lj 10/5 cates Construction begins on Justines Place By LAURIE JOHNSON The Daily News A local real estate partnership has purchased the home place of Justine Smith, the former owner of the popular Memphis restaurant Justines, for development as an in-fill subdivision along White Station Road. Tayloe/Turley Development partners Howard K. "Chip" Tayloe Jr. and Dan Turley Jr. purchased the 10-acre parcel at the intersection of White Station Road and Rich Road from Smith for $1.2 million, and another $1 million will be spent on the development of the subdivision, which will be called Justines Place, said Tayloe, who also is president of the local home building and real estate development firm The Tayloe Co. Turley is a partner in Turley Investment Co. The brokers for the transaction were Jamie Maddox of Maddox Realty, who represented the seller, and David Okeon and Leslie Farris of Marx & Bensdorf, who represented the buyers. For land acquisition and development purposes, the partners financed $2.1 million with the National Bank of Commerce, according to a trust deed filed recently in the Shelby County Registers Office. Justines Place will be an infill-type, planned unit development, said Tayloe, who specializes in building this type of subdivision. "We have been looking at this property for a number of years, but Mrs. Smith was never quite ready to sell it," Tayloe said. "There are not many 9- to 10-acre pieces of property left suited to what we like to do, so we were lucky to be able to find this." The property will be divided into 40 lots averaging about 8,000 square feet each. Thirteen lots will front White Station Road. The subdivision will be a gated community, completely surrounded by a brick and timber fence. The only entrance to Justines Place will be from White Station Road. Land development work, which will include construction of streets and installation of sewer lines and utilities, will begin in February, Tayloe said. Tayloe said he expected lots would be ready for sale to individuals and builders this summer, and that home construction would continue for about a year. Tayloe also will build several homes in the subdivision. Lots will be priced from $65,000 to $80,000. Homes in the subdivision are expected to range in value from $300,000 to $400,000. "Most of these homes will be about 3,500 square feet. There wont be any little houses," Tayloe said. Tayloe said he expected most the subdivisions home buyers would mainly come from nearby areas of Memphis, such as Midtown and East Memphis. "Our main clients will be the people who live in town who dont want to move any farther out east," Tayloe said. "Those who still want a nice large home with enough yard to look good and maybe have a pool, but not enough land that its going to be a pain to maintain." Parcels of property like Smiths several acres of mostly vacant land surrounded by other residential and commercial development lend themselves to conversion into an in-fill subdivision. Tayloe has built a number of in-fill subdivisions over the past 15 years, including Walnut Grove Court, located at the corner of Walnut Grove and Perkins Extended; The Orchard, located on St. Andrews Fairway; Grove Hill on Shady Grove Road; and Woodmont Place on Perkins Road. "We have had a very good track record for maintaining high values in the properties weve done," he said. "Typically, the prices of the homes we build are higher than those of the homes around it, which is good for property values in the area."