In August 2008, Balfour Beatty Communities began the daunting responsibility of building and renovating housing at West Point. A ceremony was held April 15 for the Overstreet Family who cut the ribbon to their home, celebrating the completion of phase one of the construction in the area a month before deadline.

"The total construction for this area is due to be complete August 2011," Paul Merritt, Residential Community Initiative engineer, said. "Out of 158 new housing (units at Stony Lonesome I), we have 28 already occupied. There were some issues that had to be worked out such as traffic patterns, especially with school buses and storm drains, before we could occupy the homes."

Phase two of the construction has already begun with an additional delivery of 42 new three- and 4-bedroom homes slated to be turned over in August, according to the West Point Family Housing Web page. Phase three of the construction begins in January 2011 to deliver the remaining 88 homes, including new senior NCO homes, with completion scheduled by August 2011.

"This construction was a challenge," Rich Wagner, RCI project director, said. "There were a lot of cut and fill problems because Stony Lonesome I is built on a mountain, along with environmental issues and storm drain issues that popped up, so we had to scale it back a bit. But we all worked through the problems to complete phase one."

Wagner said there wasn't a lot of new construction at West Point because of the historical nature of the buildings and area, some homes built in the late 19th century. Balfour Beatty is renovating many of the historical homes and a ribbon cutting ceremony was held for the first completed home June 16, 2009. As of March, the renovation project completed 29 of 315 historical homes.