$200M-Plus Plan Brewing for 518 Acres

"We do not want to make assumptions until the vote in April," Gerry Blomquist, a MainSpring Capital partner, stresses to GlobeSt.com. If the plan is approved, work could start by year's end on nearly $40 million of infrastructure improvements for an as-yet unnamed development with at least one mile of frontage along the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway. The preliminary plan calls for 1,500 residential lots on 430 gross acres along with 30 to 45 acres for 450,000 sf to 500,000 sf of flex office development and 15 to 20 acres for at least 150,000 sf of retail space.

Blomquist estimates the office and retail components will have a build-out value of roughly $100 million. The residential build-out, whether as multi- or single-family, would beef up the value by another $100 million, he calculates. The just-bought land is across the road from a 7,000-acre, single-family development by Fort Worth-based DR Horton Inc. and less than a mile from a 2,000-acre project by the Bloomfield Hills, MI-headquartered Pulte Homes Inc.

Blomquist says MainSpring will resell the residential tracts to developers and build the commercial space itself. A joint venture partner for the retail development also might evolve as the plan is fine-tuned, he says.

A CB Richard Ellis Inc. team from Tucson brought the acreage to market seven months ago, setting up a bid scenario as the sales platform. The land, banked since the 1950s as a mining candidate, was sold by a metro-based consortium of Phelps Dodge Corp., Freeport Mining Co. and Asarco Copper Co., according to Blomquist, whose firm was represented by Commerce Realty Advisors of Phoenix. Comparable properties are fetching $70,000 to $80,000 per acre for un-entitled land.

Blomquist, describing MainSpring as a boutique developer, has dibs on another 600 acres about nine miles away, also in Pinal County. That deal will close within 60 days as will a 200-acre takedown in neighboring Maricopa County.