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Downtown Mesa plan takes new approach

Jason Massad, Tribune

Mesa’s moving ahead with a redevelopment plan to attract a mixed-use site and a Mesa Community College campus to prime real estate in the city’s downtown that’s now vacant land.

The $20 million property was once envisioned as a site for a minor league baseball park to replace Hohokam Stadium and, later, a time-share resort with an ice-skating rink. Both of those proposals failed years ago.

However, the city is now taking a new approach to sell some of its real estate holdings and attempt to enliven a downtown that’s often known for it’s lack of excitement.

“This is a great redevelopment site,” said Shelly Allen, the city’s Town Center development director. “It’s a very rare circumstance to have a 20-acre parcel in the middle of downtown.”

This spring, Mesa hired Phoenix Commercial Advisors, a commercial real estate company, to gauge the interest of private developers in building residential, retail and office space on the roughly 25-acre site on the southwest corner of Mesa and University drives. Nearly 5 acres of the development is envisioned as an MCC campus that would specialize in “work force development,” including disciplines like fire safety and health and nursing courses.

Instead of dictating the kind of development at the site, city economic officials say that a chosen developer will study the market and propose to the city what type of development the area would support.

Within 45 days, city officials are scheduled to select from four developers, including CDK Partners and Concord-Eastridge of Arizona, Michigan-based Crosswinds National, and the Californiabased The Athena Group.

It’s an aggressive timeline for a project that has languished since Mesa and MCC agreed to develop it in 2004. Since then, MCC’s commitment to the project was seen as wavering because of shakeups at MCC.

In 2006, news reports detailed fraud and other misconduct throughout the Maricopa County Community College District.

Larry Christensen, a major proponent of the downtown campus, was fired as MCC president after Maricopa County sheriff’s officials raided the campus.

“With all the leadership changes, we didn’t know what was going to happen there,” said Councilman Rex Griswold.

However, MCC officials say they are now on board and have $10 million in bonds authorized to pay for classroom space that would be centralized on a downtown campus.

The new campus would integrate MCC health and fire safety courses as well as a four-year program offered at Northern Arizona University that could be accessed by MCC students seeking a bachelor’s degree.

Bernie Ronan, acting president of MCC, said that a plan for an information and technology center would stay at the Centennial campus in Mesa. About 10,000 students could use a new campus per year, Ronan said.

The $10 million authorized for the downtown campus might not be enough. But expensive components of the project, like parking, could be spread out across the development, which could lower costs for the community college system.