News
Story House Village: a community within a community
Story House Village is an ambitious plan. The brainchild of University of Wyoming and Yale graduate, Sean Higgins, Story House Village – a 240 acre planned unit development – will be the community around the heart of the project; Veteran Village.
Recently, Higgins appeared on Sheridan Media’s Public Pulse program to speak about the project.
The large development that will encompass Veteran Village was not part of the original plan to develop a home for displaced veterans. Originally, Veteran Village was going to be independent. But according to Higgins, that idea hit barriers.
Veteran Village is approximately 14 acres of the 240 acres included in the Story House development. If all goes according to plan, it will feature approximately 50 small homes for homeless veterans and veterans in need.
Story House Village will be the larger community offering senior housing, attainable housing, market family single homes, apartments for rent, multi-family homes, townhomes, green space, a 15-acre pond and even commercial space.
Higgins and the team he has built, hope the development will address a laundry list of housing problems facing Sheridan by reinvesting into itself. According to Higgins, Story House plans to roll substantial portions of profits from home purchases and rent in Story House Village to fund future phases of the development. Additionally, Story House plans to come alongside Veteran Village as a “Philanthropic Big-Brother,” taking on main infrastructure design costs and devoting a large portion of its philanthropy efforts back into the non-profit to help provide housing for veterans in need.
Higgins said, the non-profit, as currently modeled, has a breakeven in 17 to 18 years. At that point, profits will be placed into an endowment controlled by a board to create education and vocational opportunities for veterans.
To aid in this endeavor of creating Story House and Veteran Village, Higgins has recruited a local team of engineers, ERA Carroll Realty, and others.
Veteran Village has built out a board of its own with the help of The Roberts Family Foundation, The Homer A. and Mildred S. Scott Foundation and trusted-long time partners. Construction will follow a four phase approach. Phase one, scheduled to break ground sometime in early fall of 2023, will include building a mixed income neighborhood addressing attainable housing on 30 acres. A hundred unit multi-family complex included in phase one has already sparked interest, according to Higgins.
Shauna Bowers
April 12, 2023 at 5:50 am
Where exactly is this to be located?
Linda K
April 12, 2023 at 8:58 am
East side of I-90, north side of highway to Wyarno, across the road from Fletcher Construction drive. Between Industrial Lane and Wildcat Road. Approx. 2/3 of a mile east of the 5th street interchange
Robyn Belinskey
April 12, 2023 at 4:24 pm
More Federal funds?? Sure let’s be beholden to the ones destroying this state and country. Using veterans to push this project thru how about roads and the crazy traffic we are experiencing the infrastructure for all the developments have no viable environmental impact statements nor expansion plans for super highways thru Sheridan great city council and powers that be all your bad decisions will be fallout in the future..all that money you’ll make at the expense of other residents no one will want to live here let alone afford to..
Brian Wilson
April 13, 2023 at 6:43 am
Great location if you like heavy truck traffic hauling cement and gravel or cows and hay. Also has the sweet smell of landfill on days with a south wind. Are there proposed changes to the highway? Do the developers not realize both entrances are on a 70mph highway?? The east entrance is in a limited sight distance area at the bottom of a hill just after a corner. Another dumb idea for the sake of making the developer loads of money!
Carol Pitchford
April 15, 2023 at 9:58 am
Can we ever slow down on the growth of this once beautiful area filled with wildlife, freedom and people who cherished the slower lifestyle, the Ranching community, the cowboy ethic? Go to Walmart, or Albertsons, or even Walgreens… People have become rude and pushy, and this is not the beautiful town we once knew! Vote in a new city Council! Vote in new county commissioners, because all we’re getting is growth, growth growth! Keep Sheridan, the jewel of Wyoming!
Janice Gosch
April 15, 2023 at 8:15 pm
I agree with you totally Brian..Contractors making a mint off poorly built homes at premium prices. In undesirable locations. It is all about money esp if they can get federal and state help.
Claudia Gallagher
April 21, 2023 at 2:23 pm
This is exactly how to ruin a good thing! Only the developers will make money at the expense of the people of Sheridan and surrounding areas. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should!
Mike schmitz
September 1, 2023 at 2:26 pm
This is the beginning of the end. Going east of town is ranch country, generational! The big money developers will purchase ranches by offering millions of dollars that most folks can’t turn down. The Sheridan cowboy culture will be erased in no time. Just drive from Sheridan south to Story, see many herds? The same will happen all the way to Wyarno and then north on Prairie Dog rd.
Property taxes are killing us now. The tax and the developers will empty this community of its roots. A sad day indeed.