Pulte Homes Takes 146,000 SF in New Scottsdale Development

SCOTTSDALE, AZ-Pulte Homes Inc. has expanded and consolidated into 146,000 sf in a seven-year, roughly $30-million lease at the soon-to-be-completed Phase 2 of Raintree Corporate Center here, at 15111 North Pima Rd. Pulte, a homebuilding company based in Bloomfield Hills, MI, will move up from 45,000 sf it had across the street at Raintree Corporate Center I, which is 15333 North Pima Rd.

The new Corporate Center II building will be completed in September, and Pulte expects to move in during the October/November timeframe, Phoenix-based CB Richard Ellis broker Tom Adelson tells GlobeSt.com. In addition to moving over its employees from the Phase 1 building, Pulte is consolidating administrative, marketing and accounting employees from its Del Webb division's nearby operations--the Sun City Grand adult-active community and the Anthem master-planned community--as well as from off-site data processing facilities in the local area.

Since buying Phoenix-based Del Webb in 2001, Pulte had not moved those employees in with others, but felt now was the time to do it. "It was a combination of internal growth and a need to have everyone under one roof," says Adelson. "They felt it would be more convenient. They took administrative, marketing and accounting from Sun City Grand and Anthem and moved them all in together."

Indeed, Pulte will occupy all but 5,000 sf of the class A, three-story Phase 2 building, says Bill Blake, broker at Lee & Associates Arizona who represented the lessor.

When searching for a new home for Pulte, it wasn't easy to find such a large block of contiguous available space in the Phoenix area, says Adelson. "We investigated the North Scottsdale marketplace and determined this was a good fit. There was no other existing contiguous space this big. We would have had to move into a to-be-built building."

According to Blake, Pulte is paying an effective rent "in the mid $20s" and received a market-rate tenant improvement allowance, while Adelson pegged the lease's total transaction value at "around $30 million." The three-story, class A building includes parking facilities and is located nearby major freeways, including Loop 101, in northeast Scottsdale. It is being developed by locally based Cavan Real Estate Investments.