Several years have gone into this step, as Knez Homes owner and founder Bo Knez spoke with Jason Segedy, Akron director of planning and urban development, as he studied tax abatement programs in multiple cities to create Akron's strategy. Knez also plunged into Cleveland urban homebuilding as housing recovered after 2010 by buying lots in West Side neighborhoods and the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood before the current strong market became a reality.

"Bo (Knez) has had the vision and perseverance to make this work," Sanderson said. "He and the company have spent a lot of time working on designs and strategy to make infill housing work, such as the logistics of building."

It was a natural for Knez, a native of Cleveland's St. Clair-Superior neighborhood, to test the urban market, although he had built the company providing suburban homes in Lake County and evolved to additional markets. As a result, Knez's website has a button for an "urban series," almost 20 designs that work on tiny city lots. Architecture ranges from gables that suit some neighborhoods to boxy modernist designs where buyers have an aggressive taste for something new.

The initial Akron homes are two- and three-bedroom homes in the 1,700- to 2,200-square-foot size range, with open floor plans and attached garages.

For the city's part, Segedy is encouraged by the Knez foray.

"We're very excited to have Knez's interest in building in Akron," Segedy said in a phone interview. "One of Mayor Horrigan's big goals for the city with the 15-year-residential property tax abatement in 2016 was attracting builders into the city. It's one of our first examples of the tax abatement program spurring interest in new-home construction."

Although Knez builds in urban areas, the company also has land development skills it hopes to put to use in Akron. Land development covers large, empty parcels, usually empty greenfield sites, designing home sites and winning city approvals for subdivisions and getting the streets and utilities installed.

Knez and the city are negotiating terms for the builder to buy an 8-acre parcel for developing near the Akron Zoo a neo-urban 50-unit urban development on a site at Diagonal Road and Aultfarm Road. Segedy said the city years ago got control of the parcels, once home to several mansions that fell into disrepair and were razed, but he's not certain of the site's history.

"They were older homes with large lots that went in when the area was considered far from the city," Segedy said.

Knez was selected after responding to a city request for proposals. Segedy said the only other proposal for the site from an out-of-town developer, whose name he does not recall, was not as responsive as that of Knez. Primarily, that developer sought apartment zoning for part of the parcel. Instead, the city wants dense for-sale development that would provide new homes but fit into the 1950s-era fabric of the West Akron area.

Segedy said legislation to sell Knez the parcel and rezone the site from single-family to cluster zoning will go to the Akron Planning Commission this month. If approved, it may go to Akron City Council for consideration in July.

Neither Segedy nor Sanderson would disclose proposed terms for the sale of the land where Knez is planning what it calls "Ault Farms." However, Segedy said the developer will have to foot the cost for installing infrastructure to develop the subdivision, and it would, of course, have property tax abatement.

Sanderson said that when it comes to such land development, Knez may spin the sites off to a national builder. While national builders have an appetite for such sites, they may not have the patience or structure for such risky land development on government-owned properties.

As for the Highland Square sites, Sanderson would not say how much Knez paid for them.

Segedy said the city generally charges 50 cents a square foot for land-bank parcels suitable for construction of a new home, and the Highland Square lots cost about $2,500 apiece.

That's not as much as a bargain as the $1 land bank lots the city of Cleveland has sold for years. But enticing and offering affordable new homes as land prices range from $40,000 to $180,000 a lot in suburbs in the region.

The type of dense single-family homes that Knez is talking about on the zoo-area site reflect the evolution that city housing has gone through in Cleveland. In the early 1990s, developers and builders were putting together large parcels to build suburban-style homes. That evolved over time, thanks to changes in planning and development patterns, to current practices that are more dense and retain the best features of city neighborhoods.

"If it all comes together, the city's plan, the builder and developer," Sanderson said, "we'll get to go out and see what the market says about it. There's always an element of waiting to see if they (buyers) will come."

Other current projects that Knez has under way range from suburbs such as Concord and Perry townships and Willoughby in Lake County to seven Cleveland neighborhoods. Recent offerings include a townhouse project called "Nina" on Columbus Road that is sold out on Duck Island to Breakwater Bluffs on Breakwater Avenue at West 58th Street in Detroit-Shoreway, where units are commanding almost $500,000 apiece.