed to them.
"What we found is that there is clearly an interest in those cleaner Eichler kind of lines - the Midcentury Modern look," he said. "It seemed that that was a good thing to study, so we studied the Eichler houses."
He said his team was also inspired by the clean lines of modern furniture and the sleek iPod for its ease of use.
"People are simplifying - living simpler and cleaner," he said. "We want to be cool, we want to be hip, we want to be energy-efficient and we want to be attainable."
The homes are expected to sell in the mid-$200,000s.
RL Brown, a real-estate analyst and publisher of the Phoenix Housing Market Letter, said the homes could be a good niche for Shea and are a bold move for a major homebuilder.
New Homes Phoenix
"What this represents is probably a very intelligent move on Shea's part that they're trying to differentiate new housing they're bringing on line from the mass of housing on the market," he said. "Niche building is going to become much more prevalent in the marketplace than it has in the past."
Alison King, founding editor of modernphoenix.net, a Web site that celebrates the area's Midcentury Modern architecture, said she's glad to see something different from a large homebuilder.
"It's a great sign that someone's willing to take a risk, and that shows great character," said King, who is also associate professor of graphic design at the Art Institute of Phoenix.
When she and her husband were home hunting five years ago, King said her family was pushing her toward new construction rather than a historical home. But she felt too constricted by the Tuscan and Southwestern stucco offerings.
"We found it to be very controlling and not very adaptable," she explained, adding that Spaces looks "clean and linear" by comparison.
The Spaces homes are exclusively staged with furniture from West Elm, known for furniture with crisp, modern lines at attainable prices.
"It's really encouraging to see someone is offering an alternative that's stripped down but not bare," King said. "It gives (homeowners) a clean slate to insert their own design style."
As for the architecture, King said she wishes they'd gone bolder - especially if referencing a Midcentury Modern aesthetic. Such homes were known for floor-to-ceiling glass walls that helped connect their owners to the outdoors.
"I'm not getting this Eichler connection," King said of Spaces. "The atrium concept he was famous for is pretty key in many Midcentury Modern designs. Glass plays a huge part."
Today, King and her family live in a small, historical Ralph Haver home in Phoenix that she said offers "a sensation of calm and order and happiness that a good, well-designed space brings. . . . The sunlight that comes into this home is like free medicine."
Woodley said earlier sketches for Spaces did contain more glass. But he points out the homes feature 8-foot sliding glass doors that are larger than many such doors on production homes in this price range.
Energy efficiency was another big concern with using too much glass.
Spaces homes earned a Home Energy Rating that exceeds the Energy Star requirements, Peterson said. They also feature stainless-steel Energy Star kitchen appliances, dual-flush toilets that conserve water and dual-pane, highly efficient vinyl windows. Spaces even offers integrated solar panels by Sun Power as an option.
Overall, Shea Spaces adds a new, modern vibe to Gilbert's Seville neighborhood.
"They're fresh, they're new. It's not your traditional home," Peterson said. "If someone's more traditional, we have 20 communities across the Valley for that."
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by Kara G. Morrison - Jan. 14, 2010 04:56 PM
The Arizona Republic
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