A community with 390 manufactured homes is coming to Sahuarita

Scottsdale-based American Resort Communities is planning a 390-home development in Sahuarita with manufactured homes in a gated community with resort-style amenities.

Prices for the 1,100- to 2,500-square-foot homes with two to four bedrooms will start around $200,000, nearly half the average cost of a new home in Sahuarita, which is approaching $400,000.

It is one of eight communities that American Resort has planned in the Southwest, including one in Casa Grande and one in Prescott Valley.

“This is a game changer when it comes to finding a solution for more affordable housing,” said Jim Mullin, founder and CEO of American Resort Communities. “With our single-family homes starting in the low $200,000 range it’s evident that we have cracked the code on innovative yet attainable single-family housing.”

The company is able to sell homes at this price because they aren’t charging buyers for the land — just the home.

Traditional mortgages are available for manufactured homes. The land lease, which will be about $500 a month, is in lieu of property taxes and HOA fees.

The homes will be manufactured by three Arizona companies: Champion Homes, Clayton Homes and Cavco Homes.

The homes are built using the FlexDesign method, where the majority of the home is built in a factory, with the final touches — such as garages, porches, patios and flooring — completed on site.

“We’re not building neighborhoods, we are building communities,” said Cecil Yates, president of American Resort Communities. “By using this construction method, and the use of production building techniques, it yields a higher standard of quality and volume but at a lower construction cost.”

The community, TerraViva, will be located in the 16000 block of South La Cañada Drive, near Sahuarita Road, and will have a botanical garden, a resort-style pool and music venue.

The location was chosen because the 58-acre parcel was already zoned for manufactured or mobile homes, Yates said.

“Since we don’t subdivide land, we are able to find land that other builders can’t use with minimum lot sizes that don’t fit the needs of typical single-family homes,” he said.

Yates hopes to have the first homes ready for buyers in the spring of 2023.

And, at this time, buyers are the market he wants to target — not investors.

The company is considering whether to make some homes available as rentals.

“There is pent-up demands for buyers, so I think the market is going to tell us what to do,” Yates said.

He said the new communities will change people’s perception of manufactured homes, often associated with trailer parks.

“As soon as you say manufactured homes, people’s mind go elsewhere,” Yates said. “But today’s level of manufactured housing, with drywall and gluing to the frame, is equal to stick-built homes.”

Diverse home option

The new community will be within the master-planned Rancho Sahuarita, which currently has about 18,000 residents.

“Rancho Sahuarita was established as a first-time-homebuyer community,” said Jeremy Sharpe, managing partner of Rancho Sahuarita. “It’s exciting to be able to bring in a housing option that wouldn’t otherwise be available.”

His father, Bob Sharpe founded Rancho Sahuarita in 2002.

Sharpe said he has been communicating with American Resort Communities for a couple of years about the project.

“They did a tremendous amount of research and are really connected to Southern Arizona,” he said. “We’re excited about what they are doing and their vision.”

As home prices began to rise in Sahuarita, town officials had a market assessment put together by a consultant.

“It brought to light the need for us to be more focused and look more proactively at different types of projects,” said Victor Gonzalez, Sahuarita’s economic development director. “This project falls within that bucket of providing diversity of housing in our community.”

He said drawing a bigger pool of working class homeowners is a plus for companies looking to open new facilities.

“Our elected officials and decision makers understand they need to be more open to these types of ideas as we evolve as a community,” Gonzalez said. “Ultimately the intent is to introduce workforce housing and entry-level housing for those who cannot afford the price of a single-family home today.”

The town of Sahuarita has a population of about 35,000.