Broadacres has come a long way in the last year, and things continue to move along as the first house goes up
By Per Peterson
Harold Deal remembers how Greenwood developed after a tornado ravaged the area, as well as a good portion of the city of Tracy, in 1968. Last Wednesday, more than 50 years later, Deal stood in what will soon be his new home on the opposite end of town at the Broadacres development site.
“It’s kind of exciting,” Deal said, as he walked out of his future garage and into the interior of his home. “This is an older part of town, so it’s good to have something new out here.
Deal has taken full advantage of building his own home, as he added some special touches to what he saw from a spec home in Pipestone. For example, he chose not to have his laundry room off the bedroom, and he also added a space on the north edge of his garage for what he will turn into a woodworking shop.
“I do a lot of smaller stuff — I have a lot of stuff I don’t want to get rid of, tools and stuff,” he said. “I did the cutout in the garage and moved one of the bedrooms back a little bit — it was supposed to stick out (in the front) farther.”
Deal’s home is the first to go up at Broadacres, a pet project of EDA Director Jeff Carpenter and the board he works with. Later this year — perhaps as early as April — an open house will take place to show off to the public not only Deal’s home but the culmination of a development project that began about eight months ago when the EDA purchased the land and clean-up began.
“When they got the roof up and put the shingles on it, it was like, ‘Here it is,’” Carpenter said as he scanned the interior of Deal’s home, which at the time being is being plumbed.
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.