Author: BEX Staff

By Corina Vanek for Phoenix Business Journal  A developer of high-end extended stay hotels bought 4.5 acres of land in north Phoenix to develop the company’s first Arizona hotel property.  WaterWalk purchased the site at 19th Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road for $2.14M from the Alter Group. Trask Switzenberg and Chuck Wells of Kidder Mathews represented WaterWalk.  “The continued rapid expansion in the Deer Valley submarket, coupled with the site lying in an opportunity zone, led to our client’s confidence in moving forward with the transaction, even amidst the current economic climate,” said Switzenberg.  The site also includes a 0.75-acre retail pad that Switzenberg and Wells will also market.  Read more at Phoenix Business Journal. 

By Mark Cowling for Florence Reminder & Blade-Tribune  Florence Copper is a step closer to full-scale commercial production with state environmental regulators issuing a draft permit for public comment and scheduling a virtual public hearing for September 9th.  The company has been mining copper on a small scale for more than a year in a test phase. The company said in a statement that this testing period has confirmed “every production and environmental protection expectation” and the state’s draft permit “reflects that achievement.” The draft permit says the facility is in compliance with its existing permit.  The draft Aquifer Protection Permit will now undergo…

Source: Arizona Department of Transportation  The Arizona Department of Transportation has been granted environmental approval to continue moving forward with plans to improve two key corridors in the Tucson area.  ADOT issued a Finding of No Significant Impact after completing a Final Environmental Assessment for the Interstate 10/State Route 210 study in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. The Final Environmental Assessment includes comments from the community received during and after public meetings in 2018 and a public hearing in 2019. The document is posted at azdot.gov/i10sr210study.  The study reviewed two highways within the Tucson metro area:  I-10 from the I-10/I-19 interchange to Kolb Road  SR 210 (Barraza-Aviation Parkway)…

By Angela Gonzales for Phoenix Business Journal  In an effort to bring more affordable housing units to Arizona, a group of health care CEOs have gotten together to create a $100M fund to help finance these construction projects.  So far, Aetna, Dignity Health and UnitedHealthcare have committed $35M in below-market debt that can be used by this fund to support projects to increase the number of affordable housing units, said Joe Gaudio, CEO of the west region for United Healthcare Community & State.  Another $2M in charitable grant funding has been earmarked by several other health care providers, including Arizona Complete Health, Banner-University Health Plan, Care1st Health Plan Arizona, Health Choice Arizona, Magellan Complete Care of Arizona, Mercy Care,…

Progress Reports  1. Construction on La Quinta continues at John Wayne Parkway/Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard next to Copper Sky. The four-story building will have 89 rooms and occupy 56KSF. It is expected to employ 20.   2. The joint venture, Willmeng Construction Inc. and Fann Contracting, recently celebrated the topping out of the new 18KSF passenger terminal at Prescott Regional Airport Ernest A. Love Field. Final completion is expected in March 2021.   Completions  3. 7180 Optima Kierland opened the 12-story residential high-rise tower. The award-winning, green-building design created by David Hovey, Jr., AIA, president and principal architect of Optima.  4. The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office recently moved into the new six-floor office building that was formerly the site of…

By Rebekah Morris for AZBEX  Arizona is the location of many planned mega projects, each valued at $1B+ total construction cost. Perusing DATABEX for a current list reveals 27 such projects.   Come along as we recap the largest projects going on in the state. One caveat to mention upfront; Since BEX covers the commercial and infrastructure markets, single-family residential is specifically excluded. Also excluded are projects on hold or canceled.  Data Centers & Master Planned Campuses Prevalent  Looking at the types of projects on the list includes a heavy concentration of both master planned campuses and data centers. Data centers are typically valued at a very high capital investment, although most of…

Budget, Policy & Stimulus News  Phoenix Has $9M+ Left for Business Grants  With more than $9M still left sitting idle in a Phoenix grant program set up to help small businesses amid the COVID-19 pandemic, city officials are looking to expand its eligibility parameters to get more of the money moving out the door. The Phoenix Small Business Resiliency Grants Program was created with nearly $14M in funding from the CARES Act to help small businesses navigate through the coronavirus pandemic. (Source: Phoenix Business Journal)  Assistance Applications Open for Rental Property Owners  Applications are open for Arizona’s Rental Property Owner Preservation Fund, providing assistance to rental property owners across the state who…

By Shaq Davis for Arizona Daily Star  The Arizona Department of Transportation is in the early process of exploring partnerships that would lead to broadband conduit being installed along three interstate routes.  The department is following an initiative from Gov. Doug Ducey who announced in January that $50M in funding would help achieve 500 miles of broadband lines and fiber optic cabling along highway segments in rural areas of Arizona.  Ducey said these “Smart Highway Corridors” will “improve highway safety while providing future high-speed internet capacity for smart infrastructure projects in Arizona’s rural and tribal areas.”  To start, the installation would affect Interstate 19 between Tucson and Nogales; Interstate 17 between Sunset Point…

By Paul Maryniak for Ahwatukee Foothills News More than 18 months after homeowners in the 185-home Foothills Paseo II subdivision launched an effort to derail a plan for Quik Trip on 40th Street, the gas station giant appears all but certain to win. The city Planning Department is only a few weeks from giving final approval to the controversial project, according to spokeswoman Angie Holdsworth. “It looks like the project is waiting final site review,” she said. “Everything is ready to go pending the approval. It will probably take a couple weeks for that to be completed give or take.”…

Source: AZ Big Media  In the fourth monthly NAIOP survey measuring the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the commercial real estate industry, respondents say that deal activity is improving across most major sectors of the industry, but more now expect impacts from the crisis to affect their businesses for an additional 12-18 months.  “July continued a trend of positive growth in reported industrial, office and multifamily building acquisitions activity, with more respondents reporting having witnessed these deals than in previous months,” said NAIOP President and CEO Thomas J. Bisacquino.   The increase in building acquisitions activity was most notable for industrial properties, with 92.6 percent of respondents witnessing…