Ground broken on Country Club View

WASHINGTON — Developers, Chamber ambassadors and city staff gathered for a ground breaking ceremony on County Club Road Tuesday morning, moving the first shovel-fulls of dirt on a project that aims to build 30 homes in town by 2031.

Community leaders said the ground breaking was an exciting milestone for the County Club View subdivision.

“This is huge for the city of Washington and for all of the people,” Washington Economic Development Group Director Mary Audia said. “We wanted to be able to recognize you for your outstanding and invaluable service to our community.”

Mayor Jaron Rosien said he agreed.

"These things don’t happen by accident,“ he said. ”There’s a lot of intention, and … we are here today taking this moment to acknowledge all of the work that’s taken place to break ground on this much-needed project.“

Developer Jeff Hazelett, from Elliott Realty, said the team made an effort to source work from within the community as a show of support.

“Think local, buy local, that’s really what this subdivision is,” he said. “It really is a local project, it touches everybody. When a plumber does here and does some work and receives pay, he’s probably going to one of our restaurants or is going to the grocery store, or wherever he may go, but he’s spending money here.”

Hazelett said that was a top priority of the development.

“Businesspeople have to support each other, I think that’s very, very important,” he said. “We’re getting support from the community … and a way that they can receive benefit is by the money being spent right here.”

The Country Club Subdivision has been in the spotlight since the city began discussing a development agreement in January, but Hazelett said it stretched further back than that.

“(We) have been working to acquire this piece of ground for seven or eight years, now we’ve been working on the subdivision itself for probably a good year,” he said. “It takes that long, and there’s so many people involved … and now that we’re finally here, let’s go. Let’s build some houses.”

While Elliott Realty has a spread of house plans for the subdivision, development is open to any homebuilders buyers choose to bring in.

“As we’ve stated with the city from day one, it’s available to all,” Hazelett said. “If there’s other builders in Washington that want to come build, fantastic. If they come from outside the area, awesome, that means we took them from somewhere else and brought them into our community. There’s enough work to go around for a lot of people.”

Hazelett said he felt good about meeting development agreement bench marks despite worldwide supply chain issues. Construction begins this fall on the homes themselves, while a paved street is expected by late spring at the latest.

“Everybody’s done a real good job of getting their stuff ordered, getting their stuff here,” he said. “It appears that we’re going to stay on track with the infrastructure.”

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