As if that wasn’t enough, Hunt Midwest is also looking at opportunities in the 15,000-acre Twin Creeks area, where it’s contributed $16 million to a $34 million effort to get the area sewered. With 5 people per acre, the area could potentially house 75,000 new residents over time.
Hunt Midwest owns 300 acres in that area, where it’s currently planning Park Place North, a development that will consist of a full range of housing from single-family homes through senior living facilities.
“In 1993, we opened our fist community in the Shoal Creek area, where we put in about 2,000 homes. There, we went in with homes and the retail followed those rooftops,” Reynolds said. “Here, it’s going to be the reverse, but we hope we can do what was done in the Liberty/Shoal Creek area on the Platte County side.”
As much as the company has expanded in recent years, Reynolds says Hunt Midwest must be cautious in its investments.
“We get to be entrepreneurial, but there’s a safety net,” she said. “We are stewards of the Hunt name, and we never can do anything that would risk that, so we tend to be more conservative when we’re looking at projects we can’t control what we think are the important pieces. We won’t get involved unless we think we can control that reputation we have.”
So what does Reynolds consider the biggest reason for Hunt Midwest’s success?
“I prefer to use what I call a ‘rifle approach’ to closing deals as opposed to a ‘shotgun approach.’ You can run around and look at a variety of deals where you don’t have the expertise, or you don’t know how you’re going to get to the end, so I like to go after projects that fit our expertise and where we want to go,” she said. “I learned a long time ago that you have this business plan, and you’re trying to get there, and you may not get there exactly the way you thought you’d thought you would – but as long as you get there, it’s okay.”