Housing bubble burst, growth slowed
By Mark Cowling | Florence Reminder & Blade-Tribune
For something as big as Anthem at Merrill Ranch (AMR) was planning to be — 9,000 houses and 25,000 people, more than twice Florence’s existing civilian population — it’s surprising there wasn’t more of a celebration to kick it off.
There was a short pause just before earth moving began in 2005, with no big speeches, fancy hors d’oeuvres or golden shovels.
“We did have a small formal — well I wouldn’t even call it formal,” Dan Bonow with Pulte Homes recalled recently. “(There was) basically five to 10 guys out there that worked for Pulte at the time. I think we may have even bought a bottle of Champagne or something, and broke it on one of the pieces of equipment we had out there. It was nothing we announced, it was more of just an internal celebration right before we started the grading operations.”
Pulte was eager to get going; the economy was thriving, home prices were spiraling ever higher and there was a lot of money to be made.
Related: Pulte’s surprise move to Florence
