Author: BEX Staff

Giving Back 1. Cookie Drive Collects 11,831 Cookies for Phoenix Children’s Hospital Kids – LSW Engineers Arizona, Inc. partnered with architectural firms Arrington Watkins, DWL, and triARC during a month-long cookie drive to collect 11,831 cookies for young patients at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital. LSW hosted a packing party on August 23rd to wrap two cookies in Ziploc bags to hand out to the young patients at PCH. LSW Engineers, AWA, DWL and triArc believe that kids deserve a special treat and donated many bags of sweet treats to PCH kids. Boards & Appointments 2. Karen Gaylord, the lead partner with…

Sales Transactions 1. The JW Marriott Desert Ridge has sold a record of $602M. Trinity Real Estate Investments and Elliott Management Corp purchased the North Phoenix property and plan a multi-million dollar renovation to guest spaces including rooms, meeting spaces and restaurants. The Blackstone Group out of New York sold the property. 2. Coastal Ridge Real Estate, along with iStar Financial, have purchased and leased back the Sterling 920 Terrace in Tempe for $115M. Built by the Dinerstein Companies in 2018, the 775-room student housing complex is situated near ASU on S. Terrace Drive. 3. The McDowell Mountain Business Park…

By Tasha Anderson for AZBEX A new multifamily residential development is being proposed for the SWC of 19th Avenue and Alameda Road in North Phoenix. The Related Group, the owner of the unnamed 461KSF apartment complex project, is requesting to rezone the approximately 20.06 acres from Light Industrial to Multifamily Residence. The Related Group wants to build a 396-unit apartment community comprised of a mix of 22 studio, 158 one-bedroom, 172 two-bedroom and 44 three-bedroom dwelling units. The development will be split into 20 separate two- to three-story buildings. According to the city’s staff report, “Staff is recommending that the…

By Nick Serpa for Chamber Business News As more and more companies continue to expand their operations in Tempe  – such as State Farm, which recently announced its intention to hire an additional 1,100 employees at its offices near Tempe Town Lake – City of Tempe officials have reason to believe that Tempe’s growth spurt isn’t about to end anytime soon. According to Ambika Adhikari, a Principal Planner at the City of Tempe’s Community Development Department, the city’s annual population growth averages between 1.5 and 2 percent, or roughly 3,000 new residents per year. If that trend continues, with a…

By Richard H. Dyer for Apache Junction Independent Voters in a November 5th election will consider authorizing Apache Junction Unified School District to issue and sell $60M in school-improvement bonds and exceed its budget by the lesser of $2M or 10 percent of its revenue control limit. The district’s first override passed in 1999 and was renewed in 2003. Further votes failed in May 2007 and November 2007, 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2015. At the last election, voters denied the proposed increase of up to 15 percent to the district’s maintenance and operations budget. The override would have raised approximately…

Groundbreakings 1. ViaWest Group has kicked off major renovations at 200 EVB, an office building purchased late last year located at 200 E. Van Buren, Phoenix. The building’s Third Street parking garage is also undergoing an LED retrofit and the addition of an improved parking system. 2. The University of Arizona (UA) broke ground on a new incubator focused on bioscience startups on September 4th. The incubator, UA Center for Innovation at Oro Valley, located at the UA Tech Park at Rita Road, will provide space and business incubation programs for nascent life science businesses to develop their technology and…

By Tasha Anderson for AZBEX The Avondale City Council approved an amendment to an existing development deal at its August 26th meeting for the 163-acre Parkside Village site at the SWC of Indian School Road and 99th Avenue. According to the city staff report, “The proposed amendment will redefine infrastructure improvements… modify the timing for completion of those infrastructure improvements and remove time sensitive elements of the existing agreement that are no longer available.” The project, called Parkside Village is proposed as a master-planned community comprised of 415 single-family residential homes on 4,500-6,500 square-foot lots and 247 single-family “villas” to…

By Wayne Schutsky for Scottsdale Progress The days are numbered for the dilapidated, yet memorable pueblo-style buildings that make up the old Papago Plaza as a local developer prepares to demolish the structures to make way for a new mixed-use development. Pivot Development President Lee Mashburn, who has owned the property since 2015, said demolition should begin at some point in September with construction on the first phase slated to start in January 2020. The first phase of Papago Marketplace, which will go before the development review board on September 5, will include three commercial buildings and a four-story parking…

By Gary Nelson for East Valley Tribune Faced with the prospect of further explosive growth in the Southeast Valley, Mesa and Queen Creek are hustling to build two major roadways that will connect with a future extension the State Route 24 freeway. The cities have agreed to design and build Meridian and Signal Butte roads northward from where they now stop in Queen Creek to the freeway, creating two new major north-south routes in the area. Building the two roads is a cooperative effort not only with Mesa but also with Pinal County and private developers, said Troy White, director…

By Corina Vanek for Phoenix Business Journal The Scottsdale Planning Commission agreed to recommend the City Council approve a proposed mixed-use development that spans several sites along the Old Town Scottsdale canal at its meeting Thursday afternoon. Carter Unger, president of Scottsdale-based Spring Creek Development, took on his father’s legacy project after his father, Fred Unger, passed away from cancer in 2018. The project, which will likely cost over $700M, is called SouthBridge 2.0 and would include 412KSF of commercial space, including 170KSF of office, 570 residential units and 200 hotel rooms, according to documents submitted to the city. The…