By Perry Vandell for The Arizona Republic
The Arrowhead BMW dealership Glendale landed last March comes with a $1.5M price tag to the city.
That’s because the city needs to carry its waterline across the Loop 101 freeway to the dealership and other expected businesses.
The Glendale City Council unanimously approved the deal. City staff say the work is necessary to continue growing on a strip of land within the city limits that’s just northwest of Union Hills Drive and the freeway.
Who Pays?
While the waterline is for future businesses west of Loop 101, Glendale is picking up most of the tab. Under the agreement, Glendale will pay just over $1.5M to connect the waterlines across the freeway. The BMW dealership’s developer, West Valley RE LLC, will pay $197K for the project and Beardsley Outer Loop LLC – the owner of a property to the north that is planned for commercial growth – will kick in $335,772.
The waterline’s cost is partly because the developments it will connect to are isolated from the rest of the city’s water system.
Getting the waterline across the 101 will not close the freeway or any lanes during construction, Assistant City Manager Jack Friedline said.
Arrowhead BMW Revving Up
Arrowhead BMW will be Glendale’s second luxury-car dealership, joining a Cadillac dealership that opened in 2013 on Bell Road. However, most of the area’s car dealerships are on a stretch of Bell Road near the 101 in Peoria.
The BMW dealership, 19250 N. 101 Loop, lags behind its originally announced schedule.
Mike Pacheco, director and real-estate manager for West Valley RE, expected to break ground on the project in August, but a celebratory groundbreaking wasn’t held until November.
Friedline said the last completion estimate he heard is for early fall.
The dealership was announced last year as a $30M project that would include a 75KSF-80KSF dealership on 14 acres.
The developer purchased the land from the city, which originally expected to put a park and ride on the site. The city will find another spot for the park and ride to allow for the commercial growth.
Possibly More Stores to the North
Extending the waterline across the freeway also will serve a strip of land north of the BMW dealership, bordering Beardsley Road and Loop 101.
Friedline said the landowners, Beardsley Outer Loop LLC and PDS Realty Company LLP, are talking with developers about potential shops and maybe an apartment complex, but didn’t have anything final to announce as of yet.
Read more at The Arizona Republic.
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