Skip to main content

Community ‘housing crisis’ sparks public/private partnership

Lakeview Villas Condominiums in Ripon expected to be complete next year

share arrow printer bookmark flag

January 13, 2025

RIPON – The City of Ripon, in partnership with Adashun Jones Real Estate and Signature Homes and Machkovich Lands LLC, is working to alleviate its housing shortage with several new development projects – one being the Lakeview Villas Condominiums.

Adam Sonntag, Ripon’s city administrator and treasurer, said several years ago, the city heard from employers that a lack of new housing and available rentals made it difficult for prospective employees to relocate to the area.

“Even trying to relocate to the community myself was extremely difficult,” he said. “So it led us… to do a housing study, and we pretty much found a 0% vacancy rate in our single-family homes, a 0.5% vacancy rate in our rentals and a need for 100-150 units immediately.”

That immediate need, Sonntag said, revealed not just a housing shortage, but a housing crisis in the community.

“It’s an unhealthy housing market…,” he said. “There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to buy. Ripon, housing-wise – in terms of houses for sale to single-family homes – is very, very limited at times. You may only have four or five options out there at any given time, and many of our market-rate apartment complexes have had waitlists of 50-75 people.”

The developer spearheading the Lakeview Villas project – Adashun Jones, “an experienced real estate brokerage and boutique custom home builder” owned by Glenn Elmer and Kevin Jones – is headquartered in Fond du Lac.

“We’ve been involved in the Ripon community for almost four years… it’s our backyard,” Elmer said. “We’ve been selling and building in that market for a long time. And we always knew that some of these smaller communities were going to need developers to come in and start helping push growth, otherwise they’re going to have a real challenge. And that’s right where we stand today.”

Elmer said the shortage of housing is a “nationwide epidemic” that’s compounded in smaller communities because larger developers haven’t targeted those areas.

“With inflation and the way things have come about in the last 10 years, the cost of development has skyrocketed, just like everything else,” he said. “That’s made it very difficult for developers to be able to make it make sense and make it ‘pencil out’ to bring new subdivisions, new developments into smaller communities like this.”

With “transaction volumes that are worse than 2008 – 40% lower, historically speaking” – Elmer said he doesn’t know if the average person is comprehending the current housing crisis.

“There are so many people right now that are sitting on low-interest-rate mortgages… that don’t want to part with them because they don’t want to give up that rate,” he said. “So you’re just not getting any new inventory coming into the market, and if there isn’t any land development happening, it’s a stalemate.”

That stalemate is the No. 1 reason Elmer said he considers the housing market to be in a crisis instead of simply experiencing a shortage.

“We call it a housing crisis and not just a housing shortage because it is kind of a crisis situation when you have somebody that maybe really wants to make that move, or needs to make that move, but they really can’t,” he said. “Sure, they can sell their home and take advantage of the inflationary factors that we’ve all experienced over the last 10 years, and do quite well, but the problem is, where do you go?”

Elmer said in his 30 years with Adashun Jones he’s never seen a housing demand and product cycle “quite like this.”

“This (situation) is very unique in a lot of different ways, but the biggest thing that I see is the fact that so many people are sitting on that low interest rate,” he said. “So by building the condominiums, that’s going to encourage the clientele that want to live in a condominium to make that move and then ultimately put their home on the market – it’s pretty strategic, really, if you think about it.”

Strategic development

Following its housing study, Sonntag said the City of Ripon began prioritizing projects to help alleviate the lack of available housing – adding that the Lakeview Villas is “one of probably five or six housing projects” the city is currently working on.

“We’re not just doing market-rate, or we’re not just doing single families, or not just doing condos,” he said. “We’re doing a mix of different things.”

With numerous housing projects happening simultaneously, Sonntag said Ripon is on pace to have completed building “approximately 100-110 units” through 2026.

“There’s one project in particular – it’s called the Sandmar residential development,” he said. “We’re doing lot-sale programs with the developer there, and in the past couple of years, I think we’ve successfully put up 11 homes in that development after 10 years of only seeing two homes built in the development. We’ll sell another nine to 10 lots in the coming months, and build another 10 homes out there next year.”

Because Ripon is a smaller city, Sonntag said they have to incentivize developers to buy land in the community.

Glenn Elmer, owner of Adashun Jones, said the condos will feature one of two-floor plans – a one-story ranch-style and a one-and-a-half-story layout. Submitted Rendering

“For places like Ripon, every unit matters,” he said. “We’re not a small town, but we certainly are not a big city or a major metropolitan area. We do not have the growth and the development of Milwaukee and Madison and the Fox Valley region, and so we are offering programs to sell lots for lower pricing to get houses built.”

