The first phase of the Bloomstone Subdivision is on an accelerated pace to add more than 120 residential units to north Kalispell.

Phase 1-A West — eight 12-unit apartment buildings and 25 single-family homes — is scheduled to be completed by June. Two single family homes are already built and for sale. The land is located on Treeline Road off Old Reserve Drive, right next to the future Kalispell bypass interchange.

Kalispell National Investment’s manager, Jim Davis, said the project is a little ahead of schedule.

“We accomplished what we needed to this summer,” Davis said. “Right now the majority of the activity is going on around us, with the bypass project and Spring Prairie going up.”

Davis said the price on the two single-family homes will be around $235,000. Crews are putting the finish work on the two single-family units, including carpet, trim and counter tops.

Kalispell National hasn’t began a marketing campaign to sell the homes yet, Davis said, as the development group looks to get a better understanding of its construction timeline. Phase 1-A West includes 23 more single-family units, and Davis hopes to have begun work on nine more foundations before the ground freezes.

“Depending on how that goes this winter, that will determine how we step into finishing off the first 25,” Davis said.

Construction began on the housing foundations in late July, while work began on the apartment buildings in September. Tollefson Construction is the building company on contract for the 16-acre project.

The apartments are owned by a different developer, Treeline Village LLC., which finally broke ground on the apartments in September after attaining city approval to build.

The Bloomstone subdivision is the first high-density residential area to go into Kalispell in 10 years, said City Planning and Building Director Tom Jentz.

The idea is to offer affordable housing, with starting prices for homes under $300,000. The apartment prices are yet to be set.

“There’s about 540 units in that project,” Jentz said about the overall Bloomstone design. “We’re just in the beginning stages.”

Jentz said the entire Bloomstone design has more units now than when the initial plans came to City Council in 2008. The Kalispell population flared from 19,907 in 2010 to an estimated 21,518 in 2014, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“As we came out of the recession, market forces changed,” Jentz said. “They sensed a need for multi-family housing, so that’s the market they’re trying to hit right now. There’s definitely a pent-up demand for rental housing.”

Seven years after the council gave its initial approval, it’s a good time to build this style of housing, Jentz said. The Spring Prairie shopping district has erupted with 63,500 square-feet of newly completed retail construction and the bypass project is set to be complete by 2017.

“It feels good. We finally made it through the recession,” Davis said. “It was a tough go there for the entire real-estate market. We’re now positioning ourselves for a turn-around and we’ve had nothing but positive signs and data in the market.”

The Bloomstone subdivision construction will probably outlast the 4.5-mile bypass project, which started just a little further west of Old Reserve Drive last month. Jentz said Bloomstone will move forward “one phase at a time.”

“It’s going to be dictated by the market,” Jentz said.

Davis said the next phase, 1-A East, will open up another 60 single-family homes on lots between 6,000 and 8,000 square feet.

“If everything goes as planned, we’ll be building that next summer and trying to go vertical with some more homes,” Davis said. “Worst case scenario is construction next summer and then building during the following summer.”

Jentz said the Bloomstone developers already have plans ready for several more first-phase homes to begin construction once they pass the city planning board.

Reporter Seaborn Larson may be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.