Great opportunity to live minutes from the Old Mill District. Builder, Pacific Home Builders is one of celebrated Tour of Homes award winner. High-end finishes, fully fenced and attention to detail. Give us a call today for your private viewing. $430,000
New home completed and ready for move in. Minutes to Old Mill District & River Trails. Great room w/large kitchen, spacious & inviting Master bedroom suite with large walk-in closet and double sinks in bath, large bright bonus/family room, and four bedrooms. Convenient upstairs utility. Hard to find triple Tandem car garage. Landscaped front yard and large back yard with covered patio. High end finishes. Fully fenced.
Fabulous Northwest contemporary one owner home with mountain, golf course, terrain and city light views on a large parcel in Rivers Edge. Extraordinary craftsmanship & designed to ensure almost every room has a view. Dramatic entry, soaring ceilings, floor to ceiling fireplace and windows, open floor plan, both casual and formal living areas, gourmet kitchen, 4 bedrooms, two master suites, office, bonus room, large private deck w/hot tub. Attention to detail is evident in all aspects of this home.
Single level Penthouse in the Heart of Bend’s Old Mill District. Gourmet kitchen, vaulted ceilings, high end woodwork & finishes. Mountain, River and Old Mill District views from the 4th floor lg. private balcony. Two master suites w/spacious master baths, lg. walk-in closets w/built-ins & a private office. Access to the Common Area includes a Grand common room w/fireplace, TV, sound system, kitchen & lg. outdoor courtyard w/fire pit. Two deeded parking spaces and spacious storage unit. Sold furnished.
Elegant custom one owner property located in the desired north end of Sunriver. Enduring design & extraordinary craftsmanship is evident from the moment you enter. Soaring ceilings, extensive wood accents and built-ins through-out, floor to ceiling rock fireplace, gourmet kitchen with two islands, five bedroom, 3 are suites,4.5 bath, open living space w/ casual & formal dining, large private deck w/hot tub. Attention to detail is evident in all aspects of this home.
Single level Osprey Pointe condominium located on the award winning Crosswater golf course. Located inside the exclusive gated community of Crosswater. Vaulted and cross beamed great room with inviting rustic stone fireplace and hardwood floors. Double slider opens to private back deck with hot tub & unobstructed views of Paulina Peak and the golf course.
Immaculate corner unit condo with a great west side location convenient to recreation, restaurants, colleges and shopping. Deeded covered parking space, secure additional storage, community center and fitness room. Low HOA fees cover water, sewer, garbage, exterior maintenance, snow removal, landscaping, master insurance, fitness & community center. Laminate flooring, stainless appliances, 2 full bedrooms and private patio.
This custom one owner home depicts the lodge atmosphere desired in Sunriver. With its magnificent log staircase overlooking the handsome great room, rock fireplace, soaring vaulted ceilings, remodeled kitchen. The lodge style furniture package & Sunriver decor compliments the 4 bedrooms, 3 are suites, each with its own private deck, 4.5 bath home. There is a full office overlooking the great room and a triple car garage for the toys. This home reflects Sunriver with room and privacy for each family member.
Drawn to Central Oregon’s sunshine and small-town vibe, Matt Gilman moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Central Oregon in September to open his specialty sock company, Chivaz Wear LLC.
It’s a common story for Bend transplants, but Gilman landed 17 miles to the northeast in Redmond.
“I had never heard of Redmond before, but it just felt like this great combination of activities,” Gilman said.
Having moved from Silicon Valley, Gilman said he was looking for a lifestyle change, and ultimately he found Bend too upscale and congested to be a good fit for him to start his company. Redmond, smaller and more affordable, stood out.
“I love it here,” Gilman said. “The thing that I’m most upset about is that I haven’t had time to explore more.”
While Chivaz Wear is still a fledgling startup, he said his colorful, stylized socks can be found in around a dozen stores in Central Oregon and California, and he’s attempting to get a subscription service off the ground. Additionally, Gilman said he was committed enough to Redmond that he and his wife bought a house in the city.
Gilman isn’t alone. Like its neighbor to the south, Redmond has largely shaken off the aftereffects of the Great Recession. Housing prices for single-family homes grew by more than 14 percent in Redmond between 2014 and 2015, compared to just under 13 percent in Bend over the same period, according to Economic Development for Central Oregon.
Redmond’s industrial buildings have filled up as well; the vacancy rate for such buildings has dropped for seven consecutive quarters.
And existing companies are hiring. According to numbers provided by the Oregon Employment Department, 796 help-wanted advertisements for jobs in Redmond were posted across various mediums in April, up more than 6 percent over the previous April.