Sonntag said the future home of the Lakeview Villas – which neighbors the SMS Health Ripon Community Hospital – has “been an underdeveloped piece of property for many years.”

“When the hospital moved from the inner part of town, we turned those buildings that were the old hospital into some apartments, but more of your affordable, low-income-type units,” he said. “When the hospital moved out to the east side of town, the hope was that further development (would) go with it, and for about a decade, that never happened.”

Sonntag said Adashun Jones is planning to build 14 condos on seven acres neighboring a man-made pond dug 10-15 years ago when the hospital moved to that area.

Elmer said each condo will feature either a ranch-style or one-and-a-half-story floor plan with square footage ranging from 1,228 to 2,800.

The redevelopment property, Sonntag said, is located in one of the city’s Tax Increment Finance (TIF) districts, and when he arrived in Ripon it was a “ticking clock.”

“I continued to engage the developers and the property owner and say, ‘Look, we’re running out of time. Let’s get something done,’” he said. “They put together phase one to get it kicked off and maximize the lay of the land and some of the aesthetics out there. Then from there, the goal would be to continue on the remaining acreage to build out a larger subdivision.”

A larger subdivision, however, requires water, sewer, electric and transportation infrastructure which Sonntag said is going to cost more than $430,000 to install – a bill to be shared by both the city and the developers.

“This development kind of unlocks that ability to do it by expanding utilities and roadways that otherwise were dead ends,” he said. “Now we’re extending them out and providing opportunity for them to be built upon into the future if the demand is there.”

Elmer said the Lakeview Villas phase, and subsequent redevelopment phases of the project, wouldn’t be possible without the partnership between the city, Adashun Jones and Machkovich Lands LLC, as each entity is playing its own important role.

“Currently we are the development partner with the Machkovich family and the city,” he said. “The city doesn’t want to be a developer – it really doesn’t have a place in that role – but they certainly have a place in providing infrastructure.”

Additional plans for the redevelopment of that property, Elmer said, include various types of housing. 

“The future phases of this project will be a combination of single-family residential and perhaps apartment buildings,” he said. “We have the zoning and we have the ground to be able to do all of that. So that’s what’s exciting about this location. It’s in a prime spot.”

But first, condos

Elmer said his company decided to build condos for the first phase of the redevelopment project because market research indicated a specific void that’s best filled by that type of housing.

“Our whole focus on this project was to help bring a new product to the community, something Ripon doesn’t have currently, and offer a few more options as it relates to condominiums,” he said. “Both side-by-side and single-family (to) fill a void that’s in that market.”

Adashun Jones’s market research, Elmer said, found that a specific group of people are seeking new housing opportunities more than others.

“When we do market research, we look at where the market trends are,” he said. “The greatest need right now is maybe more of an empty-nester kind of generation.”

Elmer said the “empty-nester generation” is looking to leave homeownership behind in search of a more simple and easy life.

“We’re seeing a bigger movement in the ‘necessity move,’ where people are looking to get into something that’s more barrier-free, more accessible,” he said. “The greater sector of the market (is) looking to get into something that’s less maintenance and less upkeep and perhaps has services like lawn care, snow removal, horticultural maintenance and things like that.”

Compounded by the easier maintenance of condos, Sonntag said, is the lifestyle afforded to residents of communities like Ripon.

“It offers a different quality of life than some of our surrounding areas, and a little bit more bang for your buck, or a little bit slower pace,” he said. “We have a lot of employers here as well that are looking to fill positions and they’re paying pretty well. So we are dealing with housing daily and talking to builders, to developers, reviewing plans and trying to continue to keep the momentum going and keep people engaged in the issue and investing in the community.”

Investing in the community’s housing market is something Sonntag said the city will continue to prioritize.

“We’re revisiting our housing study and planning out a subdivision to see what further demand we have from the region,” he said. “I think we’ll continue to focus really hard on housing, because, frankly, Ripon is a pretty fantastic place.”

Elmer said he hopes Lakeview Villas and the entire Machkovich redevelopment site will serve as a beacon to the City of Ripon once completed.

“We’re picking a very visible site where it’s going to be seen by everybody and we want it to shine,” he said. “We really want people to look back at this and say this was the beginning of something different.”

Sonntag said he expects the developers to break ground this summer once the necessary infrastructure is in place, adding that the condos are expected to be move-in ready the following year – 2026.

TBN
share arrow printer bookmark flag