Central and Camelback project that I believe JJS had provided some detail on before... check it out! Great stuff! No ground-breaking date or timeline though.

http://azbex.com/omninet-to-develop-...ptown-phoenix/

With this project, Edison, ArtHaus and Elevation midtown should see a huge influx of new residents! Hopefully we see more retail and restaurants pop up as a result.

Not bad... but it's a shame that some decent mid-century type store fronts look like they have to be demolished to make way for this, while the big empty triangle lot across the street wallows away.

467 units, huh? I'm not saying no, but I'm saying probably never going to see this come to fruition at that scale, if any.

I kind of hope it's awhile before they develop that lot. It is such a grew piece of land, I would love to see a 10-story condo building wrapped in ground floor retail. I think retail would thrive at that location, but it think it's five years out at best.

Yes, Omninet East and West were the projects I posted a while back and got everyone riled up over saying that 5-story projects on key parcels like this are a shitty long-term strategy. Sure, 5-story apartments are denser than what they are replacing, but when you consider the massive footprint of Central Phoenix, it's going to take quite a lot of people to create a critical mass. I completely agree that something around 10 stories would be much more appropriate for this area, and I posted a long time a rendering to the original Omninet proposal which was a high-rise concept (no longer online). It's too bad they couldn't move forward with one of the midrises, while waiting for demand to justify the taller project across the street.

I also agree that it's frustrating how many projects are on land that is already occupied. With the fantastic reuse projects throughout the city, very few buildings have potential to be turned into something that is an asset.

The only thing I like about the Omninet design is the retail component (especially how it is oriented toward the LRT stop). While superblocks of single-use apartments like Elevation are going up everywhere, there is a serious lack of mixed use/commercial space being integrated. For Midtown to turn around, it's going to take more than just residents. They're going to need the option to walk to food, services, etc. in a comfortable environment.

Look how far apart all 4 projects are, though. A restaurant opening near Edison won't be walkable for an artHaus resident, for example. Projects really need to start including commercial space within their designs to serve these sub-neighborhoods within Midtown. And, the City should be proactive in trying to facilitate their objective to renovate existing structures to be more active on the street level.

Many of the new Tempe projects are taking a smart approach to their mixed use designs, incorporating a small amount (3,000 sq ft or so), which is small enough to not be a liability if unleased, and big enough to keep a street like Apache active along the ground level.

Arthaus is only 25 units. The architect will happily tell you that there will be no pool that nobody swims in and no fitness center that nobody uses. He sure as hell wasn't going to include commercial space that nobody rents.

Where did I say the sky was falling down? I said occupancy rates were going to plummet. Arizona Center, Renaissance Square and US Bank have a lot to lease, and even when they had the tenants they're now losing, they weren't able to fill certain spaces. I didn't say, and I don't think, these vacancies will cause boarded up storefronts; I just think that a major portion of the CBD will be sitting empty for quite some time. And, yes, there are some areas downtown that continue to do extremely well, and there's some that are improving - it just sucks that it's one step forward, one step back. I am sure Renaissance Square would have better luck id both Wells Fargo and CityScape wren't such crappy neighbors.

I agree lunch-only establishments are becoming relics of the old downtown, but even prior to this, Renaissance had quite a few vacancies, so I'm not sure how smart it is to think they'll be able to replace these larger restaurant uses considering the space available in the immediate area: the 26,000 sq feet at Bank Center, 2 spaces on Van Buren/1st Ave, 3 spaces at the Monroe HGI, etc. All of those are in much more visible locations than all but the Tom's Tavern space, IMO.

I don't get why so many towers have retail that is accessed only through the lobby. I can't imagine the new 111 Monroe stores surviving without a street presence, just like I can't imagine any retail at Renaissance surviving along that courtyard. I think a smarter move would be to move the lobby and office uses to that area.

Were final designs ever released for the new Circle K on Roosevelt/7th St? It's frustrating that they weren't even willing to accept the compromised design recommendations, but I was hoping they incorporated some. It's too bad that intersection is such an appalling gateway.

