Author: BEX Staff

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange Arizona’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate nudged upward in January to 4.8 percent, up from 4.7 percent in December, according to the latest report published by the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity. The national rate remained steady at 4.1 percent. Twelve months ago, the state had a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.2 percent, and the national was at 4.8. It should be noted that every year before the January numbers are published, the Current Employment Statistics program revises prior estimates by incorporating material from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages to achieve a…

By Tasha Anderson for Arizona Builder’s Exchange Around 100 people gathered in the ballroom at the DoubleTree by Hilton on Friday, March 9 for the AZBEX inaugural Leading Market Series event, eager to learn what’s going on in the higher education market. The Leading Market Series is a new monthly event that focuses on a specific market sector and brings in top owners for a panel discussion on what they have in the works. “So each month, we want to hear from owners – market sector by market sector – kind of loosely alternating public and private, but we really…

By Jane Stewart and Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange Once Phoenix’s most notorious red-light district, a section of Van Buren Street now has the green light for a supportive housing development. Cardinal Capital Management | AHI has submitted a rezoning request, via Architectural Resources Team, for 2.21 acres located at the SWC of 29th Street and Van Buren Street. This vacant parcel is currently zoned as C-3 (General Commercial) and R-5 (Multifamily Residence District). The request is to rezone to “WU Code (Walkable Urban Core) T5:3 GWY (Transect 5:3 Gateway Character Area) to allow multi-family housing.” The project, El…

Sales Transactions 1. DiamondRock Hospitality Company announced that it has acquired the Kimpton Hotel Palomar, a lifestyle boutique hotel in downtown Phoenix. The purchase price is $80M, or $331K/key. 2. JLL’s Capital Markets team announced the company completed the sale of the Living Spaces Showroom and Distribution Center in Phoenix. JLL represented Living Spaces, which sold the 437KSF, Class A industrial asset to Cohen Asset Management. Mark Detmer, Bo Mills and Ryan Sitov led the JLL team on the sale. They worked with JLL Retail’s Scott Kaplan and Erik Westedt. JLL declined to provide a sales price, but unconfirmed media reports cited a…

By Jesse A. Millard for AZ Big Media Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton touted the most recent milestone reached on a $200M ASU-Mayo Health Solutions Innovation Center during his final State of the City Address Tuesday. The Phoenix City Council recently approved $9M to help pave the way for the ASU-Mayo facility that will house researchers working on healthcare innovations. “Up north, on the Arizona Biomedical Corridor, I couldn’t be more excited for the future,” Stanton said. “I spoke about the possibilities I saw in my first address as mayor. And today, the Phoenix-ASU-Mayo Clinic partnership is taking shape.” Stanton also…

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange For years we’ve been bombarded with news reports – I may have even written one of two of them – about the mind shift away from enclosed work areas to free-flowing, flexible, collaborative spaces fulfilling office workers’ desire for community and holistic interaction. That certainty has been one of, if not the, major influencers in office space design – as well as a major source of intergenerational cultural misunderstandings and friction – in recent memory. A recent survey suggests it may be also be pretty close to dead wrong. CRE blog COMMERCIAL Café…

By Jane Stewart for Arizona Builder’s Exchange At their January 18 meeting, the City of Avondale’s Planning Commission heard presentations from applicant/architect Robert Lepore of RLepore Architecture, LLC to rezone three parcels of property, totaling 7.71 gross acres, located approximately 144 feet west of the NWC of Lower Buckeye Road and 4th Street. The application is to rezone the parcels from the current MH (Manufactured Home Park) to A-1 (General Industrial) to accommodate a future recreational vehicle and mini-storage facility. The presentation also included the application of a Conditional Use Permit of the same area. For mini-storage facilities to be…

Awards & Accolades 1. AZ Big Media announced its finalists for the annual Real Estate & Development (RED) Awards. The full list and event information are available here. 2. OdySea Aquarium has been named Best Sports/Entertainment Project for 2017 by ENR Southwest. Groundbreakings 3. Scottsdale-based 1784 Capital Holdings, LLC, has broken ground on its most recent Class A self-storage facility at 11061 N. Oracle Rd. in Oro Valley. The $10M development will be managed by LifeStorage. 4. Construction is slated to begin this month on the 157-room Element hotel in Scottsdale’s SkySong, the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center complex near Scottsdale Road…

By Jane Stewart for Arizona Builder’s Exchange A rezoning request went before the City of Mesa’s Planning and Zoning Board for Ray Road Commerce Center, a proposed industrial park that would sit on a 56-acre parcel located east of Power Road on the north side of Ray Road. Applicant Omar Cervantes, of XCL Engineering, LLC, made the request on behalf of the owner, Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport 193, LLC for this vacant parcel that “is bound by Santan Freeway – Loop 202 to the north, the Roosevelt Water Conservation District Canal to the west, Ray Road and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport to…

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange Defense contractor and aerospace firm Orbital ATK is planning an expansion and site improvements at its Gun Systems facility in Mesa, near Greenfield Road and Loop 202 Red Mountain Freeway. According to documents submitted to the city by Deutsch Architecture Group on behalf of Orbital ATK Gun Systems Company, LLC, the core of the project will be construction of a new 36KSF production and warehouse building. Other improvements will be the creation of new 8-foot CMU walls to the north of the new building and on the eastern property line, replacing chain link…