Those guys are pretty serious, I'd guess about zero percent chance they change their minds. They built quite a bit in south loop before anyone wanted to go there, maybe they're getting more ideas in Phoenix.

I'll ask again..... Does anyone know if anything is happening on the corner of 40th St and Mcdowell? That huge parcel of land south of the freeway was graded and the fencing was wrapped in blue cloth, and now nothing for months, and the wrap is gone. Dead?

It was supposed to be a big Data Center and I see no reason why it would have stopped, I really do not know what happened.

It'd nice if something went in there, if not just to put an end to the yearly brush fires on that lot.

They spent a lot of money grading the dirt and masking the fence off. I can't understand what happened.

Their building permit was issued two weeks ago. You guys panic about the strangest things. The permit has a $48mm valuation on it. Lots of money in data. I had a friend who is in charge of sales for a fortune 500 company that has data centers hosting Siri and Google Assistant stuff, that sector is growing like mad. He told me how much money he makes and I momentarily wanted to make a career change.

Also, you're right. Nobody is going to spend that much money and just disappear. I would guess they were securing contracts with clients before they took the plunge but I sent a text message to a friend who happens to be high up with dpr, I'll let you guys know if he knows anything.

Here is the center's website:

https://www.qtsdatacenters.com/data-centers/phoenix

I spent 40 seconds on the pdd website, 30 seconds writing a text, and about 15 seconds googling "mcdowell road data center" which is the project name on the permits. I've spent 8 minutes typing everything I learned on this page. Prior to starting this post I knew nothing.

QTS still lists it on their website:

https://www.qtsdatacenters.com/data-...enter-location

And this is the latest article I could find, from this summer:

https://azbigmedia.com/real-estate/d...here-to-build/

EDIT: sounds like per biggus diggus building permit was issued, so assumedly a go.

But they took the pretty blue fencing cloth down!!!! :(

lol

ABC15 video on downtown growth. The video specifies we had a record 20 cranes up in downtown although for the life of me, I can't figure out where they arrived at this number. I'm guessing counting adjacent areas outside of downtown. Some really good renderings of Central Station can be seen at the 3:11 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKJiyHinipk

News reporters are so.... smart. "We set a record this month with 20 cranes in the air. Prior to that the record had been 6." So you're saying the record wasn't 19 before the 20th crane went up?!

Dog bites Man is not a story. Man Bites Dog is the front page.

The news is and always has been a for profit business, being arbiters of truth is simply their marketing. (and it works terrifyingly well)

"Man and dog bite each other" - story of the year!!!!

Do people still think Arcadia is "downtown?" I can't expect >99% of Valley dwellers to identify the actual downtown core from, eg, Midtown or Garfield or Capitol Mall.

https://azbigmedia.com/real-estate/t...wX6kHdthpyDNTc

Talks of redevelopment for 401-441 W Madison St, site of the Pressroom. Ugh, though I’m disappointed a parking garage is what’s being discussed despite there being hundreds, possibly a thousand, spaces within a block or so of the site.

Maybe a garage is not all bad since the allowable height on the site is 140 feet

People from the burbs refer to basically anything between Downtown, Sunyslope, Old Town, Tempe and the Airport as downtowon.

Kind of like suburbanites of other metros calling the general urabn area as "the City"

Heading "into the City" for people in NY, Chicago, or the Bay area can mean anywhere that has density and isn't the burbs.

Maybe they mean 20 cranes throughout all of 2020, including ones that have been taken down. The record May of been 7 for a calendar year before that.

Yea I’m certain it was something like that. A stat they got from the city and they couldn’t understand or communicate it properly.

They’re not that sharpest tools in the shed. They also have a really hard time with number and can’t usually understand the difference between thousands, millions and billions.

From a site called Globest.com. I have no idea how real this is.


New Build Will Transform the Phoenix Skyline
Aspirant Development has acquired a two-acre site in Downtown Phoenix with plans to develop the tallest building in Arizona.
By Kelsi Maree Borland | January 08, 2021 at 04:00 AM

The Phoenix skyline is getting an upgrade. Aspirant Development has acquired a two-acre land site in Downtown Phoenix with plans to develop the tallest building in Arizona. Aspirant Development purchased the property from Desert Troon for $9.2 million in an off-market deal.

Brent Moser and Mike Sutton, principals at Lee & Associates, brokered the land deal on behalf of the seller. Sutton described the deal as being the right time and the right place for Desert Troon. “Brent and I had a relationship with both the buyer and seller and connected the dots,” Sutton tells GlobeSt.com. “The attributes the property offered—including the size, allowed heights, allowed density and location—set the stage for an iconic project that we knew the buyer would find attractive.”

Aspirant plans to build two towers on the site, including an apartment building, office and a hotel. The property will total 1.8 million square feet with 390 units of class-A luxury apartments, a 254-room, four-star luxury hotel, 190,000 square feet

of class-A office space, 290 co-living units and 15,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space.
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It seems unusual to see a hotel and office development of this caliber in a post-pandemic world. The property was in escrow a year prior to the pandemic, so the current market conditions didn’t not play a role in the buyers vision for the project. “The real estate market is ever changing and every good developer tries to plan for various possible market shifts,” adds Sutton. “Mixed use projects such as this are built in phases and typically not all sectors of real estate are affected in a market shift so you pivot and lead with the sectors that are thriving, in this case multifamily will pave the way. This project will also take a number of years to build so the sectors that are affected today could be the ones that are flourishing a couple years from now.”

Because the property traded hands prior to the pandemic, there was also no impact on pricing. In addition, the off-market nature of the deal meant there was little expectation on pricing. “We eventually landed at a value through the various offers and meetings we had with Desert Troon and Aspirant Partners,” says Sutton. “At the opening of escrow we feel the agreed upon price reflected the market. Land values in the area have continued to climb as new projects were brought to the sub-market.”

^^I’m certain this is Astra, since Aspirant is the selected developer.