30 Acres Beside Gaylord Site In Line for Hotels

The Cleveland-based developer is the third one to buy land in the park from First Industrial. And, more are likely to come when Gaylord Entertainment Inc. breaks ground on a multimillion-dollar resort next door on the Mesa Proving Grounds in 2009. "We'll definitely see a spike in activity when DMB breaks ground on that in June of next year," says Brent R. Moser, executive vice president in Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial LLC's Phoenix office. He and Grubb & Ellis senior vice presidents Andrew W. Markham and Michael C. Haenel are marketing the First Industrial land at Ellsworth and Elliot roads.

Moser and Markham agree that Gaylord Entertainment's plans, combined with a slowly improving economy, mean activity in the park, and elsewhere in the area, could start picking up as early as first quarter 2009. "We have activity on about 30 additional acres in there right now, but it's too preliminary to discuss," Moser says, adding the closing could happen in Q1.

The previous two buyers in First Mesa Commerce Park are Southwest Gas Corp., which acquired 10 acres for a new headquarters, and Rucker Group of Seattle, which took 18 acres. Rucker is planning a boutique retail center on its site.

First Industrial currently is putting finishing touches on the park's infrastructure, which Markham says should be complete within 60 days. "Southwest Gas will be the first building to go vertical as soon as they can access the site," he tells GlobeSt.com. "It should be up by next year at this time."

Meanwhile, Park Corp. is trying to attract users like limited-service hotels for its site. "Because Gaylord is providing the resort-style rooms, we could see three or four limited-service types of hotels, amounting to about 700 rooms," Moser says.