Story by Chris Graham
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Gypsy Hill Place has pushed back the scheduled move-ins of its first residents from July to October.
Octagon Partners, the Charlottesville-based developer leading the renovation of the former R.E. Lee High School in Staunton, had set for itself an ambitious 10-month construction schedule after breaking ground at the site in July 2009 and then getting started with major operations at the site in the fall.
“As we looked at the construction phase and recognized that we have a lot of residents who are interested in moving in as soon as possible, we also recognized that we needed to make sure that we had the full scope of amenities and the hassle-free lifestyle prepared for them ahead of time. Which meant having driveways and grounds and all of the site work complete, which would not have been the case with our July move-in dates,” said Dave Taibl, the general manager of Gypsy Hill Place, which will feature 62 apartments for seniors and will also house the Staunton Senior Center and the ShenanArts theater company.
About a third of the apartments have been leased, and some of the new residents had been scheduled to move in next month. Octagon consulted with residents on the ongoing work at the site before pushing back the move-in date.
“This allows us to have a lot of our programmatic aspects of the building up and running prior to residents moving in. So it won’t be that they’re here and waiting for ShenanArts to get under way, or waiting for the Senior Center. I think we’ll be able to have programming go hand-in-hand with the move dates. So it really becomes more of a natural fit, which gives us a greater certainty that everything is fit and ready to go,” Taibl said.
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