Kansas City, MO — September 19, 2023 — Hunt Midwest’s residential real estate division is celebrating 30 years of building award-winning new home, luxury multifamily, and senior living communities, across Kansas City and beyond.

Founded by Lamar Hunt more than 60 years ago, Hunt Midwest’s first roots were in industrial and commercial real estate in and around SubTropolis — a former lateral limestone mine the company converted into the world’s largest underground business park. But in the early 1990s, seeking to capitalize on the Hunt family’s undeveloped land holdings, they entered the residential real estate market.

Hunt Midwest broke ground on its first new home community in late 1993 at North Brook, a 300-acre tract with plans for 1,000 new homes, opening a new chapter for the company and sparking decades of growth across Kansas City’s Northland.

Today the residential division has platted almost 7,000 new home lots in 17 neighborhoods across the KC metro, establishing itself as one of the premier master planned residential community developers in the Midwest.

“In so many ways it feels as though Kansas City and Hunt Midwest’s residential division have grown up together over these past 30 years,” said Brenner Holland, Hunt Midwest Senior Vice President. “The Northland was mostly agricultural land when we first planted our flag at North Brook, but it’s been home to almost all of Kansas City’s population growth in the decades since. We’re proud to have helped play a role growing memorable communities and look forward to what the next 30 years will bring for our residential team.”

A decade after breaking ground on Hunt Midwest’s first new home community, the growing residential team entered the multifamily market with multiple townhome communities. Subsequently, Hunt Midwest made a $175 million investment in three luxury communities: The Fairways at City Center in Lenexa, Mission 106 in Leawood, and The Vue in downtown Overland Park, winner of a 2020 Kansas City Business Journal Capstone Award.

In 2011, the Hunt Midwest residential division also entered the senior living market with partner Principal Senior Living Group to build and manage Benton House communities across Kansas City, the first of which opened in the Shoal Creek and Lee’s Summit areas the following year. Today, Hunt Midwest has developed 12 senior living communities across five states, with operating partners Principal Senior Living Group and Integral Senior Living, including the recently opened Capstone at Centerra in Loveland, Colorado.

Much has changed in the years since then-President & CEO Lee Derrough asked a young new manager, Ora Reynolds, to study what it would take to entitle and build new homes on vacant land north of Worlds of Fun at what ultimately became North Brook. The average price of a Hunt Midwest home was just $125,000 at the time and 30-year mortgage rates were actually dropping to 7 percent, instead of rising to that benchmark as they are today. Reynolds’ vision helped the upstart residential team become a foundational part of the company’s real estate offerings that ultimately helped lead to her promotion to Hunt Midwest president and CEO.

“We truly started from scratch back in 1993, but we surrounded ourselves with expert civil engineers, land planners, contractors, real estate agents, and homebuilders — many of whom Hunt Midwest still works with today,” said Ora Reynolds, now Hunt Midwest President & CEO. “We’ve continued to stoke that creative, entrepreneurial fire over all these years, and I know it’s a key reason our residential team and all of Hunt Midwest has seen so much success.”

Hunt Midwest’s residential division continues to grow with construction underway on The Hudson, a 228-unit luxury apartment community on Rainbow Boulevard across the street from The University of Kansas Health System campus in Kansas City, Kansas.

The residential division also has new home communities under construction across the Kansas City metro with 15 homebuilders at Benson Place, Cadence, Cadence Villas, Eagle Creek, Hook Farms, Northgate Village, The Reserve at Riverstone, and Staley Hills.

SAB Homes founder Scott Bamesberger was among the first homebuilders to work with Hunt Midwest’s new residential division and is still a key part of our team of builders today. SAB Homes has built hundreds of new houses across nearly all of Hunt Midwest’s new home communities in the years since.

“It’s amazing to look back at the impact Hunt Midwest has had on both our homebuilding community and the literal landscape of Kansas City over the past 30 years,” Bamesberger said. “Hunt Midwest was one of the first companies in Kansas City to pull all of their builder and agent teams together to truly master plan entire new home communities with full amenities, premier landscaping, and innovative model home showings. It’s brought us both tremendous success and it raised the bar for new residential developments across the region.”

The residential team’s ongoing work is a crucial piece of the late Lamar Hunt’s legacy of re-investing in the community and building a better tomorrow together. The Kansas City Chiefs founder was thrilled to attend his residential team’s 1993 groundbreaking at North Brook, until he discovered the first street in the new neighborhood was called Oakland Avenue. “Can’t we put Chiefs on top of it?!” Lamar teased the group, a reference to Kansas City’s storied rivalry with the then-Oakland Raiders. A few years after their success at North Brook, Lamar attended the groundbreaking at the residential team’s second community, The Fairways, only to find that it also was built on an Oakland Avenue.

Learn more about Hunt Midwest’s residential communities and full-service real estate development solutions online at HuntMidwest.com.

About Hunt Midwest
Hunt Midwest is a Kansas City-based, privately held real estate development company with six decades of expertise in industrial, self-storage, residential, multifamily, and senior living communities, with more than $2.5 billion of developed projects in multiple geographic markets. Hunt Midwest leverages its reputation, resources, and relationships to create successful real estate solutions.

Hunt Midwest is one of the pillars of the Lamar Hunt Family’s holdings, which include interests in real estate, sports/entertainment, energy/natural resources, and private equity. Other marquee brands include the Kansas City Chiefs, Chicago Bulls, FC Dallas, Hunt Southwest, and Trinity Hunt. Learn more at HuntMidwest.com.

Hunt Midwest Residential 30-Year Images: North Brook | The Vue – Multifamily | Northgate Village – Multifamily | The Hudson – Multifamily | Woodneath Farms – New Home Communities | The Capstone – Senior Living | 30-Year Logo