“There’s this sense that everything’s Bend-centric, and that’s just not the case anymore,” said Damon Runberg, regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department.
Along the same lines, the city’s unemployment rate stood at around 5 percent, comparable to the rate in Deschutes County overall, according to Jon Stark, Redmond area manager for EDCO.
“We’re in the shadow of Bend, but we’re trying to shape our own shadow,” Stark said.
Like Bend, Redmond was hit hard when the lumber mills began to close in the 1980s. Redmond Mayor George Endicott said the city once had five working mills, which focused primarily on interior wood molding for houses. While a handful of lumber companies maintain a presence in Redmond, Endicott said the industry has declined sharply over the past three decades.
While Bend was able to parlay its location and climate into vibrant tourism-related industries, Redmond, smaller and farther from some outdoor amenities, had less success in that sector. As a result, the city had to look to other industries.
“We’re not really a tourist town; we’re a manufacturing and industrial town,” Endicott said.
From 2010 to 2014, Redmond’s manufacturing employment grew by more than 26 percent, comparable to the overall numbers from the Bend-Redmond Metropolitan Statistical Area, which comprises all of Deschutes County.
Runberg acknowledged that the growth was a bit deceptive, given Deschutes County’s severe manufacturing job losses leading up to 2010, but Redmond’s growth in manufacturing jobs over that period was nearly three times the rate in Oregon overall, and more than four times the national rate over the same period.
Stark added that this growth was due primarily to gains from the city’s large manufacturers.
“These are the companies that were here, and were very resilient during the recession, and once that ended, they started to grow,” Stark said.
One such company is PCC Schlosser, the Redmond-based subsidiary of Portland manufacturer Precision Castparts Corp., which topped the list of private companies sending out help-wanted ads in April. Lisa King said the company has nearly doubled since 2009, and currently employs 358 people in Redmond after several years of rapid growth.
Redmond has also attracted manufacturers that are looking for a city with lower industrial land costs than Bend. One such company was the Central Oregon bullet and ammunition manufacturer Nosler Inc., which purchased 60 acres of land for a new manufacturing plant in Redmond at the beginning of 2015. Zach Waterman, public relations manager for Nosler, said 11 employees currently work in Redmond, and the company will be hiring nine new employees in the city.
“It was just the right fit for us,” Waterman said of Redmond.
Stark, who worked with Nosler on the deal, added that the lower cost of land played a role in the company’s decision.
While Redmond’s relative affordability compared to Bend certainly plays a role in companies choosing to move and stay in the city, there are other factors as well.
Patsy Bartelson, who founded Straw Propeller Gourmet Foods in Redmond, cited easy access to the only commercial airport in Central Oregon as an advantage, as it allows her and her employees to more easily attend trade shows and other events.
Additionally, she said the city’s centralized location within the region makes it easier to attract employees from outlying areas. She said that the majority of Straw Propeller’s 15 employees are from Redmond, but workers also commute from Madras, which would be more of a challenge if the company were located in Bend.
Bartelson added that the smaller community can be more flexible to accommodate businesses that are trying to move into new spaces within the city. In 2015, Straw Propeller moved from a smaller location in Redmond into its current facility, which has 15,000 square feet of manufacturing space.
“You really get the sense that they want you to be there and want you to be successful,” Bartelson said.
Despite the growth, Redmond still faces problems.
Stark said the city was running low on available industrial space, and struggling to keep up with demand. He said there are fewer than 10 industrial buildings with more than 3,000 square feet left in the city, and a vacancy rate of around 5 percent for industrial buildings overall.
Additionally, Chuck Arnold, economic development and urban renewal coordinator for Redmond, said the city lacks a boutique hotel that can keep visitors downtown, making it harder for local companies to entertain clients. Arnold added that the city is in talks with clients who could restore the Historic Redmond Hotel, on SW Sixth Street.
“The building is really well-positioned to be successful,” Arnold said.
In general, Arnold, who worked for the Downtown Bend Business Association for a decade before taking a job in Redmond in 2015, said the goal was to continue to cultivate a walkable, family-friendly environment throughout the city.
“Redmond wants to be this first-choice, family-oriented community, and I really relate to that,” Arnold said.
As residential development surges in Redmond, the city is working on an overdue update to its out-of-date affordable housing plan, written nine years ago.
According to Community Development Department records, 197 residential building permits were issued for new single-family homes last year — the most since 2007. Commercial building permits, with 15 issued for new construction, saw growth for the first time in eight years. And planning permit activity — which speaks to future growth — saw a 500 percent increase from 2014.
“Development is up, and it’s up significantly,” CDD Director Heather Richards said at a City Council work session last week, when she called 2015 “the first full year of development recovery in Redmond” since the recession.
