Author: BEX Staff

Sales Transactions 1. An investment management company has acquired a portfolio of 18 self-storage properties in the Southwest for $266.2M. The portfolio was sold by a joint venture of Wentworth Property Company and an institutional equity investor. Six of the properties are in greater Phoenix. The buyer for this off-market transaction was procured by Tom Gustafson of Colliers’ National Self Storage team in Cleveland, Ohio. John Smeck and Alix Hanna with Colliers Arizona worked with Eastdil Secured’s NYC office (Grant Frankel, Adam Licari, John Caraviello and Lucas Blumenfeld) to arrange $160M in financing for the buyer.  2. Cushman & Wakefield…

The Mesa Design Review Board met last month to discuss the layout and landscaping plan for Legacy Gateway Self Storage, a proposed 153.4KSF facility on Ellsworth Road south of SR 24. The development will be a single three-story structure with an aluminum storefront, painted stucco and concrete masonry. Plans also call for both covered and uncovered RV parking and storage. The site is currently situated in Maricopa County, but an annexation request is included along with a rezoning to light industrial. The project will be developed by Levine Investments Limited Partnership on land owned by Mesa BA Land LLC, which…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX From Founder and President Rebekah Morris down through the entire Research, Editorial and Support staff, the crew at BEX Companies proudly self-identifies as “Data Geeks”. The annual Construction Activity Forecast Event is our time to shine and show off the extreme (some might even say excessive) volume of data we’ve put together over the year and compare it to the previous year’s output and result. For our 2023 event(s), 365 attendees registered to drink from the data firehose and soak up as much information as they could in a whirlwind two-hour presentation by Morris and…

The Prescott City Council has approved a site plan and water allocation appeal for Palmer Apartments, a proposed 209-unit residential development on 14 vacant acres at the SWC of Gateway Blvd. and Palmer Lane. The site lies between Gateway Mall and a single-family subdivision. Palmer Apartments will feature eight three-story and two two-story buildings, as well as a pool, community center, mail center and dog grooming area. Council discussed the proposal in its December meeting. The project’s requested water allocation of 29 acre-feet exceeded the City’s entire 25 acre-feet 2023 allocation. Under Prescott’s water policy, individual projects cannot be approved…

Phoenix officials are working on a pilot program to introduce water efficiency regulations on new developments as part of the rezoning process. The new regulations could become part of the City code by the fall. Planning staff is meeting with development stakeholders to determine the best practices that arise from those stipulations and plan to propose a code amendment this summer. Single-family residential is the largest water user by category, according to City officials, with a volume totaling slightly more than half of Phoenix’s total use. A third of the total comes from outdoor water use. When multifamily and single-family…

By Associated Builders and Contractors The construction industry had 413,000 job openings in December, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. JOLTS defines a job opening as any unfilled position for which an employer is actively recruiting. Industry job openings increased by 82,000 for the month and are up by 54,000 from December 2021. “The number of open construction jobs surged at the end of 2022,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “The 5% of industrywide positions that were unfilled in December is the…

Awards & Accolades 1. Achen-Gardner Construction was presented with a Build Arizona Award from the Arizona Chapter Associated General Contractors of America for its ZONE 1 Transmission Main Assessment and Rehabilitation CMAR project for the Town of Gilbert. The project consists of removing and replacing sections totaling more than 270 feet of large diameter bar-wrapped concrete cylinder pipe and more than 30 valves in a critical water transmission main. Groundbreakings 2. South Pier Tempe Holdings LLC (McBride-Cohen Management Group), has started construction on South Pier Phase I, part of the $1.8B South Pier at Tempe Town Lake master plan. Phase…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX A new developer has stepped up to try to breathe life into one of Peoria’s most troubled redevelopment sites. The City had battled for years to condemn and demolish a long-vacant Smitty’s store located at Grand Avenue near 85th Avenue. After finally clearing the old building, developer SJ Acquisitions came forward with a plan for a mixed-use apartment and commercial development known as Grand Commons. The original plan was to include 18KSF of retail and up to 220 apartments. In exploring potential users for the site, however, the developer found no interest in the retail…

An Arizona Court of Appeals panel has ruled the $1.8B South Pier at Tempe Town Lake project can go to the ballot for voter approval. The proposed project on empty City-owned land on Vista Del Lago Drive has been embroiled in controversy since it was approved by Tempe City Council last March. A group known as Central Arizonans for a Sustainable Economy collected petitions to send the plan to voters after complaining the project does not include any affordable housing units and alleging there was insufficient public participation in the review process. South Pier at Tempe Town Lake is a…

Multiple Tower Projects Possible Downtown By Roland Murphy for AZBEX Partly because of its proximity to the airport, partly because there has always been land to build out horizontally, and partly for any number of other reasons, the Phoenix skyline has never boasted the soaring height and volume of towers that other large cities can claim. That has evolved, somewhat, in recent years. While the physical limitations of wood framing have kept the vast majority of development, particularly in multifamily, in the low-rise realm, the last decade has provided the landscape with a healthy dotting of mid-rise—up to 12 floors…