Real Estate trends

The Republic has yet another Real Estate story for us today. No, it's not another bubble story. It's about a continuing trend in real estate development that is marrying commercial and residential building:

Building residences along with retail space is a new subset of a larger mixed-use development trend, bringing together shops, restaurants, entertainment, offices and housing. It is expected to bring shoppers closer to the malls and offer a faux-urban neighborhood for those who can afford it.

This isn't necessarily new at this point, but it seems to be a growing trend: Westcor, the Phoenix-based company that owns most of the Valley's malls, wants to add condos to Biltmore Fashion Park and Scottsdale Fashion Square, but the company says it has not ruled out any of its 10 existing malls for redevelopment that includes housing.

In addition, most of the five new regional malls Westcor has planned for the edges of the Valley will include apartments or condos. The next retail/housing project will be at Gilbert's regional mall, SanTan Village, where plans call for condos on top of parking garages next to the urban-style, open-air shopping center. The project is scheduled to open in phases, with completion by fall 2007.

I first learned of this early last year when I noticed the new development going up off I-10 between Buckeye and Phoenix. Verrado appeared to be different than any other residential development I'd seen here.

How so? A commitment to community. Every single home is no more than 1/2 a mile from a community park. Homes are designed to facilitate interaction with neighbors and the "downtown" features loft apartments above select commercial locations.

With more and more builders apparently buying in, this may become a prominent feature in area development for some time to come. More alternatives is always a good thing!

Seems also that this is not limited to this area either. Just a few weeks after my investigation of the Verrado development, I had the opportunity to see one of my cousins at the yearly Laughlin gathering. I'd only seen him once in the last decade so we took advantage of the 4 days to catch up.

Turns out he had just recently started working for a home-builder in Oregon after 10+ years working for the State. I mentioned the Verrado phenomenon and my enthusiasm for the concept, which he echoed.

His firm had made the shift to community-oriented developments before he arrived, but all his current projects were going up in the Verrado-mold: the merging of retail and residential development to foster an over-arching sense of home-town community.

It's spreading!