Developer relaunching McCormick community with sale of 172 home sites

PORT ORCHARD — In what’s being called a “relaunch,” the joint company that owns the 800-acre McCormick Master Planned Community site in Port Orchard has announced the sale of 172 home sites as part of its Phase 1 development plan.

McCormick Communities LLC is a joint endeavor formed by Kirkland-based developer MainStreet Property Group and Winward Real Estate Services. The company has chosen four builders — Benchmark Communities, MainVue Homes, Garrette Custom Homes and Zetterberg Custom Homes — to build homes ranging in size from 1,800 square feet to 3,337 square feet. Garrette and Zetterberg have already sold homes at the location, the builders said.

Benchmark Communities, which is marketing homes in the 1,800-square-foot-and-up range, has not priced their home plans as yet. The other home builders have announced price ranges from the $400,000s to $600,000 and above, according to a spokeswoman for MainStreet Property Group.

McCormick was initially launched in the mid-1980s, and since then has built 800 homes and the McCormick Woods golf course. Additional development of the site was halted during the recession. The McCormick Communities group purchased the remaining unbuilt site late in 2015.

Garrette Custom Homes and Zetterberg Custom Homes will have model homes and a marketing presence on-site sometime next month. The other two builders haven’t announced when they will have model homes for prospective buyers to view. The planned community has a welcome center on site that is now open. All phase 1 home sites include either a greenbelt or golf-course view.

With housing options limited in the Puget Sound region and inventory tight, the planned community will add scarce new homes to the list of available properties in Kitsap County.

The median price of single-family homes sold in King County hit a new high of $514,975 in February — up about 20 percent from the median price a year ago — according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service. In Kitsap County, the median price of homes currently is about $299,000.

MainStreet Property Group CEO Eric Campbell said Kitsap County, which is more affordable than the white-hot market in King County, is a natural location for Puget Sound residents to search for a home.

“Over the last 20-30 years, the core Puget Sound region typically had two or three master planned communities underway at any given time, which meant several hundred new homes hitting the market every quarter,” Campbell said. “However, that’s no longer the case, as large land assemblages within the urban boundary are nearly gone. Without larger communities coming online, the market is squeezed even tighter. We believe McCormick is the right master planned community at the right time for the region and the housing market.”

Campbell said the voter-approved addition of Kitsap Transit’s fast-ferry service between Bremerton and downtown Seattle will be a boon to this region’s housing market.

“We were bullish on Kitsap County prior to the new fast-ferry service, and that’s only increased, given the addition of new transit service, cutting commute times to downtown Seattle by at least half,” he said. “Perhaps most significantly, overall affordability in Kitsap County is about 50 percent better than Seattle and King County right now, which is huge for buyers looking for a high-quality home in a livable city with good schools and lower property taxes.”

McCormick said it will ultimately build out the 800-acre site over a 15- to 20-year timeframe with multiple builders and phases.