GENEVA-ON--THE-LAKE, Ohio — It's a major development set to add 26 new homes along Geneva-on-the-Lake's Lake Erie coastline.
Homes in this gated community, now named The Villas at Water's Edge, will range from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet, three to four bedrooms and finished basements; homes will range in price from $650,000 to $850,000.
Construction crews are set to begin work within a month at the roughly three-acre lot just east of The Lodge along Lake Road East.
The property calls for an in-ground infinity pool overlooking the lake and a clubhouse featuring a fitness center.
"Although these are single-family homes, they don't have to do the lawn care, the plowing, the maintenance items if you owned your own home," said co-developer Shawn Neece of Renew Partners LLC. "A lot of times living on the lake is complicated – you have to deal with owning your home and the shoreline maintenance, and that's going to be taken care of."
The development cleared village approvals last week. The first homes are expected to be ready for move-in within a year. Neece told News 5 they have already sold a handful of homes.
"A piece of ground like this doesn't come around very often," Neece said. "There aren't a lot of properties like this on the lake east of Cleveland."
It's a site that village administrator Alex Iarocci told News 5 sat idle for more than a decade. In the past several years, the Ashtabula County Land Bank was able to remove the older cottages from the property.
Iarocci added that the project is significant for the village, with a permanent population of only about 900 residents, but handles as many as 20,000 tourists per day during the summer.
"That population has to foot the bill for a lot of the governmental services we provide – so having a property that's productive, back on the tax rolls, having a high value like that, is going to help solve some of our budgetary issues as well," Iarocci said.
The developers are also looking beyond the lakefront parcel.
Neece told News 5 they're also looking at possibly adding townhomes to a property they acquired across the street as part of a future project.
The development is set to be completed sometime in 2028. To learn more about the property, click here.
Clay LePard is the Ashtabula, Geauga and Portage counties reporter at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on X @ClayLePard, on Facebook ClayLePardTV or email him at Clay.LePard@wews.com.
