IT'S HOME BUILDING TIME

Home building in Cape Girardeau is moving at a record pace this year.

Overall starts during the first six months of 1994 are a healthy 12.1 percent above those of the same period in 1993.

"This is home-building time," said Richard Murray, Cape Girardeau Inspection Services director. "Every month I keep waiting for a letdown in new-home permits. It hasn't come."

During the past two months, 22 permits have been issued for single-family houses. Starts total 55 for the first half of the year, up from the 51 starts during the same time last year.

Single-family home permits have reached the 100 mark only twice during the past seven years: 105 during the record year of 1988 and 103 in 1993.

"This is great," said Murray, who at one time expressed concern about a lack of developable land in the city.

"That was before the Lexington Street project," said Murray. "The first two phases of the Lexington project have opened up more land for development, and the third phase will add even more. Because of this action by the city, land concern by city permit personnel has lessened."

Kent M. Bratton, Cape Girardeau city planner, said the city is keeping close watch on land needs. A couple of annexations have added additional land and others are planned.

"We are looking ahead," said Bratton.

It is apparent that more housing is needed. A number of houses are being taken out in preparation for a new Mississippi River bridge highway, and last year's flooding resulted in additional shortages of housing.

Another reason for the interest in new homes has been mortgage rates. Rates averaged 6.74 percent last October, a 25-year low. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that an increase in rates from about 7 to 9 percent would add $209 to the monthly payment on a $150,000 mortgage.

Mortgage rates have been on an upward climb since April. Nationally, rates averaged about 8 percent in May, 8.4 percent in June, and 8.6 percent last week.

The higher rates are attributed to a recent slowing of home building nationally. Housing starts plunged 9.8 percent in June. Activity was off in every region of the nation except the Northeast.

For the year, however, home building nationally is up 17.9 percent for the first six months. Starts during the first six months of the year in the U.S. totaled 1.29 million last year. Many analysts still expect starts to total nearly 1.4 million this year.

Only 32 percent of 415 builders surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders earlier this month expect sales to be good during the next six months, the National Association of Home Builders said.

Applications for building permits, often a barometer of future activity, fell 3 percent in June nationally, to 1.32 million, from 1.36 million a month earlier.

Locally, however, a number of subdivisions and developments have kept contractors busy. Clarkton Place Subdivision is entering its fourth phase. "We are completing Phase 3 and starting to develop Phase 4," said Jane Clark.

Bobby and Jane Clark are owners of the subdivision land along Hopper Road west of Mount Auburn Road.

Phase 4 of the development will include 17 lots in a cul-de-sac, a private area with circle drives and no through streets. Phase 3 included 28 lots.

"We're in a housing boom here," said Clark. "We have sold everything." Homes in the new phase will range from $190,000 to $250,000.

Clark said Phase 4 will follow and will include small-acreage parcels.

Clarkton Place opened in 1987. Phase 1 included one-half to three-quarter-acre lots.

Minimum sizes for homes in the subdivisions are 1,500 square feet on a one-level structure and 1,900 square feet on two levels.

Herb Annis of Century 21 Ashland Realty Co., 105 S. Broadway, said Ashland Hills Estates is running out of room.

"We have basically completed Ashland Hills Estates," said Annis. "We have put streets in the final two cul-de-sacs and have 10 houses on the 12 available lots there."

Eight phases of Ashland Hills Estates represent more than 100 homes ranging in price from $93,000 to $135,000. The subdivision is along Hopper and Kage Hills roads.

Annis is also closing Greenwood Subdivision in the Lexington Road area. "We're out of room there," said Annis. The Greenwood development consists of 65 lots, with home prices ranging from $75,000 to $92,000.

Annis is preparing to open Annwood Estates in Jackson. The development is about a mile west of Interstate 55 off Highway 61. It officially opens Aug. 14. The Annwood development includes 62 lots, with homes ranging from $90,000 to $140,000.

"The development will have concrete streets, underground utilities, street lighting, natural gas and city water," he said.

A Chateau Girardeau expansion has created a development for 34 homes along the 3000 block of Independence in Cape Girardeau.

"We have homes in various stages of construction," said Rick Bowzer, public relations director for Chateau, a retirement complex. Eighteen homes are under contract and eight have been completed and are occupied. Also completed is a two-bedroom display house furnished by Rust & Martin.

The Chateau Girardeau Estates project was developed to provide residents of the retirement complex an option of living in an apartment or a single-family home. The small subdivision includes sidewalks, street lights, utilities and sewers.

The houses contain the same emergency systems that are found in Chateau apartments, Bowzer said. An emergency-call system is wired directly to the Chateau Health Center and is monitored by the nursing staff 24 hours a day.

The project will complete the four levels of retirement living that were planned for the Chateau Girardeau facility from its start in 1971 with 151 apartments.

Chateau Girardeau is owned and operated by Cape Retirement Community Inc., a non-denominational, not-for-profit corporation headed by a 13-member board of directors. The center is the only full-service continuing-care-retirement community of its type between St. Louis and Memphis.

Construction is under way in a number of other Cape Girardeau subdivisions, including North Field, Randol Farms and Lexington Place. Construction also is under way on Phase 2 of the Bent Creek Subdivision at Jackson, a development of Bent Creek Land Co., of Jackson.

"There are 22 premium home sites in this phase, ranging from a half acre to one acre," said Mike Litzelfelner, co-owner of Bent Creek Land Co. "Most of the home sites have good views of the Bent Creek Golf Course."

A number of the sites are sold and some construction is under way, Litzelfelner said. Meanwhile, construction is continuing on the condominium units from Phase I of a three-phase project.

"Real estate sales at Bent Creek have been excellent," said Litzelfelner. "All 24 condominiums sold out during the first 18 months of the project.

Litzelfelner said Phase 3 is "right around the corner." Fifteen home sites will be developed in the third phase, and half of them will border the golf course."

Phase 1 of the project called for 24 condominiums constructed between the 10th and 18th fairways.