LAURIE, Mo. — A new apartment complex under construction on the Lake of the Ozarks Westside will bring 60 apartment units to an area of the Lake greatly in need of affordable housing. The Westside Apartments are being developed by Lake area restaurateur and developer Tim Vogel.
The new complex on Highway O in Laurie will be the largest apartment complex on the Lake's Westside, with five, two-story buildings, consisting of 60 apartments, plus an amenity building. The first phase of the three-phase development is expected to be finished this spring.
“There is a completely open market over here and these apartments are long overdue,” Laurie Mayor Allen Kimberling said. “This will be very good for the city, as there is a tremendous need for workforce housing.”
Vogel has been a residential and commercial developer for more than 32 years, first in the St. Louis area, and now at the Lake of the Ozarks. He is the developer, owner and manager of the Tap and Grill Lakeside Brew Haus Restaurant on Highway O in Laurie and Coconuts Caribbean Beach Bar and Grill in Gravois Mills.
Vogel purchased the four-acre property on Highway O for the Westside Apartments because it was centrally located. “I have wanted to build these apartments for some time,” Vogel revealed. “I know housing has been a real struggle for employees and many restaurant and business owners on the Westside, like Woods Supermarket. We hire college-age, twenty-something, seasonal workers, and they can’t find adequate housing. People with Lake houses and rental properties don’t want to rent to people in the seasonal service industry because they think they are going to get rowdy, tear up the place and leave. The only answer I could find was to build it myself.”
Toll Bridge Expense
Workers also gravitate to the Lake's east side for employment because of the cost of tolls to cross the Community Bridge of the Ozarks to get to Laurie and Sunrise Beach.
“We were told the bridge would be paid off by now, and they are saying it’s going to be another six or seven years!” Vogel said, explaining this puts an extra burden on businesses seeking quality employees. “We pay an average wage of $13 to $15 an hour for kitchen and maintenance workers," he said. "They don’t want to drive all that way and then pay another $50 a week in bridge tolls. They are already living paycheck to paycheck and if they can just stay in Osage Beach, why bother coming across the bridge?”
Vogel said he found the city of Laurie to be fast and easy to work with as he went through the zoning and permitting processes. “The city employees were very approachable, I even have their cell phone numbers,” he said. He contrasted the city of St. Louis, recalling times when he had to wait two years to get a building permit.
The project is already having a positive economic impact on westside businesses. “I wanted to reinvest in the Westside,” Vogel said, so all the project subcontractors are from the Westside. Superior Excavation, Clary Concrete, McGarry Electrical, Carl Zimmerman Framing and Rockley Mechanical have been contracted to do the specialty work. The apartments will be connected to city water and sewer.
The city is currently in the process of planning a larger 8-inch sewer line expansion that will run down Highway O and connect to the apartments. The construction of the expanded line is expected to begin in 2020.
The Westside Apartments, Phase 1
The plans for the Westside Apartments include three rows of five apartments, totaling 15 buildings to be constructed over the next two years. Phase 1 will be the construction of the first five buildings, containing two-bedroom, one-bath, 1,000 sq. ft. apartments, with an amenity building for an onsite laundry facility and vending room for late night food items and non-alcoholic beverages.
Phase 2 and 3
The second phase will construct buildings with significantly larger apartments: three-bedroom, two-bath units about 1,400 sq. ft. apiece. The scope of the third phase of apartments will be decided after it is determined which size of apartments are in most demand.
The cost to rent at the Westside Apartments has not yet been settled, but it will be, according to Vogel, “affordable to service industry clientele.”
“That is who I am marketing to first,” Vogel added. “After that, I will rent to the general public.”
