A home on this year’s Street of Dreams, in Wilsonville, shows how connected the future might be.

There is gigabit-speed Internet with a wireless network already installed and a dedicated, ventilated tech closet to keep the devices out of sight. Natural-gas ranges, ovens and cooktops are Wi-Fi enabled and remotely controllable. Brilliant-brand switches come with built-in Amazon Alexa assistance. Lights, TV, music and other tools can be controlled with three Brilliant panels located in the home, or on a Brilliant app on a smartphone or tablet.

The West Hills Homes Northwest home, at 6785 S.W. Primrose Court in the Stafford Meadow subdivision, shows how smart-home features can be integrated into a single-family structure. Similar technology is increasingly filtering down to multifamily buildings.

“We didn’t want to just throw technology at a home to throw technology at a home,” said John Cappuccio, chief information officer for West Hills Homes Northwest, a Portland-area development company led by Vic Remmers. “We wanted it to be in line with sustainability and be in line with the dĂ©cor.”

The irrigation system can even integrate the weather forecast to determine how much water to dispense.

As homes become smarter, developers, architects and contractors need to consider bringing in an Internet service provider before dirt has been moved on a project site, said Mike Duncan, sales engineer for Xfinity Communities, which wires multifamily buildings.

“Get us involved early, and then keep us involved throughout the process,” he said. “We can help a lot to anticipate things that can go sideways. It’s really in everybody’s interests – the developer, the architect, eventually the resident and of course ourselves – to have open communication.”

Wiring multifamily housing early in the rough-in stage is best, Duncan said.

“Often, we have to problem-solve for providing the various types of network throughout the structure,” he said. “A lot of times, the pathway for the network is not provided by the architect. Everybody wants to have ubiquitous Wi-Fi available throughout the structures. To do that, it requires advanced cabling (running) throughout the structures.”

A prewired multifamily building also brings the benefit of a “managed environment,” including Wi-Fi frequencies that are adjacent but compatible, Duncan said.

“The end result is you have much higher Wi-Fi performance than you would have in an unmanaged environment,” he said.

There’s also some evidence wired multifamily buildings will hold greater occupancy, Cappuccio said.

Another increasingly popular feature – electric charging stations for cars – requires a dedicated, wired connection in the garage.

The Street of Dreams home is far larger and pricier than the typical American home. It spans 4,127 square feet, with five bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms and a three-car garage. The asking price is $1.795 million.

The spread of connected devices also raises privacy questions. One of the defenses is notably low-tech: The Brilliant panels include a sliding plastic cover that can obscure the camera when desired. Yet hacking, data breaches and digital surveillance remain a concern for any Internet-enabled device. There are also practical concerns: Is it even a good idea to turn your range or oven on when you’re not home, and do you really need to?

Yet the march of home technology seems likely to continue unabated. It could also have benefits for aging seniors, who could use voice activation and other automated features to compensate for limited mobility and to get help in an emergency, Cappuccio said.

Automated features can also help reduce utility costs, Cappuccio said.

“We work so hard for our homes,” he said. “It’d be nice to see our homes work for us.”

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A suburban housing development called Findley Heights is looking to meet demand for high-end homes in Washington County for employees of growing companies such as Nike and Columbia Sportswear, and other major corporations such as Intel.

Findley Heights encompasses 81 buildable lots. That’s split between West Hills Homes Northwest, owned by Vic and Wally Remmers, and Arbor Homes, led by longtime home builder Dennis Sackhoff. Arbor has 41 lots, while West Hills Homes Northwest has 40.

The development is in unincorporated Washington County in the Bethany-Bonny Slope area, just north of Findley Elementary School. The highly rated area schools are a draw for buyers, Vic Remmers said.

Homes range from about $600,000 to $1.3 million.

Many buyers are moving up from smaller homes, said Jim Chapman, Arbor’s general manager. That, coupled with in-migration for professionals taking high-paying jobs in Washington County, is providing demand.

“There’s still very much a shortage of homes for the increase in population and jobs and so forth,” Chapman said. “But the whole region is made up of micro-markets.”

In suburban Washington County, Chapman said, “it’s very strong. We’re able to sell everything that we build. So we’re building at a very deliberate pace to match the labor that’s available.”

Both Arbor and West Hills Homes Northwest are dealing with the labor shortage that is slowing projects around the metro region.

“That’s a struggle a lot of home builders are dealing with right now, just having the manpower to get your housing built in a timely fashion,” Remmers said.

Both builders are using longtime subcontractors instead of trying to forge new relationships.

“We have a very professional and loyal contractor base, so we just work to maintain that and match their capabilities, rather than overcook it and wear them out,” Chapman said. “We’re doing essentially a house a week. If we tried to do five houses a month, we would struggle to make that happen.”

