16-Acre Sale Sparks 117,176-SF Retail Plan

PHOENIX-A 117,176-sf shopping center will rise in 2005 on a 16-acre tract that's just traded to Grace Land & Development LLC of Tempe.

The developer acquired the northwest corner of 35th Avenue and Baseline Road in the city's fast-growing Laveen section, southwest of the CBD, from Eastbourne Investments Ltd., a Williamsville, NY-based company that assembled the acreage from three parcels between April and July 2003. Grace paid $3.7 million for the empty land, a sum which one local broker familiar with the transaction called "a high price for spec" development.

"It was a more than fair price," says Tracy Sembaluk of Retail Brokers Inc. of Scottsdale, which represented Grace in the land sale and now is in the midst of "active negotiations" with prospective tenants for the Village at Laveen. Randy Titzck and Chad Russell with locally based Hogan & Associates represented Eastbourne in the transaction.

The developer selected the Laveen land, now leased to farmers, because it's part of ongoing residential development in a section of the city transitioning from an agricultural, working-class area to an upscale residential environment. "This is an area of Phoenix that was overlooked for a long time," Sembaluk tells GlobeSt.com. This year, there have been 16,000 single-family permits issued. Projections indicate the center's five-mile trade area will get another 20,000 residents by 2008.

The Village at Laveen plan is awaiting city approvals. "We're pushing for construction to start as soon as possible," Sembaluk says, adding delivery tentatively is set for fourth quarter 2005 or early 2006. By then, Sembaluk says, 35th Avenue's reconstruction will be completed. She says the Circle K convenience store at the corner of Baseline Road and 35th Avenue eventually will be surrounded by the Village at Laveen, but most likely will be buffered with a wall to separate it from the shopping center.

Sembaluk says talks have begun with prospective tenants for the shopping center, designed with a 53,776-sf anchor and the balance in shop space. The development will include two 5,000-sf pad sites.