dec-2017

154 155 don’t have your own backyard. Townhomes fix all of those problems.” Before creating The Barracks, Phillips had been a fireman and a personal trainer, but he says that nei- ther of those vocations was fulfilling enough. “I always had an entrepreneur’s heart,” he reveals. “I like to see things happen through my own efforts and energy. I realized that I could meet that need through construc- tion, through building houses.” He also realized that the townhome concept was an unfulfilled niche in College Station and that with a variety of floor plans, a generous menu of extras, plus the creation of an active amenities center that is open to both residents and the general public alike, he could offer a product that AT A GLANCE THE BARRACKS TOWNHOMES WHAT: An off-campus student-housing community WHERE: College Station, Texas WEBSITE: www.barrackstownhomes.com THE BARRACKS TOWNHOMES would be in high demand with few direct com- petitors. “It started off as a one-man show,” Phillips continues. “Our first employee was my wife, help- ing out with the accounting, and we grew it from there.We have about 50 full-time employees now and 50 part-time employees.We did it in phases over the last seven years.We started off just building a couple of houses a year and grew that as high as 164 houses in recent years. At 170 acres we are one of the largest student-housing developments in the country, based on acreage. We are in the top ten based on front doors and beds. At full build-out, we’ll have over 3,000 residents.”About 60 percent of the community’s townhomes are leased, while the rest are owned by students’ parents.While 98 percent of The Barracks’ residents are students, Phillips reports that some of the units were purchased by “Aggie” alumni and occupied primarily on game days. Today, The Barracks is a vertically integrated organization. “Instead of just building the houses, we started doing the land development, purchas- ing the raw land and putting in all of the utility infrastructure – the roads, sewers, storm, electri- cal,” Phillips explains. “And then, my Development Company sells the lots to my Construction Com- pany. My Construction Company in turn builds the vertical housing and we either sell those to parents of college students, lease them directly to college students, or sell leased units to inves- tors all over the U.S.