‘Colorado timber style’ seen for Villas at Mesa Park

       With approval from Colorado Springs City Council, the Villas at Mesa Park subdivision is nearing the start of construction.
       Property owner Walt Hieronymus said this week that engineering is underway, with bids for different aspects of the work to go out this summer and homes likely to be built in about a year. He is studying building designs and is currently leaning toward a “Colorado timber tyle,” he said.
       He likes the development so well he plans to live in one of the homes himself, he added.
       Located east of Mesa Road at 19th Street (and behind Hieronymus' current home and a church), Villas will consist of 11 houses on 4.1 acres of a 10.1-acre property. He has donated the other 6 acres, which have more rugged terrain, to adjacent Sondermann Park.
       There had been opposition from some nearby residents that the project density was out of character with the neighborhood, but the zone change, development plan and final plat passed as a consent item on the council agenda May 23 without dispute from any council members or citizens.
       Hieronymus, who has lived in the Mesa area for about 20 years and owned the Villas property for about 5, had met three times over the past year with the neighbors before seeking final approval from the city. In the process, he reduced his number of proposed lots from the original 17 to 14 and finally to 11.
       While this still works out to a higher lot/acre density than in some parts of the Mesa, it is lower than others - including across the street - and is less than could have been built under the previous zone, Hieronymus said. The smallest lot will be 8,553 square feet (a May 18 Pioneer article reporting 4,600 reflected an older plan), with the largest lot close to 20,000, he said.
       “We felt we made a number of concessions to try to get everybody happy with the project,” he said. The homes will probably sell in the $475,000 to $550,000 range.

Westside Pioneer article