For Remmers, suburban single-family homes are a relatively new market. He created West Hills Homes Northwest in November 2015 to differentiate the product from his urban Portland offerings, which are built by another entity, Everett Custom Homes.

“It’s two different products we’re doing,” Remmers said. “We thought creating a different brand for this more suburban-type development would be effective.”

In addition to Findley Heights, Remmers recently built six homes in nearby Arbor Heights. All of those homes have sold. He’s also building 20 homes at North Bethany Creek. And at Norwest Cornell Road and 102nd Avenue, Remmers has built infrastructure in an 11-lot subdivision and plans to build homes this winter.

After several years developing homes in urban Portland, Remmers said working with Washington County was relatively simple.

“It’s dramatically easier to build out here,” Remmers said. “In the inner city, you’re building into existing infrastructure. The city of Portland permitting process is unbelievably different. It’s a night-and-day difference.”

In the Washington County suburbs, “you can definitely build more houses and get the permits in place and move forward faster,” he said.

North Bethany still has buildable parcels, and the massive South Hillsboro area is just getting off the ground.

“North Bethany has still got a fair amount of parcels left,” Chapman said. “There’s a little bit of relief out there, although they end up being expensive because the fees are high and the land is high and the cost of construction is high.”

In Portland, Remmers is close to finishing Hawthorne 31, a four-story apartment complex at Southeast 31st Avenue and Hawthorne Boulevard. A poke restaurant has signed on for part of the 4,000-square-foot retail space on the ground floor. That’s topped by 30 apartment units spread among three floors.

Remmers has faced criticism from some neighbors for his projects in historic areas such as Eastmoreland, where residents banded together to oppose a development that would have led to cutting towering sequoias.

Remmers is also developing a concept for affordably priced, market-rate condominium homes. Remmers is aiming to price the units at $299,000, a rarely seen price point in Portland, where single-family homes sold for a median price of $353,000 in August, according to RMLS, a real estate listing service.

“We’re trying to come up with some different ideas to build homes at a more affordable level,” Remmers said.

Remmers got into the development business through his father, longtime builder Wally Remmers. They remain partners in West Hills Homes Northwest and Everett Custom Homes. One of Vic’s brothers, Lee, is a project superintendent. Another brother, Mike Remmers, is an NFL football player for the Carolina Panthers. Vic Remmers himself played basketball at Oregon State University.

He said he enjoys working with his family on projects. “It’s fun to get to work with my dad and my brother every day,” he said.

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Residential developer Vic Remmers said he’s going forward with plans to build 40 homes in unincorporated Washington County even though Intel is preparing to lay off nearly 800 workers.

Remmers’ West Hills Homes Northwest will construct the Findley Heights development on Northwest Saltzman Road. The homes are expected to be priced from $600,000 to more than $900,000; the market in part serves Intel’s well-compensated employees.

Intel announced in late April it would let go at least 784 employees in the Portland area as part of a transition away from PCs and toward cloud computing and connected devices.

“We’re still going full steam ahead,” Remmers said. “It’s very unfortunate to see (layoffs) happening, but there’s still a lot of positive things going on in that area with Nike and other companies that hire a lot of these people.”

Findley Heights borders Findley Elementary School at 4155 N.W. Saltzman Road. West Hills Homes Northwest is using its in-house construction operation. Ground was broken on the development in late April.

The homes will be 2,800 to 4,000 square feet.

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Vic Remmers‘ West Hills Homes Northwest has broken ground on a 40-home development in the Bethany-Bonny Slope area in Northwest Portland.

Homes will go on sale once the first model is completed this summer, the company said in a news release.

The development, named Findley Heights, borders Findley Elementary School at 4155 N.W. Saltzman Road. West Hills Homes Northwest is using its in-house construction operation.

Remmers said he decided to go forward with the project because of the Washington County neighborhood’s desirability and the lack of similarly priced new homes in the area. Expanding employment at companies including Nike and Intel also supports the project, Remmers said.

“The healthy employment base in Washington County has definitely increased the demand for homes of a certain price range and quality in this area,” he said in an email.

The homes will be 2,800 to 4,000 square feet. Remmers said he expects prices to range from $600,000 to more than $900,000.

“The limited inventory of new homes of this caliber and price point in this area was especially exciting as we determined our building location,” he said. “The proximity to Findley Elementary School was also a huge draw for our West Hills Homes Northwest team, and will continue to be a huge draw for future families looking to settle down in the neighborhood.”

Remmers also owns Everett Custom Homes, a Beaverton-based business that builds exclusively in Portland. An Everett project in Eastmoreland sparked a tree-sitting protest last summer over plans to cut down mature sequoia trees.

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