Author: Roland Murphy

Hines is requesting a rezoning from Rural Residential (RR) to Medium (R-2) and High Density (R-3) Residential for a roughly 199-acre site of undeveloped desert land east of 163rd Avenue and Jomax Road in Surprise. Rezoning will enable the development of Nobella, a mixed residential project of traditional single-family, single-family for rent and Build-to-Rent homes. As currently envisioned, the plan calls for 479 R-2 and 418 R-3 lots. The project narrative accompanying the request shows the plan fits with the City’s 2035 General Plan. It says, “The General Plan’s Anticipated Growth Map shows where growth is likely and encouraged to…

ViaWest Group is proposing to build a 1.96MSF, 15-building project known as The Base Industrial Park on 175.27 acres in Glendale. The Glendale Planning Commission heard the requests this week. Results were not available at press time. The site is located at north of the NWC of Bethany Home and Litchfield Roads and is currently owned by Airpark 30 LLC. The project narratives submitted by Gilmore Planning & Landscape Architecture refer to ViaWest as the developer and future owner. For planning and development purposes, the site has been divided into an 84.6-acre North and a 60.7-acre South section. The requests…

Arizona’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased to 3.2% in April, down from 3.3% in March, according to the latest report published by the Arizona Office of Economic Opportunity. The national rate remained unchanged at 3.6%. In April 2021, the state had a seasonally adjusted rate of 5.6%, and the national was 6.0%. The state had a net gain of 13,100 non-farm jobs over the month. “Prior to the pandemic, nonfarm employment averaged a gain of 9,500 jobs in April (2010-2019),” the report states. The private sector gained 9,600 in April, led by gains of 5,500 in Leisure & Hospitality. After…

Woodbury Corporation has filed a first submittal with the City of Phoenix for a Planned Unit Development that would revitalize and redevelop an aging retail plaza on 9.2 acres near the NWC of Thunderbird and Scottsdale Roads. The request seeks to rezone site’s various commercial designations under a PUD “to allow for reinvestment and the redevelopment of the aging center into a thriving, mixed-use development with retail, restaurants, residential and services uses designed around amenity spaces and the overall pedestrian experience,” according to the submitted narrative. The PUD request applies only to the northern portion of the site, a 16-acre…

D.R. Horton is looking to build a mixed residential community of 1,145 single-family homes, 260 multifamily units and 140 Build-to-Rent casitas on 418 gross acres of unimproved desert land southwest of the SWC of Cave Creek and Jomax Roads in Phoenix. Stone Butte East is planned as a direct continuation the Stone Butte development southwest of the planned site and nearly mirrors its setup and layout. Planned in three phases, the Stone Butte East plan calls for building all the multifamily and casita units in Phase I, along with 317 detached single-family homes of various sizes. Phase II will deliver…

Project, Process Became a Test Case for Revitalization vs. NIMBY After a nearly two-year struggle, multiple revisions and accommodations to neighborhood and regulatory resistance, abundant mis- and disinformation, and its emergence as a poster child representative of the ongoing reformative development versus the forces of Not In My Back Yard, a highly revised and scaled back version of the Greenbelt 88 mixed-use proposal to revitalize a dying shopping center at Hayden and Osborn roads in Scottsdale gained approval from the City Council this week. Having run thousands-upon-thousands of words here about the project’s details and the resulting fight in at…

By Roland Murphy for AZBEX Eight new multifamily developments totaling 611 units were recommended for Phoenix City Council funding approval under the federal HOME Investment Partnerships Program by the Council’s Economic Development and Equity Subcommittee in its meeting Wednesday morning. The $7.75M in requests were part of the Subcommittee’s consent agenda. Council has discretion to loan and disburse up to $8M from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the program. Each of the eight projects has at least a portion of its unit count designated as affordable. Only two of the projects are sufficiently far along in…

Another BEX Private Development Summit is in the books. Given the far-flung challenges and wide-ranging sets of issues affecting the sector this year – from the years-long labor shortage, to the ongoing (and mounting) supply chain/materials issues, to the more recent specters of increasing inflation and reduced liquidity –attendees and presenters were remarkably upbeat about the state of affairs and Arizona’s place within it. As she usually does at the start of major BEX events, President and Founder Rebekah Morris led the room in an updated overview of the state of the Arizona construction market and economy. She kicked off…

ABI Multifamily recently issued its “Q1 2022 Phoenix MSA Construction Pipeline” report. For the moment, at least, the sector is continuing its booming pace. At the end of Q1, ABI reports 26,061 units planned in 106 properties, 37,979 units under construction at 157 properties and 2,772 units completed at 12 properties for the year-to-date. By way of comparison, the 2021 Year End Construction Pipeline report listed 25,100 units planned at 105 properties, 35,945 units under construction at 145 properties, and 9,892 units completed for the year. The Last Five Years Full disclosure: In between my stints here at AZBEX, I…

NEWSFLASH: Construction costs keep going up. BREAKING NEWS: They’re going up more quickly and at higher rates in already hot markets like Phoenix. Add one more data point into the complex morass of economic data swirling around the good news/bad news currently making up Arizona construction and economic reporting. Rider Levett Bucknall has just issued its “North America Quarterly Construction Cost Report” for Q1 2022. Nationally, construction costs rose 8.04% over the course of 2021. Phoenix’s costs increased 8.57%, the fifth largest major-market increase in the country. This appears to be indicative of an overall trend for Phoenix and Arizona…