Briar Chapel, one of the Triangle’s largest green home communities and a beloved Clairemont client, just unveiled its next big step in the Triangle! The community is joining forces with David Weekley Homes to launch Encore, an integrated new-home lifestyle offering for adults ages 55 years and older — only the second release of this housing plan in the country.

Check out the details in this feature from the Triangle Business Journal!

One of the Triangle’s fastest-growing new home communities, Briar Chapel in Chapel Hill, is finalizing details to turn its latest phase of development into an enclave of active adults ages 55 and older only.

The new age-restricted neighborhood, to be called Encore at Briar Chapel, will have about 185 single-family home lots on the westernmost side of Briar Chapel off of Boone Street. It will be built exclusively by Texas-based David Weekley Homes, which is already building traditional single family homes in five other neighborhoods at Briar Chapel and elsewhere in the Triangle.

The deal will pit David Weekley Homes and Briar Chapel’s development firm, Newland Communities, directly against Pulte Home’s Del Webb brand, which also markets exclusively to the 55-and-older buyer, and other age-restricted communities underway in the Triangle.

Pulte recently announced plans to build its third age-restricted community in the Triangle at Traditions in Wake Forest.

Laurie Ford, senior vice president in charge of Newland’s North Carolina, Virginia and Washington, D.C., metro area communities, says the plan to open an age-restricted community within Briar Chapel has actually been in the works since 2012. A study that Newland had commissioned showed that the Triangle was so underserved by communities offering active adult lifestyle options that the company could even could convert all of the remaining undeveloped Briar Chapel land into an age-restricted community.

“Of course, that wasn’t something we wanted to do, … but it did show us that market is being underserved,” she says.

Encore at Briar Chapel will be only the second such partnership between Newland Communities and David Weekley Homes. The first opened within Newland’s FishHawk Ranch development in late 2015 near Tampa, Florida.

Ford says the specific price points for the new homes within Encore at Briar Chapel haven’t been set yet, but she says they will be competitive to other parts of the master-planned communities. The average price point for a home at Briar Chapel is around $350,000. At Encore, four home models will be offered between 1,500 square feet to 2,600 square feet.

The new age-restricted community will also have its own clubhouse and programing while also still having access to Briar Chapel’s network of existing trails, sports facilities and other amenities.

Amanda Hoyle covers commercial and residential real estate. Follow her on Twitter @TBJrealestate