Flagstaff & Northern Arizona Development Thread

[kaneui]

The Daily Sun did a fairly comprehensive review of development activity in 2014:

http://southwest.construction.com/yb..._EWsBLbLHmq8SN


...and here's what's shaping up for 2015:

Completions:
- Three (nearly four) major NAU projects will finish construction: Science & Health Building, International Students Pavilion, Student & Academic Services Building, and the North Campus Athletics and Rec. Center (January, 2016).
- Village at Aspen Place--220+ luxury apartments with ground-floor retail.
- NACET Business Accelerator addition on McMillan Mesa.
- ADOT will finish the I-17 & JW Powell Blvd. interchange upgrade and repave I-40 between Walnut Canyon and Twin Arrows.

Starts:
- five student housing projects are at various stages of development approval--at least a couple of them should break ground this year.
- The Trax mixed-use project on 33 acres along Route 66 in East Flagstaff could obtain final approvals and start construction on Phase I.
- Vintage Partners may finalize a deal to relocate Harkins Theaters to the Flagstaff Mall, and begin repurposing the existing West Flagstaff theater for ADOT; then begin the subsequent redevelopment of the current ADOT site on Milton Rd.
- the city of Flagstaff could complete the purchase of the McAllister Ranch for a new city Public Works yard.


As always, check back during the year using the links below for updates on development projects in both Flagstaff and Tucson.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Theres still talk of relocating Harkins to the mall? Thought that was dead. Furthermore, I have a hard time wrapping my head around how the current theater building could be reconfigured into an office building...

[Obadno]

Just a general question:

How is Flagstaff doing, Growth wise? Are you guys seeing a lot of development?

Also, Why isnt their a Prescott-sedona-Camp Verde thread?

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Also, Why isnt their a Prescott-sedona-Camp Verde thread?

Probably not enough happening there to justify it. We have a General AZ thread that barely gets updated, I can't imagine a Yavapai county thread would see much action.

[kaneui]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Just a general question:

How is Flagstaff doing, Growth wise? Are you guys seeing a lot of development?

Also, Why isnt their a Prescott-sedona-Camp Verde thread?

Unlike Arizona's desert metropolises, Flagstaff's growth has always been rather slow and steady, anchored by an expanding NAU (now over 20,000 students), a continued influx of second-home buyers, and the natural expansion of businesses and services as the largest city in northern Arizona.

There's been more growth in the Prescott/Verde Valley area, but I believe most of it has been housing and retail for the large number of retirees moving there over the past 20+ years.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Yeah, driving along AZ 69 through Prescott Valley, it looks like someone hijacked a chunk of suburban Phoenix and plopped it down just east of the City of Prescott. That said, those lucky bastards have In-N-Out, Trader Joe's and Costco (businesses I'm not sure I'll ever see open in Flagstaff in my lifetime). Regardless of your stance on the business practices of Wal-Mart, you have to admire their tenacity for finally getting a super center opened on the east side of town. It only took them a decade to get through Flagstaff's byzantine corporate regulations. Conversely, we have more new age stores, art galleries and Thai food restaurants than we know what to do with.

Flagstaff is at an interesting time in its development. The mayor and several council members want to expand and grow at the same rate as Prescott Valley (and to a lesser extent, Phoenix) but people who've been here for a long time complain about how its not the quaint little college town it used to be. There's been a couple of heated discussions about the placement of college residences off-campus the past several months (one of which would've displaced longtime residents of a trailer park, and another that would've interfered with the US Naval Observatory's and the city's dark sky mandate). Both projects were eventually placed on hiatus.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Construction in Flagstaff, county starting to take off

Arizona Daily Sun, April 9, 2015

Housing and commercial construction is starting to take off in Coconino County and the city of Flagstaff.

Coconino County Community Development Director Jay Christelman told a joint work session of the Coconino County Board of Supervisors and the Flagstaff City Council Monday that his department had tracked a 35 percent increase in home building permits in 2014.

The department has watched that trend continue into the first three months of 2015 for all of the permits that the county issues for building, environmental quality, engineering and planning and zoning, he said.

Read the rest of the story here

[kaneui]

Once Harkins has relocated next year, ADOT will move into the current theatre's space, and then begin the redevelopment of their 10-acre site on Milton Rd.:

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/n...16-screen.html

[kaneui]

In anticipation of NAU's projected enrollment growth of an additional 5,000 students by 2020, there are currently at least seven student housing developments either approved or proposed in or around the university:

Runke Dr. Apartments (on-campus) - 620 beds
Mountain Trail Apartments - 160 units
Trailside Apartments - 111 units
Capstone project - 227 units/815 beds
Aspen Heights - 224 units/714 beds
The Standard - 191 units/650 beds
Mike's Pike project - 240 units

Regarding on-campus development, once the four projects currently under construction and the Runke Dr. Apartments are completed by 2017, there will be a significant lull in new NAU projects for awhile, due to the state legislature's ongoing budget cuts to Arizona's three public universities.

(For more details on any of these projects, click on the project list below.)

[Buckeye Native 001]

A lot of residents are getting fed up with the city's never ending push for more student housing off-campus (the proposed development on Mike's Pike in the Southside neighborhood is just the latest example). There was huge public outcry last year over the proposed Standard project that was going to displace residents of the Arrowhead Trailer Park in La Plaza Vieja and from a community standpoint, The Grove has been an unmitigated disaster as far as noise and petty crimes (underage drinking, vandalism) are concerned. I walk past The Grove on my way to work from the bus stop at Lone Tree/Franklin Avenue and there's never not a day where the sidewalks around it aren't littered with dog shit and broken beer bottles.

There was also a proposed development out near the Naval Observatory that I'm pretty sure resulted in the observatory threatening to leave town if that project was allowed to go through.

