CITY OF NEWBURGH – A Pennsylvania-based developer with a resume of projects in the Poconos is reviving a suburban-like housing development in the northwest section of the City of Newburgh that he bought from TD Bank after the original developer defaulted on a mortgage.

Dimitri Zahariadis and his Iconic Properties LLC have started building a single-family home on one of two remaining lots on Orchard Street, a main road on which the original developers of the Sunset Ridge project planned new homes with driveways, garages and grassy backyards.

On Morris Avenue – the other main road – Zahariadis is seeking planning board approval to subdivide 18 lots into 36.

While detached homes selling for more than $300,000 were originally envisioned along Morris, Zahariadis is planning to build 18 duplexes on the 36 lots, with each townhouse-like residence selling for between $179,000 and $189,000.

“We have quite a few people interested,” Zahariadis said. “There’s nothing for that price in New York anywhere.”

Lined with two-story homes, Orchard Street seems lifted from another municipality.

While most of Newburgh’s neighborhoods west of Robinson Avenue are lined with detached homes – in contrast to the elbow-to-elbow row houses in the East End – the two-story houses on Orchard Street are much newer than most of the city.

Driveways lead to attached single-car garages, another distinctive feature. In addition, the development site is elevated, so west-facing windows offer a long-distance view after the trees shed their leaves in the fall, Zahariadis said.

“It’s like an oasis in the City of Newburgh,” he said.

Zahariadis’ Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania-based Excell Homes Inc. has completed about 250 custom-built homes in the Poconos area, including a private community called Masthope.

He bought the unfinished Sunset Ridge development for $387,500 in 2013 after Spring Valley-based Rolling Acres Sunset Ridge LLC, lost the project to lender TD Bank.

In addition to the 24 parcels involved in the sale, Iconic purchased already-completed infrastructure, including paved roadway.

Each duplex residence will have three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, Zahariadis said. Some will have garages and others walk-out basements, he said.

The sales prices are much lower than those sought by Rolling Acres, and so will the tax bills in a city that taxes at 100 percent of market value.

“With the pricing of the houses and the reducing the taxes, it will be a win-win for the consumers and for the city,” Zahariadis said.

lsparks@th-record.com