FILLING A NEED — Contractor Rob Strobel says St. James Gate, a new patio home development on Culler Road, offers buyers a maintenance-free lifestyle. Strobel said they’re planning 38 units, 16 of them singles. -- Linda Harris

Doing it in Weirton is, though.

“It’s kind of a new thing in Weirton,” said Strobel, owner of Strobel Contracting and Genpro Development. He’s partnering with Bruce Parr, owner of ABLE Concrete and president of AB Properties, to develop St. James Gate, a 17-acre patio home community on a 150-acre parcel that at one time was part of the old Pleasant Valley golf course.

“It takes a little bit of time to get it off the ground, but people like the idea of no maintenance. They like the fact that they can get into something new (and hassle-free). This area mainly has older homes, homes that are 50, 60 years old — this gives realtors something new, something they can show people that’s affordable.”

Parr purchased the property, did most of the site work and all of the concrete work. Strobel, who already has Steubenville’s Steeple Chase and Mission Point patio home developments in his credits, is handling construction.

FILLING A NEED — Contractor Rob Strobel says St. James Gate, a new patio home development on Culler Road, offers buyers a maintenance-free lifestyle. Strobel said they’re planning 38 units, 16 of them singles. -- Linda Harris

Strobel said they consider it an investment in the community.

“It creates work for us, it creates work for our subcontractors, it fills a need in the community,” he said. “It keeps people working. And we need some development in this area for housing, there’s not much to pick from — if you buy a lot and build your own house, you’re talking $350,000 for new construction. So this is another option — you can get a patio home all on one floor, all new, in a new subdivision for $100,000 less than it would cost you if you tried to buy a lot and build.”

St. James Gate offers two- and three-bedroom, two-bath floor plans, each boasting a roomy master suite with walk-in closet, a master bath with twin vanities, walk-in shower and separate tub. The open floor plan living area boasts lots of cabinets, a large island and a pantry in the kitchen, along with a covered porch off a comfortably sized living room in back. Granite countertops and stainless steel appliances are standard.

Nine-foot ceilings enhance the home’s spacious feel, and the 2-by-6’s framing exterior walls and blown-in insulation ensure each unit’s energy efficiency. Each unit also has a private entrance with stone accents, a private laundry and mudroom.

While the standard option is an attached, two-family unit, buyers can also opt for a single unit. They also can pick up extra space by closing in the covered porch.

Prices start around $228,000 for the standard two-bedroom attached unit.

“Singles cost more,” Strobel said. “They have more land, more streetfront, there’s more construction involved and more utilities, so the price runs roughly $20,000 more than for an attached unit.”

Likewise, adding a third bedroom will cost about $7,000 more.

He said the home owner association fees will run about $160 a month, but that includes all the landscaping, mowing and snow removal.

Strobel said they’re planning 16 singles and 22 attached, two-unit buildings.

He said they’d looked long and hard at other properties, including acreage by Williams Country Club and another near American Way, before the Pleasant Valley property came on the market.

“We need flat sites for these, since there’s no basement in these houses,” he said. “This site is so much better, it’s fabulous.”

They’ve been working with local realtor Jamie Guida, broker/owner of JJ Guida Airport Realty, and her brother, attorney Dan Guida.

Strobel’s already completed work on a model home at St. James Gate, and two others are well on the way to completion.

“We’ll probably average five a year,” he said. “We really don’t have a lot of competition here, but you also don’t have the volume of sales like you’d have in Pittsburgh, Robinson or Canonsburg.”

But he said realtors “have been after me to build more” after the success of Steeple Chase in the 1990s and Mission Point, 2008-17. He said they averaged “four or five” new units a year there, too.

“We could have gone smaller and less expensive, with more units per site, but most of our customers are coming from big houses — they want to move into something nice on the higher end of the scale,” Strobel said. “People like the idea of having one-floor living, no grass to maintain or snow to remove. ”

He said the choice is simple: Spend around $380,000 to buy a lot and build yourself, “or come here and get a new house with about 1,500 square feet and two or three bedrooms in the $230,000 to $240,000 range.”

“There’s definitely a market, a niche for this,” he said.