Downtown Phoenix News

Oakville Grocery to open at CityScape in September

The search has been on for the last few months to find a Grocery Store to replace AJ’s who had to back out of the project due to the Bankruptcy filing of their parent company Basha’s.  The search is now over as an announcement was made Monday by RED Development Partner Mike Ebert, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Barbara Henderson, general manager of Oakville Grocery, a company that has it’s roots in a country store that started 120 years ago.

Oakville, headquartered in Napa Valley, California will open it’s second store in Arizona in a 9,000 sq ft space at CityScape.  The company’s first store in Arizona, opened in Scottsdale in January of this year. 

Henderson said shoppers can except to find a wide selection of palate-pleasing delights, including products from 15 local purveyors.

Source: Phoenix Business Journal

Primal Fitness Training comes to Downtown Phoenix

The Downtown Phoenix Warehouse District is now home to an innovative Fitness Training Studio.  The AmenZone is now open for business at 106 E Buchanan St.  The idea behind owner/trainer Amen Iseghohi’s training approach is to be “totally natural”.  Shunning the weight room, Amen’s unique approach uses recycled tires and one’s own body strength and movement to stay fit.

The fitness studio is in a very cool, renovated warehouse space with gated parking in the rear of the building. 

 

Check out the class schedule                                                     

Phoenix real estate prices close to the bottom

 For the first time in a few years, we are starting to see encouraging articles appear in the local media about our real estate market.  This past week, I actually see three separate articles in a two day span with good news. 
 
The first article was titled “Pending home sales, prices on the rise” .  This article appeared in the Phoenix Business Journal.    The article quotes local real estate market analyst Michael Orr.  Orr, author of the Cromford Report, said that the January rise in pending home sales is a critical recovery indicator for Arizona’s real estate market.  Orr said the latest report shows pending sales in the Metro Phoenix area hit a record 9,883 in the first week of January 2010 – a 79 percent increase over the 5,350 from a year ago.
 
The second article, also in the Phoenix Business Journal, stated that Phoenix home values were up 1.1% from October of 2009 to November of 2009.
 
The third article, written by J. Craig Anderson at azcentral.com, quoted Arizona State University professor Karl Guntermann who publishes the monthly ASU Repeat Sales Index housing report.  Guntermann said, for the first time since the foreclosure crisis began, the price of a Phoenix area foreclosed home was roughly the same as it was a year ago.  Guntermann said that in December, based on early numbers, the annual decline in price was down to 2%.  That does not hold true for the non-foreclosure market which is still declining at an annual rate of 20% according to Guntermann. 
 
Signs are beginning to point to the possibility that we could start seeing a slight and slow recovery in local real estate values in 2010.

Urban Beans

A new, locally owned Coffee Bar opened in Midtown Phoenix recently.  Urban Beans, is the creation of 2 local Architects, who also own the entire complex where the business has opened.  Kim Kristoff and Virginia Senior purchased and rehabbed the 1954 Mercury Building warehouse at 3508 N. Seventh St. two years ago as part of a venture with their firm, Phoenix-based Senior Rae Kristoff Architects.  The company improved the property and signed a handful of independent retail tenants.

Still, one suite remained empty, so the duo decided it was time for them to open a community coffeehouse.   The space opened in late September of 2009 and has a “great vibe”.  The menu looks good, they have Free wi-fi and they are bringing in local artists and local musicians to provide some inspiration.  On my first visit to Urban Beans, I noticed they have Scrabble on Monday nights, which I will definitely have to check out.

CityScape to open in 2010

2010 will be a very good year for Downtown Phoenix and one of the reasons will be the opening of CityScape.  The project will bring additional life to the heart of Downtown. 
 
The first tenants begin moving into the project in late February, early March.  Grand Opening should take place sometime in late summer to early fall. 
 
Phase 1 of the project will encompass the area from 1st St to 1st Ave, between Jefferson and Washington Streets.

