Author: BEX Staff

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX – BEXCLUSIVE Water is the only outside consumable allowed in the auditorium at the Arizona Heritage Center in Tempe. Attendees of the initial session of BEX’s 2024 Construction Activity Forecast event this week wouldn’t have noticed, as they were hit with firehose-sized volumes of data from Minute 1. Following the format and structure attendees have come to know and love, BEX Founder and President Rebekah Morris welcomed the audience and then launched into her ever-engaging overview of historical and current economic and construction market conditions, with current rates of change and quickfire causal explanations that…

By BEX Staff for AZBEX Plans to bring Arizona’s first Buc-ee’s retail and travel center to a 71-acre property at the SEC of Interstate 10 and Bullard Avenue in Goodyear moved a step closer to reality last week when the Goodyear Planning and Zoning Commission voted to recommend a rezoning request for the site. Media reports say the west side of the property would feature a 75.4KSF Buc-ee’s retail store with a service station. Buc-ee’s is a popular chain across the south, particularly in Texas, and offer large footprint retail/convenience stores with a wider array of products and services than…

By Home Matters Arizona Fund and Home Matters to Arizona The Home Matters Arizona Fund, an innovative funding resource formed by Arizona healthcare leaders and Home Matters to Arizona to increase attainable housing in the state and ultimately improve health outcomes, has announced new funding. Four projects in Flagstaff, Phoenix, Tempe, and Tucson will receive a total of $2M. Since 2020, the Home Matters Arizona Fund has provided $10.3M through 24 grants. The Fund addresses Arizona’s rising affordability crisis while paying attention to the role of social determinants of health and housing as a quality of life issue. Housing built…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX As promised, the Goldwater Institute has filed a lawsuit against the City of Phoenix arising from the City’s recent institution of a prevailing wage for construction workers on most City projects. AZBEX has reported extensively on the movement to pass prevailing wage ordinances around the state. Our most recent coverage is available here, here and here. Phoenix’s ordinance sets a required pay rate equivalent to union labor rates based on workers’ positions as defined under an expanded version of the federal Davis-Bacon Act. Multiple industry groups, including Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Association…

Awards & Accolades 1. Estrella Welcome Center revitalization project is a finalist for the Gold Award in the Best Community Welcome Center category in the National Association of Home Builders’ “The National Awards 2024” competition. The project earned a Silver Award for being an NAHB finalist and is a collaborative effort led by Claudia Sieb of The Sieb Organization and the team from Creative License International. Groundbreakings 2. Strata Clean Energy broke ground on the $500M Scatter Wash battery-storage complex in Phoenix that will feature 312 batteries. The complex is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025.…

Since City Council passed the Housing Phoenix Plan in 2022, Phoenix’s plan to improve the local affordable housing landscape by selling or leasing City-owned parcels has had successes, but more work and opportunities remain. Approximately 20 properties were identified under the initial plan as possible new housing locations. Sites were chosen because they were suitable for housing development and not planned for other uses, according to Deputy Housing Director Samantha Keating. One project has gone through the process so far. Council approved plans from Richman Group of Arizona for a two-phase development next to the Helen Drake Senior Center at…

In the mounting fight between police and military equipment manufacturer Axon and residents opposed to its plans for a multi-use campus in north Scottsdale, Axon took an early blow last week. The Scottsdale Airport Advisory Commission unanimously voted to deny a recommendation of the company’s rezoning request for a more than 1.5MSF mixed-use master plan corporate campus at the NEC of Hayden Road and Mayo Blvd. Commissioners expressed concern that the planned hotel and nearly 2,000 apartments included in the plan could eventually create enough complaints to threaten operations at Scottsdale Airport. Axon originally purchased the land and announced plans…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX For the first time in many residents’ lifetimes, metro Phoenix is poised to deliver nearly enough multifamily units to meet annual demand. Having spent several years where units delivered equaled around half the number needed to meet demand in any given 12-month calendar cycle, the massive spike in demand during and after the pandemic, coupled with still exceptionally low-interest rates, finally fueled developers to start churning dirt and building in significant volumes. Earlier this month, RealPage Analytics reported that 2023 multifamily deliveries would come in at nearly 440,000 across the U.S. After sitting between 8,000…

WinCo Foods is planning its eighth metro Phoenix location. The 24-hour grocery store company will build an 85.7KSF store in Goodyear at Pebble Creek Marketplace. WinCo has owned 10 acres in the 50-acre retail and commercial area since 2014, when it bought the site for $3.1M. Company officials said the project is expected to break ground soon and should open later this year. The company’s last new Phoenix area store opened in Surprise in 2015, joining other locations in Phoenix, Glendale, Chandler and Mesa. (Source)

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX Arizona’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was unchanged from November to December, remaining at 4.3%, according to the latest report published by the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity. The national unemployment rate was also unchanged month-to-month at 3.7%. Last December, Arizona had a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.0%, while the national rate was 3.5%. The Construction sector lost 600 jobs around the state last month. Arizona had a gain of 8,100 jobs in nonfarm employment in November. “Prior to the pandemic (2010-2019), NSA nonfarm employment gained 5,600 jobs on average in December,” the report states. The…