I can't believe I'm sounding like a NIMBY, but I'm getting tired of Mayor Nabors and Councilman Oravitz "build anything, anywhere regardless of community impact" approach to NAU's housing problem.

NAU needs to figure out how to keep more students (undergrads in particular) on campus and it needs to build more dorms (which is unfortunately impossible right now with the insane amount of cuts to the budget) rather than forcing practically everyone but freshman to live elsewhere. NAU does a poor job of fostering loyalty and pride in the university when everyone but freshman live off-campus.

[kaneui]

To its credit, NAU has added thousands of on-campus beds over the past few years with the Hilltop Townhomes, two phases of The Suites, and the upcoming Runke Dr. Apartments. In fact, NAU claims to be in the top two percent of universities nationwide in the percentage of students living on campus.

However, with a projected enrollment of 25,000 in 2020, the number of students will have doubled since the early 2000s, which is having an unprecedented impact on the community, particularly when considering the size of NAU in relation to the population of Flagstaff. And local residents have reason to be concerned when they hear of four or five-story student housing complexes proposed in neighborhoods that have been mostly one-story, single-family residences and businesses.

Even though NAU is the major economic driver in the city, it will need to work closely with local officials to figure out how to accommodate this growth over the next several years, which will require a substantial amount of new off-campus housing. Admittedly, university students aren't always the best neighbors, but those are the challenges that must be worked through in a predominantly college town.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

(which is unfortunately impossible right now with the insane amount of cuts to the budget) .

The Arizona colleges are not hurting for money, that's just a bunch of nonsense from the administrations (because they never want to get a reduced budget) They could rearrange their funds to build dorms, but that would hurt their agenda of getting bigger budgets.

I am only saying that because ASU and UofA are making the same cries of "budget cuts" despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on construction every year.

[Ted Lyons]

Originally Posted by Obadno

The Arizona colleges are not hurting for money, that's just a bunch of nonsense from the administrations (because they never want to get a reduced budget) They could rearrange their funds to build dorms, but that would hurt their agenda of getting bigger budgets.

I am only saying that because ASU and UofA are making the same cries of "budget cuts" despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars on construction every year.

I can't even begin to detail how off-base this is.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Ted Lyons

I can't even begin to detail how off-base this is.

If the Universities cant figure out how to handle a 14% cut from their state funding then they are completely incompetent.

[Ted Lyons]

Originally Posted by Obadno

If the Universities cant figure out how to handle a 14% cut from their state funding then they are completely incompetent.

What a ludicrous rationalization. Any company that faced that large of a cut to inputs would suffer dramatically. Also, going back to your first post, the projects that you assume could be shelved to fund dorm construction (a) take years to develop and (b) are funded through mechanisms specific to the projects. You can't take grant money or private capital dedicated to a specific area of research and spend it on generalized infrastructure.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Ted Lyons

What a ludicrous rationalization. Any company that faced that large of a cut to inputs would suffer dramatically. Also, going back to your first post, the projects that you assume could be shelved to fund dorm construction (a) take years to develop and (b) are funded through mechanisms specific to the projects. You can't take grant money or private capital dedicated to a specific area of research and spend it on generalized infrastructure.

1. Just like you are saying, that funds are already allocated, the budget cuts from march is not the thing preventing dorm construction

2. the funding cut is a big hit from a single source of income, they have federal money, tuition, and other sources of income.

Any school administration blaming the "budget cuts" for some sort of lack of dormitory construction or other issues like that are simply playing political games because "cuts to education" is an easy way to fire people up.

[Ted Lyons]

Originally Posted by Obadno

1. Just like you are saying, that funds are already allocated, the budget cuts from march is not the thing preventing dorm construction

This is nonsensical.

2. the funding cut is a big hit from a single source of income, they have federal money, tuition, and other sources of income.

And? If you have a store that sells four products and your sales of one product drop by 14%, there is only so much ability to make up the difference with the other three products. Federal dollars won't automatically increase and tuition can only go so high before enrollment drops and the increased margin is balanced out by lower volume.

Any school administration blaming the "budget cuts" for some sort of lack of dormitory construction or other issues like that are simply playing political games because "cuts to education" is an easy way to fire people up.

Going back to your first point, how are projects meant to be funded when budgets have been cut? The only way the cuts wouldn't impact construction is if the dorms had been planned well in advance of the cuts and funding had already been secured. To propose new construction subsequent to the cuts would be ridiculous.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I don't believe that NAU gets a cut from The Grove or the other off-campus student housing projects in the area so that's lost revenue on their end for every student housing project that is built elsewhere in the city (even the housing that was built on campus in the last five years is privately owned and operated).

The city needs to do everything it can to make sure whatever new student housing projects built off campus don't end up with the general vibe of anarchy that has plagued The Grove since it opened in 2012 and I think that's what upsets a lot of the residents in the surrounding areas that put up with recklessness and carelessness of the students who live in these developments. These students probably don't care as much because they don't live here year round like the rest of us and that's what angers a lot of the people fed up with the city's push to build more of these kinds of places. At least the students living on campus are held responsible and have to face a conduct board if they get out of line. I'm not sure I can say the same for the residents of The Grove.

[kaneui]

A new 4-story, 109-room Residence Inn is coming to downtown across from Wheeler Park:

http://azdailysun.com/news/local/gov...bba1d1f36.html

[Buckeye Native 001]

It'll be interesting to see if it generates any street activity if its built where I think it'll be (northeast intersection of Aspen and Humphreys). That stretch of Aspen, heading east toward Beaver is sort of a dead zone with a lot of parking lots. Like the comment on the article, I'd love for there to be ground floor retail.