Residents in Levack – and people who work in the community, but live elsewhere – are being invited to an open house Sunday.
The first seven of 42 townhouses being built on property that used to house Levack public school* are ready and are now for sale.
Henry Muller, president of Kastletree Homes, said anyone interested in the townhouses should come by between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sunday to take a look.
"They are beautiful, if I do say so myself," Muller said. "We had a very, very good builder -- Niacon out of Niagara Falls area, which is where I originally come from."
It's been a long process to get to this point. The company bought the three-acre property about 10 years ago and it was rezoned for the current development in 2008.
Muller said they took their time to ensure they got things right, and are proud of the result.
"We knocked (the former school) down and cleaned it up,” Muller said. "We were very careful to do it properly. I think once we get the first couple off the ground, it will really go."
There will be six groups of seven townhouses when complete. How fast there are built depends on demand, he said.
It's an approach that has worked well for the company in the past. Muller compared it to a project Kastletree completed in Dundas, Ont., in which a 300-condo development was built and sold 60 at a time.
"Now the whole thing is sold out."
The company got involved in the project because they saw an opportunity in Levack, he said. With three mines in the area, a lot of people commute back and forth between work and other communities in Greater Sudbury because there are limited housing choices in Levack.
"We thought this would be a really good idea, because right now, people have to drive all the way to Sudbury to find a house," Muller said. "The rest of Levack is the old houses that the mining companies built. A lot of them are little shacks. So we did our very best to put up a good product."
They are offering two- and three-bedroom townhouses, with a starting price of $229,000 each. Miners who buy one can “literally walk or bike” to work, he said.
"We thought that being right in the centre between the three mines, it would be a perfect place to put (the townhouses)."
*Note: An earlier version of this story said it was the former high school. In fact, it's the former elementary school. Northern Life apologizes for the error.
