Work has started at an upcoming 400+ unit, 55-and-older-only community at the Ten Trails housing development.

Called “Regency,” the Ten Trails neighborhood will feature 403 single story, 2-3 bedroom homes, plus a 3.9-acre recreation center with a lit pickleball court, indoor pool, clubhouse, lounge and a dog park.

Currently, the future site of Regency is a handful of empty dirt and grass fields on the southeast side of Ten Trails. But Ten Trails developer Oakpointe, as well as Regency’s Pennsylvania-based building company Toll Brothers, hope to have the first wave of homes finished by next summer.

Phase 1 of the project will see 82 houses constructed on one of the northern plots in the area, with the goal of completing at least those homes — and the clubhouse — in about a year.

Toll Brothers and Oakpointe employees celebrated the start of work at Regency with a ground-breaking ceremony June 14, snapping photos and delivering speeches at the site of the future recreation center.

“This is a 25-year project, to get here,” said Black Diamond Economic and Master Plan Developer Andy Williamson, referring to the Ten Trails Master Plan Development. “That takes courage on city planners, city staff and city council to keep the vision.”

Ten Trails more-or-less started in the 1990s after Washington passed the Growth Management act, which prompted cities and counties to draw boundaries around urban areas where they foresaw and wanted to encourage growth. Developer Oakpointe had the property assembled and under contract by 2005, but ground-breaking on the first plats didn’t start until 2016.

Ten Trails will ultimately include around 6,000 residences and over 1.2 million square feet of commercial and retail space once completed.

The homes in Regency are age-qualified and families will need to have at least one 55-or-older member to move in. Regency will be one the first two age-qualified projects within the city, Williamson said. The other is Tammaron, built by Shea Homes, which is set to put 34 homes for 55+ residents near Lake Sawyer.

Williamson referenced a trend he’s noted in master plan developments in Snoqualmie: Young couples start out in a condominium or townhouse, move up into a single family home and then eventually move into age-qualified housing as their kids move out, all within the same community. It’s something he hopes to see at Ten Trails, too.

“That’s good planning,” Williamson said. “People can stay in their community … have kids, or not, and age in place.”

This article has been updated to fix a typo.