A homebuilder reshaping the final stretch of a more than $200 million residential project next to Blue Ash's Summit Park has scaled back the number of homes it plans to build, after earlier phases sold for far more than expected. WP Land Co. will now cap the Arabella community at 155 total units, trading two planned condominium buildings for a smaller cluster of attached townhomes.
The shift comes after Arabella's first phase outperformed projections by a wide margin. WP Land Co. CEO Mat Walker told the Cincinnati Business Courier that homes in that initial phase sold for an average of $1.35 million, well above the builder's original projection of roughly $950,000. According to WKRC, the city of Blue Ash has now approved the changes to Arabella's final phase, which will include 47 detached townhomes and 72 attached townhomes once complete, along with 36 condominiums split across two buildings.
The revised plan calls for fewer homes than the original proposal. The builder's original 2021 plan called for 108 condominium units spread across three buildings, plus 28 attached townhomes and 44 detached townhomes, per WKRC. The revised plan cuts the overall unit count by about 14 percent.
Early Phases Nearly Sold Out
Demand hasn't been the problem. WP Land Co. finished Phase 1 of Arabella with 32 detached townhomes and 12 attached townhomes, and by October had just one unit left unsold, the Business Courier reported. That pace helped justify the pivot toward lower-density, lower-rise product for the remaining phase, since the builder no longer needed as many units to hit its revenue goals.
Mat Walker is CEO of WP Land Co., which is developing Arabella. WP Land Co. generated $31 million in revenue in 2024, according to the same outlet's reporting.
A Crowded Corner of Former Airport Land
Arabella isn't rising in isolation. M/I Homes built Daventry, a 104-home single-family subdivision on 33 acres and the first phase of development on the former airport grounds. Skyview is another M/I Homes community.
Arabella's layout has shifted, with the latest changes affecting its final phase.
From Airport Runways to Mixed-Use Neighborhood
All three developments sit within The Neighborhoods at Summit Park, a 98-acre master-planned district built on land the City of Cincinnati retained and sold to private developers, according to city records. The land itself carries a longer history — Summit Park and its surrounding developments occupy the former Blue Ash Airport site; Blue Ash acquired 130 acres to build the park. The development land was never owned by Blue Ash itself, though it lies within city boundaries, per the City of Blue Ash.
The city has strong financial incentive to see the broader district succeed. Project financial records published by The Port project that ongoing operations across the full Neighborhoods at Summit Park development will support more than 5,200 jobs and generate $3.5 million in annual earnings tax revenue for Blue Ash, with public infrastructure financed through TIF bonds.
Arabella's rightsizing also stands out against a slower citywide backdrop. A June housing pipeline report from Julia Wesselkamper Real Estate found that while Blue Ash had approved roughly 600 residential units across several projects, Skyview remained the only major new residential development actually under construction in the city at that point — a sign of the gap between city approvals and groundbreaking that has shaped the pace of growth around Summit Park. When finished, Arabella is expected to be somewhat less populated than originally planned, per WKRC, even as its neighbors continue filling in the rest of the former airport site.
