New theme park to help consumers with home building, remodeling

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- If you are in the market to build a home or just remodel the one you have now, a new theme park may be the thing for you.

It does not have roller coasters or cotton candy, instead it features a dozen homes of various designs that will help people navigate the process of starting a project.

If you are building or remodeling a home, you know just how difficult it can be making all of the decisions without being able to see the fridge or floors or granite in front of you as they would look in your home. But that may change soon.

If you know what you are doing, browsing the aisles at the Habitat for Humanity restore can turn up some real bargains. Just ask Vicky Rocher.

"I happen to know that these are normally about $250 a piece. They are $40 here. I am getting the matching one and they are 25 percent off today," said Rocher.

But if you can't make up your mind unless you see a color combination for yourself then this is new home project site off of I-45 North could be for you.

"What we have designed is a place the consumer can come and move their project along from what we call vision to action," said James Babineaux, VP of Marketing for Main Street America.

This collection of 12 homes is intended to give people ideas for building a home or remodeling an existing house.

"These homes will never be sold and never lived in, these homes will be used as a perpetual demonstration site," said Babineaux.

If you want to buy something, no problem. Visitors will be able to scan an RFID chip with a tablet computer to learn more about the product or add it to their cart. Shoppers can add entire rooms or buy individual pieces of furniture.

"You can literally scan the tag of furniture within the context of the home, get the information on that particular piece of furniture and literally buy that piece of furniture while you are here," Babineaux said.

The builder of these homes hopes to generate enough business to make the venture profitable. A strong rebound in the local housing market has developers optimistic their Main Street America idea will be a success.

"We want this to be a place where people come, get the information they need and then go out and do those projects," Babineaux told us.

The home theme park will be open in a couple of weeks. They have everything from a beach house to an ultramodern townhouse sitting side by side. There will be an entrance fee similar to what you would pay to get into the home show.

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action13, jeff ehling

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