The building permits reflect the economic health and growth of the community, Richards said. Meanwhile, planning permits, which encompass applications like zone change requests, land use variance requests and residential plan reviews, are a good indicator of future growth.
“A lot of (the planning activity) is master plan review that sets the stage for residential development,” Richards said last week. “But there’s also some site and design projects coming through.”
In 2015, according to CDD’s monthly activity reports, a month didn’t go by with fewer than three building permits issued for new construction on single-family dwellings. In January, for instance, three permits were issued — the year’s low point — and in April and December there were 26. Meanwhile two predevelopment applications for housing development master plans were submitted to the city’s planning department last year, along with several predevelopment applications for residential subdivisions.
The Redmond City Council gave its approval to one of the master plans — a 187-unit Hayden Homes housing development called Obsidian Trails — earlier this year. In March it OK’d the city’s annexation of 33 acres — its first annexation since 2009 — in preparation for another 240-unit development.
Even with the growth, the numbers aren’t quite what Richards said the department would like to see. She said she’s aiming for at least 250 building permits issued for new residential construction annually and for commercial permits to double.
“Number of permits and valuation are still considerably lower than those recorded in 2007; however, an upward trend is promising and indicative that vacant commercial and industrial space is being absorbed, starting to create a market for new construction,” work session documents that outline the city’s housing priorities state.
Another priority listed in the work session document is the city’s Affordable Housing Plan.
The plan, written in 2007, lays out Redmond’s needs and objectives for making more housing available to lower-income residents and seniors — as determined nearly a decade ago. Created with an expiration date of 2012, the plan was never meant to go this long without a revision.
“2007 was a different time in Redmond,” said Chelsea Dickens, Redmond’s grant program coordinator who works on affordable housing projects.
The plan — along with any updates it might receive — was derailed when the recession hit, with almost none of its seven priorities completed. These include goals like taking an inventory of existing land to identify potential surplus land for affordable housing, creating incentives for developers to build affordable housing and supporting homeowner education.
“None of these have happened,” said Richards at a February Housing and Community Development Committee meeting. “(The plan’s) first two action items are evaluate staffing need (to implement the objectives) and hire staff if necessary, and 2008 was when we eliminated 70 percent of the staff. So it went to the shelf.”
But now that economy and community growth is on the rebound, the time has come to revisit the plan. Redmond’s Housing and Community Development Committee, which is in charge of drafting the updated plan, has been exploring different sources for new ideas.
At last month’s Housing and Community Development meeting, Bend’s Affordable Housing Manager Jim Long gave a presentation to committee members that outlined tools worth paying attention to as Redmond goes about its update.
“In Central Oregon, we’re kind of an island,” he said last week. “We don’t get a lot of attention from the other side of the hill, so we have to come up with our own solutions.”
Long’s presentation went over affordable housing tools like system development charge exemptions and density bonuses that increase a residential zone’s density rules for affordable housing developers. These ideas and new ones were also tackled by the University of Oregon’s Sustainable Cities program last year — another source the HCDC is tapping into.
Ren Thomas, who taught the program’s housing policy course, said the class split into two groups to provide long- and short-term recommendations to the city. These included forming a regional affordable housing plan that might give Redmond access to federal funding it doesn’t currently have, as well as engaging with local nonprofits, housing developers and the public as it updates its plan.
“In the last plan, a lot of the local people and groups (the students interviewed) hadn’t participated, and they didn’t know about it or about the strategies and how they were going to be implemented,” Thomas said. “Nonprofit housing providers or developers weren’t engaged in the process of writing the plan and didn’t know about the tools the city had available. That also applies to the public — marginalized groups hadn’t always been included.”
First time on the market. 2014 Tour of Homes Winner for Best Architectural Design & Interior Finishes. Just minutes from the Old Mill District in Bend, but is situated on a large very private multi acre parcel with mature trees. Home was designed to bring nature indoors with Full View glass garage door, opening to 2000 sf of stamped concrete patio. The large great room boasts open reclaimed beams, Montana Ghost wood, structural and decorative steel accents throughout. 5 bedrooms, an extensive custom shop.
Many reclaimed beams and lumber utilized throughout the home. Extensive use of structural and decorative steel accents. Siding is Montana Ghost wood cut from standing dead pine trees and prefished. Cell foam insulation used throughout the home for amazing sound and thermal control. Advanced HVAC technology utilized via mini split systems throughout home. Full security and theatre wiring. Lifetime presidential roofing. Large multi acre lot with mature trees and rock outcroppings incorporated into the landscaping
$1,599,000