New Construction & Development in Cascade Township

Cascade Township is building on two fronts at once. There's housing — big lots, custom builders, and almost nothing cheap — and there's the airport, which is the largest construction site in the township by a wide margin. And the rules for what gets built here are on the ballot next month. Start with the geography, because it explains the building. Cascade sits about fifteen minutes southeast of downtown Grand Rapids, wrapped around the Thornapple River and Gerald R. Ford International Airport. Land, highway access, and the Forest Hills district — that's the builder's pitch here. Here's the number builders price against. The typical Cascade home is valued around five hundred twenty thousand dollars, against a Kent County median of three hundred thirty-five thousand. New construction sits well above that — listings in the township this summer have run from about one point one five million to two point one five million. Across the wider Cascade area, listing data shows about a dozen builders working across dozens of communities, with new homes advertised from around three hundred fifty thousand up to a million and a half. That spread isn't really about the house. It's about the parcel underneath it. So here's what's actually on the board. Eastbrook's Ada Grove sits on the Cascade side of the line — one-acre-plus homesites in the Forest Hills Central district, three left, homes from the low six hundreds to just over a million. Engelsma's Terra Nova is ten executive homesites between two and three acres. The rest is custom builds on private acreage, plus the two public projects reshaping the township: the airport and the village. Put the market they're building into on one card. The typical Cascade home runs about five hundred twenty thousand against a county median of three hundred thirty-five thousand, homes go pending in roughly twenty-four days, and you're fifteen minutes from downtown. Builders read those four numbers and price the finishes accordingly. The largest project in Cascade isn't a subdivision. It's the airport. Gerald R. Ford International sits inside the township, and its ELEVATE program is more than six hundred million dollars of construction — a hundred-fifty-six-million-dollar rental car center opening this year, a hundred-and-ten-million-dollar concourse expansion, and a new control tower penciled at sixty to seventy million. My honest take on buying new here: the land is the product. Vacant homesites at Terra Nova are listed from about three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand dollars before anyone pours a foundation. That's the real cost of building in Cascade. Now put Cascade next to the region's other build-heavy towns. Byron Center, Caledonia and Hudsonville are all adding new construction at volume, and all three sit below Cascade on typical home value. Often the same builders. Very different dirt. Here's the current development story, and it decides what gets built next. The township adopted a new zoning ordinance in February — thirty-five-foot height caps in the village core, no drive-thrus, tighter limits on large apartment projects. Opponents turned in more than two thousand signatures, so it's on hold and goes to voters on August fourth. Until then, the nineteen eighty-nine rules govern. Speed still matters, especially if you want a finished spec home instead of a build slot. Cascade homes go pending in about twenty-four days, and completed new construction is usually first off the board. If you're waiting for the open house, you're already behind. Before you sign a builder contract here, run this list. Verify the lot — wetlands, well, septic versus sewer. Ask directly about PFAS; the township has flagged four active sites and well contamination in newer subdivisions. Confirm the Forest Hills boundary, price site work separately from the house, and know where the zoning vote lands before you count on density. So do it in this order. Diligence on the dirt, then the builder, then the floor plan. Buyers who fall for a plan first end up forcing it onto a parcel that fights them, and in Cascade the parcel always wins. Between the acreage communities, the custom builds, six hundred million dollars of airport work, and a vote that resets the rulebook, Cascade is building more than it looks like from the road. If a new build here is your move, let's map the lots that are actually left.