SEQUIM –– Stalled since the 2007 collapse of the housing market, the Cedar Ridge housing development on Sequim’s east end may have a new hope.
Two-thirds of the 64-acre subdivision off Keeler Road were purchased for $2.7 million by Cedar Ridge Properties, a corporation formed by home-builder Rick Anderson of Port Angeles and Brown Maloney, owner of KONP radio and former owner of the Olympic View Publishing Co., which published the Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum.
“We’re excited about the potential. We’re excited about the location,” Maloney said.
The sale was finalized in December.
Maloney, managing partner of Cedar Ridge Properties, said the firm is assembling a business plan to determine what it will do with the property.
“We have a lot of checking left to do with the city, with architects, with our attorneys, with the banks,” Maloney said.
“Stay tuned.”
The property, north of Spyglass Lane and east of Lofgrin Road, has several roads built through it, with utility extensions sticking up on several lots. The area is frequented by the Dungeness herd of Roosevelt elk.
The Cedar Ridge subdivision was started by Allen Grant and Larry Freedman in 2006.
“Allen did a superb job with his vision and the location,” Maloney said. “He just got stung by poor timing.”
Lots in the subdivision were marketed at prices ranging from $59,900 to $199,900.
When the housing market collapsed in 2007, development of lots stalled, and lender Union Bank foreclosed on the subdivision.
The bank was owed $4.3 million when it put the property up for a trustee sale auction in 2011 that did not generate a buyer.
Clallam County real estate records show that Maloney and Anderson purchased 159 of the lots for a total price of $2.7 million.
Mayor Candace Pratt was a member of the city’s Planning Commission when the Cedar Ridge subdivision was approved in 2006.
“There were a lot of developments being approved at that time,” Pratt said.
“Then the market did its thing, and we were left with a few of these undeveloped neighborhoods.”
Pratt said the purchase of the property by Maloney and Anderson gave her hope those developments would begin to be filled in.
“Everything’s out there,” she said. “It was bound to happen at some point.”
City officials have predicted that growth in Sequim will take place on its eastern side.
That forecast was one of the school district’s considerations when it decided to put a $154 million construction bond measure on the April ballot.
One of the items in that list includes construction of a new $27 million elementary school on the east side of town to replace the aging Helen Haller Elementary School in the central part of Sequim.
As the city has grown east over the past few decades, the dividing line that decides whether children attend Helen Haller or Greywolf Elementary in Carlsborg is just five blocks to the west of Helen Haller, a 6.5-mile bus ride to Greywolf.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Joe Smillie can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052, or at jsmillie@peninsuladailynews.com.
