Bulldozers are busy plowing land for apartment buildings off County Route 202 in the town of Watertown that are being developed by Morgan Management, Pittsford.

Construction on the four-year project, to be called the Preserve at Autumn Ridge, kicked off three weeks ago at the 68.8-acre site, where 60 buildings with a total of 394 apartments will be built. Excavation on the first 15 acres is being completed at the southeast corner of the site.

Workers soon will start a 24,000-square-foot clubhouse near the entrance, where the first six apartment buildings are to be built. They also are completing groundwork for an 8-acre parcel for future commercial development north of Sam’s Club.

After infrastructure and road work are finished this fall, the first apartment buildings likely will be completed and ready to rent by spring, said Thomas L. Hokenson, project manager for general contractor DGA Builders, Rochester. The two-floor buildings each will have five to seven apartments with one to three bedrooms.

This fall, workers will install a sewer line at the southwest corner where the main entrance near the clubhouse will be. That sewer line will connect to a pump station operated by the Development Authority of the North Country outside the northeast section of the property.

Once the first six buildings are finished next spring and summer, an additional 18 buildings on the southern end of the property will be built to complete the project’s first phase. A portion of an 1,800-foot entrance road for those buildings, Autumn Ridge Lane, will be built this fall to link to the clubhouse and first six buildings.

Mr. Hokenson said apartments for each building will be leased by the developer as they are completed. If all goes according to plan, the first 24 buildings could be done by the end of 2013.

“Getting the first houses built will be our primary objective this winter,” Mr. Hokenson said. “But we’re going to continue to build after each house is turned over.”

By design, workers will complete 15 acres of earthwork at a time for each section of the project, said Eric T. Hoppins, foreman for subcontractor Pooler Enterprises, Fishers. By rotating work to different sections of the property, residents who move in won’t be near ongoing construction in the coming years.

“We’re going to work around the people who are moving in,” Mr. Hoppins said.

Morgan Management entered into a 10-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes agreement engineered by the Jefferson County Industrial Development Agency. Morgan will pay 50 percent of full taxation for those 10 years, which will be divided among the three taxing jurisdictions that approved the PILOT — Jefferson County, the town of Watertown and the Watertown City School District. Morgan will begin paying the full amount in property taxes — about $464,000 — in year 11, and increases on the property’s assessment will be capped at 1 percent per year for years 11 through 15.

Architecture and engineering work for the project was completed by GYMO Architecture, Engineering & Land Surveying, Watertown.

A call seeking comment from Morgan Management CEO Robert C. Morgan was not returned Tuesday.

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