Heads turn at tall look; jaws drop at low price

Elevated waterfront villas replace tired single-wides. The cost? Not too steep.

By JODIE TILLMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 30, 2007

TriBird Development offers modular homes set atop concrete garages for $69,900 to $79,900. The 540-square-foot units are on the waterfront.
	[Lance Aram Rothstein | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Lance Aram Rothstein | Times] Alan Lyons, 46, works on the demolition of an old mobile home in Hudson. The property owner, Scott Birdsell is demolishing the homes to replace them with modular homes set on top of concrete garages.

HUDSON - Mike Graham, a professional wrestler turned real estate man, was driving when he saw a sign advertising waterfront villas for sale. Asking price? A mere $69,000.

"I thought, 'What is this?'" he said.

So he followed the signs toward the Gulf of Mexico and stumbled onto one of the more interesting residential projects under way in Pasco County: The transformation of a rundown mobile home park, not with pricey condominiums but with affordable - and unusual - modular homes.

TriBird Development of Hudson is replacing the 43 homes in the old Hudson Springs Mobile Home Park with 43 modular homes. Like any other modular home, these are secured on concrete foundations - only the foundations in this case are nearly 14 feet tall and double as stucco-finished garages painted to match the homes.

The living space in the homes is relatively small, about 540 square feet, so TriBird is marketing the units as vacation villas and refers to the park as a "fisherman's paradise." The garages, the company says, could be a place to store boats.

Prices range from $69,900 to $79,900, depending on how close they are to the canal that provides access to the Gulf of Mexico. Buyers would also have to pay $400 to $500 a month to lease their lots.

Graham, who lives in Indian Rocks Beach, was so impressed that he and his wife purchased one of the homes and plan to use it as a weekend getaway.

"You've got a nice, cool place like this on the water," he said. "It's really a neat project."

TriBird amended the typical Florida real estate tale - developer buys mobile home park and builds fancy condos or townhomes - because it made good sense.

"It's different to this area," TriBird vice-president Scott Birdsell said of the concept. "We're trying to get some kind of real estate action going here."

TriBird is made up of Scott Birdsell, 27; his 25-year-old brother, Brad, and their father, David. When they bought the park about two years ago, it was far from a fisherman's paradise, or any kind of paradise at all.

"It was not a very good place to come through," said Scott Birdsell. "There were lots of police calls. It was just a cheap place to come and live."

Redeveloping the park was a given, but how?

"You can only patch up old single wides so much," said Brad Birdsell, company president.

Condos seemed a bad idea given a market that's full of unsold ones. They considered single-family homes, but nixed that idea because it seemed to require too much time to get through the county permitting process. They could have just put new mobile homes on top of stilts, which is somewhat common, but they wanted the project to stand out.

So they started thinking about gaps in the real estate market. Who was building affordable waterfront villas?

Because of federal flood rules governing waterfront locations, TriBird knew that if they moved out the existing mobile homes, whatever went on the site would have to be elevated. To comply with federal rules, the bottom floor of the homes can't be occupied but can be used as storage.

Newer factory-built homes seemed like an affordable option as well as a safe one: The homes they are using can withstand winds of 140 miles per hour, said Scott Birdsell.

So far, they've built six and sold 10. Two of the sales are to people who used to own homes in the park.

Idea could spread

Jim Ayotte, the executive director for Florida Manufactured Housing Association, called the park's revitalization "a fascinating project."

"I'm extremely impressed by the prices," he said. "I think he has a pretty good niche there. I can't believe for that price you can have access to the Gulf."

Ayotte said he liked how the project took advantage of the first floor as a garage. "You might as well do something with that space," he said.

Based on anecdotal evidence he's seen around the state, Ayotte says he thinks more mobile home parks will be redeveloped with modular and newer manufactured homes. The reasons, he said, include the saturated condo market and a growing realization by local communities about the cost of losing affordable housing.

Though the homes in the Hudson Springs Park project are too small for most people to live in full time, Ayotte said the design could be exported to other areas where there are no flood zone requirements. In those areas, the bottom floor could be used as living space.

Brad Birdsell said the company has plans for similar but smaller projects in Moon Lake and Citrus County. He said he hopes the Hudson project does turn out to be a model.

"There are other parks around here that could use this kind of facelift," he said.

Jodie Tillman can be reached at jtillman@sptimes.com or 727 869-6247.

[Last modified September 29, 2007, 21:35:07]