Yea, I was thinking more along the lines of The Muse lot. Infill projects like artHAUS are great, I just wish the ones going up on Central were providing the kind of services and retail that will actually make it a walkable place.

I don't know, but construction is pretty far along, so it's not hard to envision what the completed store will look like.

Man, o man. Reading your posts are such a friggin' downer. What, on God's green earth would make you happy? Not much, by what I read.

More Deco/Edison Projects???
 

http://www.azcentral.com/story/money...ndos/31648283/

I believe I suggested earlier this week we may see additional projects from Deco, including one downtown. Looks like they are close to proposing one on Roosevelt! This developer has fantastic quality condos. Very excited to see them having success and looking at more sites downtown!

I lol'd

2 new Deco buildings in the Downtown core??? YES PLEASE

What I love is that we have two condo developers now that seem to be having success down/mid-town! Between Deco and Portland, if they keep having success we should see more and more projects as they reinvest their profits into new developments.

How awesome would it be if one of them took a stab at Barrister!

We also have the slow but promising Metrowest and Alta which is building its second downtown project at Fillmore.

Now if we could get Optima to build a luxury tower in Midtown and Downtown as well!

As for Deco they are building their biggest projects yet with Envy and Edison, hopefully when those are successful they may have the ability to make a decent sized 15-20(or more!:tup:) story community downtown.

I don't comment much in other cities' threads, but this one was too amazing to pass up!

The ability to walk everywhere is a central theme in advertising for probably thousands of apartment complexes all over the country. Biking would have lower numbers but that's common too.

I've never heard someone say that's discriminatory. It says nothing either way about wheelchair access, and (while I'm not a lawyer and know even less about Arizona law) the idea that someone could get anywhere calling it discrimination in court is wildly implausible. It wouldn't pass any "reasonable person" test.

I'm sure the average wheelchair person wants good sidewalks too, and bike-friendly often means ramps in convenient places, so maybe they'd even find it a positive.

You don't need to worry about protecting yourself from a reasonable person, it's the nutty people who are a theat.

The bolded sentence above means the author is determining what walking or biking distance is, and formulating an ad which appeals to people in two classes:

1. those who can ride a bike or walk
2. those who can ride a bike or walk, but can do either for limited distance which is perhaps not as much as required to get to the destination listed.

Federal fair housing laws are arcane and a complaint will result in a mandatory investigation which costs a business owner both time and money, even if it does not result in any fine. There have been instances in the past where this type of thing, or even crazier things have happened. The short answer is that you and I don't decide what a "reasonable person" should do. If the marketing people at Edison want to expose themselves to all that liability, that's on them, but professionally speaking I think it is rather nuts to stick your neck out there like that. It may be a "central theme in advertising for thousands" but that doesn't mean you aren't taking a risk by doing it.

If you want to learn more, you should call one of the many real estate attorneys in the Phoenix area (or any other since fair housing laws are the same throughout the country) and ask them to explain the risks you're taking by classifying the ad as such.

Since I have no experience in commercial real estate, let me ask a rookie question: When a building is sold, do sellers sometimes find it better to offer prospective buyers a blank slate? I would have guessed it's more attractive to offer a building already occupied with tenants, but maybe that's not always true?

It always comes down to CAP rate, so a bunch of old leases at lower rents mean less than a couple new leases at a high rate.

If I have five spaces for rent and I rent four of them at $21/ft then I have positive cash flow, and that's good right? but if I rent three spaces at $26/ft then I can show a prospective buyer that my average rent is $26/ft and I have a few vacancies due to what is generally written off as a normal vacancy rate.

Commercial real estate and residential rental markets are different in that sense (I'm counting apartment buildings as commercial here because they largely only focus on CAP rate as well) because owners will eat vacancy three meals a day in order to maintain a CAP rate which may help them reap bigger rewards in a sale later. In residential, owners are looking for cash flow and the name of the game is to minimize vacancy which sometimes means accepting a lower rent. I'm speaking in generalities, of course.

So in this instance, my speculation would be that Renaissance is ending current leases which do not wish to renew at a higher rate and would like to take (perhaps) higher short-term vacancy rate which hurts the monthly cash flow just for the benefit of a sale.