The Tenant List as of this date for Phase 1 includes:
  
.CVS/pharmacy
.Lucky Strike Lanes
.Urban Outfitters 
.Fox Restaurant Concepts  
.Gold’s Gym
.Squires, Sanders and Dempsey
.Ballard, Spahr, Andrews and Ingersoll
.Polsinelli, Shughart
.Fidelity National Title
.RED Development
.Jennings, Strouss and Salmon
.Gust Rosenfeld
.Kimpton Palomar Hotel
.Aaron May (2 Restaurants) – Asian Noodle House & Mexican style restaurant
.The Breakfast Club, a one-of-a-kind breakfast restaurant
.Blu Burger Grille, a unique, high-quality hamburger experience
.Press Coffee, a local coffee, food and wine shop
.Designer District, a Scottsdale-based denim apparel retailer
.Republic of Couture, a world class fashion boutique

Read more about the Project

Bowling is coming to Downtown Phoenix

A 12-lane bowling alley is coming to Downtown Phoenix in 2010 in what would seem to be an unlikely spot.

The Phoenix Business Journal reported on Friday that RED Development, the developer for CityScape has struck a deal with the Lucky Strike Lanes and Lounge, a Hollywood-based entertainment concept, to bring a high-energy operation to the high-rise project. Inspired by the iconic Hollywood Star Lanes, the Lucky Strike Lanes and Lounge operation has grown from its initial Hollywood location to 21 locations in 13 states.

Although the Lucky Strike Lanes and Lounge is not open yet, it definitely makes the “Cool Places” list for Downtown Phoenix.

More press about Lucky Strike Lanes

A growing appetite for downtown Phoenix dining

That’s the title of a very extensive article appearing at azcentral.com today detailing the momemtum that the downtown Phoenix dining scene is gaining.

By Howard Seftel and Megan Finnerty

Looking past the current economic downturn, optimistic restaurateurs believe downtown Phoenix is poised to compete in the next few years with Scottsdale as a dining destination.

The momentum has been jump-started by a group of independent chefs and entrepreneurs who believe in the area’s potential. They, in turn, have inspired a fresh wave of high-profile names with big plans to rush in and stake a downtown claim.

New arrivals say downtown Phoenix has reached a tipping point, energized in part by light rail and the Arizona State University campus.

read the entire azcentral.com article

Bidding wars are back

Although the azcentral.com article I am linking to in this post does not specifically focus on the Downtown Phoenix real estate market, the same things are happening in Central Phoenix.  Basically, bidding wars are back.  In the middle of the worst real estate correction since the Great Depression, property values have fallen so far that buyers, especially investors are flocking back in to the market to scoop up deals.  This is sometimes very hard for buyers to understand as they have heard about all of the good deals out there, foreclosures, auctioned homes, short sales, etc.  Then they start making offers on properties and end up coming up on the losing end of multiple offers on the property. The reality is until/unless we get a new barrage of bank owned homes and short sales due to higher unemployment, we have probably hit the bottom of the local real estate market and we probably did that in April of this year. 

Who knows what the future holds, but if you are thinking about buying right now, just don’t get your hopes up that you are going to be able to dictate much to Sellers. 

Read azcentral.com article for a little insight into the current real estate market

ASU Research suggests Real Estate Prices may have hit bottom

Source: Phoenix Business Journal by Adam Kress – Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

New research from ASU shows Phoenix-area home prices are at or close to a market bottom.

The Arizona State University Repeat Sales Index reported a 37-percent year-over-year decline in both February and March. But the new April 2008 to April 2009 report shows a lesser 35-percent drop. Preliminary estimates for May and June show annual drops of 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively

The ASU-RSI measures changes in average Phoenix-area home prices from year to year.

“April is the first month with a slower annual rate of decline, and the progressively smaller declines over the next two months are pretty good evidence that the worst of the price drops are in the past,” said Karl Guntermann, Fred E. Taylor Professor of Real Estate at W.P. Carey School of Business at ASU. He helps calculate the index. “While the housing market is still quite volatile, it may turn out that the low point in terms of price occurred in May, almost three years after prices peaked in the Valley.”

The current slide in home prices is the longest in Phoenix-area history at 26 months.

Preliminary estimates put the median Phoenix-area home price for June at $119,000. That’s up from $115,000 in May and $117,000 in April.

However, Guntermann said the large number of foreclosed properties being sold at distressed price levels suggests the median price is not likely to go up significantly for a while.

CityScape reaches key milestone

RED Development, the Developer for the $900 Million multi-block Project in the heart of Downtown Phoenix, today announced that the office tower in the project has topped off, reaching it’s full height of 368 ft, 27 stories.  The Developer also released the names of six restaurants who have agreed to come into the CityScape project.

Read all about the new businesses committing to the project as well as those who have already committed in an azcentral.com article today by Jahna Berry