Author: BEX Staff

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX If you are an AZBEX Digital magazine subscriber (and if you’re not, you should be), you’ll see “Volume 13, Issue 51” in the top right corner of this issue. That means this is the first issue of the second half of our 13th publication year. While it’s undeniably an exercise in vanity to look back at our own work over the last six months/50 issues, we think it’s also as useful period as any to stop and take a temperature reading of the Arizona A/E/C market. If you’re anything like me, you suffered through the…

Property owner Meridian West Development is planning a new mixed-use development on an approximately 50-acre site at the SWC of Arizona Avenue and Pecos Road in Chandler. The site is one of the city’s few remaining vacant and undeveloped parcels. Plans for the project – named The District Downtown – include: 364KSF of office,Eight retail buildings,A 189KSF/180-room hotel,800 multifamily units,Two mixed-use buildings,4KSF of restaurant space, andParking garages. As currently planned, the tallest building would be a six-story office structure. Given sufficient demand, however, that height could expand as high as 120 feet. The current office plan calls for two, two-story…

Dermody Properties’ $1.5B, 10MSF vision for the 961-acre LogistiCenter at Copperwing industrial park master plan continues to move closer to reality. The 1.75MSF, 108-acre LogistiCenter at Copperwing Phase 1 site plan review request was scheduled before the El Mirage Planning and Zoning Commission this week and will go to City Council next month. Plans call for four buildings of between 282KSF and 659.7KSF. Elsewhere in the development area, LGE Design Build/Group is planning and will build a 1.2MSF speculative warehouse for owner G3 Enterprises to be known as G3 at Copperwing. Located at the SWC of Dysart Road and Peoria…

By Associated Builders and Contractors Associated Builders and Contractors reported its Construction Backlog Indicator fell 0.2 months in July and stands at 8.7 months, according to an ABC member survey conducted July 20th to August 3rd. The reading is up 0.2 months from July 2021. While backlog is 0.3 months lower than the May 2022 peak, it remains higher than at any point between March 2020 and March 2022. Backlog rose sharply in the south, which continues to be the highest of any region. Notably, backlog decreased by 1.2 months for contractors with less than $30M in annual revenue. …

Groundbreakings 1. Clayco has begun broken ground on the 584KSF, four-building Power Industrial development at the SEC of Pecos and Power roads in Mesa. The project was designed by DLR Group. 2. VanTrust Real Estate, LLC has started work on VT 202 – a 181KSF industrial development on 12.1 acres along 59th Avenue, between Buckeye and Lower Buckeye roads. 3. DPMG Galveston, LLC has started construction on its 86.3KSF office/warehouse Chandler Corporate Industrial Center II project in Chandler. The development is planned for completion in first quarter of 2023. Progress Reports 4. Despite Phase I finishing early, the Arizona Department…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX Rider Levett Bucknall’s National Construction Cost Index kept climbing in the second quarter, growing to 234.42, versus 228.93 in Q1. In Q2 2017 the Index stood at 182.16 and climbed steadily to 208.96 in Q2 2020. Because of the pandemic, the index remained largely flat until Q1 2021 when it began climbing from its then-rate of 211.90. By Q2 2021, the rate accelerated, continuing to hook upward on through the end of this June. The firm notes that the U.S. quarterly national average construction cost increase is approximately 2.4%, compared to 7.5% year-over-year. On a…

Heritage Place at Litchfield Square is the first planned commercial development under the city’s master-planned city center. The 26-acre Litchfield Square site – formerly called the Litchfield Park City Center – already has plans in place for parking garages, and infrastructure improvements in support of the development are partially completed, with one phase under construction and another planned for completion this December. The new mixed-use development will feature approximately 40KSF of total build area spread across multiple buildings on the north side of the site. Plans include 18KSF of office, 8KSF of restaurant space and 14KSF of retail. The two-story…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX Fresh on the heels of the August Leading Market Series event on Advanced Manufacturing, BEX Research staff has uncovered plans for a new 1.3MSF data center as part of the Hermosa Ranch Technology Park Master Plan. The 308.9-acre master plan site, located south of the SWC of Avondale Blvd. and Lower Buckeye Road, is currently going through review for a Planned Area Development rezoning and General Plan Amendment. According to the submitted narrative for Hermosa Ranch Technology Campus – South, where the data center will be located, “The Property is currently zoned PAD as part…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX A vacant office development on 6.74 acres at the SWC of Lincoln and 5th streets in downtown Phoenix is poised for redevelopment into a 356-unit multifamily development under a proposal from Trinsic Residential Group. According to the submitted project narrative, the site is currently occupied by a 62.9KSF office development and a surface parking lot. The two-story Lincoln Union office space was an adaptive reuse project that transformed an earlier warehouse in January 2020. Tenant improvements were completed in February 2021 on roughly 11.6KSF as a model office to showcase the building’s potential for prospective…

Following roughly six months of research, representatives of consulting firm Thomas P. Miller and Associates recently presented Yuma City Council with an overview of its examination into what industries would be a good fit for the City’s economic development goals. The study was funded by Arizona Public Service and examined various industries and subsectors that could best align with Yuma’s assets and long-term goals. Among the examination criteria were growth potential, the opportunity to diversify in the community and the potential impact various industries could have on the regional economy. Representatives said they wanted companies and industries that were on…