Lakes of Muirfield acquired by Chapel Rock Developments
By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Lakes of Muirfield, a stretch of property in Lyalta, has been purchased by Chapel Rock Developments and Winchester Builders.
Rights to buy the Lakes of Muirfield residential lands were awarded by Wheatland County. Paul Bergmann, president of Chapel Rock Developments, said his team will be overseeing developments going forward.
“This is a long, storied subdivision that surrounds a golf course and after a few problems during COVID-19 … the county ended up with the development,” said Bergmann. “(They) realized they were probably the wrong people to be shepherding this along, and so they put a request out for a developer and we heard about it through the grapevine.”
He added Chapel Rock Developments and Wheatland County are still in the process of finalizing discussions surrounding the purchase and development agreements, as well as other associated documentation.
The curation of builders who will be engaged in construction efforts has seen some returning teams from the previous developer, however, this has not been universal. Some have not been asked to come back, while new teams have been selected to be engaged in the project.
“We want to make sure that whatever we do in terms of builders, they are good quality builders and we do not want to have just any builders in there. We have been pretty particular about who we have invited in,” said Bergmann. “We have got what we believe to be a good group of seven or eight builders who will all be working to make this community – bring it back to life, so to speak.”
Bergmann added his attention was drawn to the Lakes of Muirfield as an opportunity to reinvigorate a project with “high quality architectural controls.”
The community is a semi-estate region which will see the development of homes leaning more towards that of luxury. Prices upon home completion are estimated to be in the range of $800,000 and above.
“This is not vinyl siding and that sort of level of build, although there is a place for that. This is a nicer subdivision and it is a rare gem to find something in tact where there (are) 300 lots that will be coming online before we are finished,” he said. “This is a multi-year project and that is a big part of what drew me to it because I have been an inner-city builder, I have built tract housing in Fort McMurray, but rarely do you get an opportunity to have an impact on an entire community like we do with Lakes of Muirfield.”
Foundational construction efforts are set to begin in the spring as the localized area structure plan is addressed. Following this, the first foundations of houses are anticipated to be started in August.