Taylor Morrison pledges help for Houston. “[The Scottsdale-based homebuilder] has donated a combined $250,000 to the American Red Cross Harvey Fund and to an internal Harvey Care Fund… [M]odel homes in nearby communities have been repurposed to provide shelter.” Builder also reports that Taylor Morrison is “committed to helping rebuild impacted communities.” CEO Sheryl Palmer: “Our hearts are with Texas and our Houston team members and homeowners as they continue to brave this devastating storm and unprecedented flooding.” http://bit.ly/2eHNseI
[COLUMN] Robb: Phoenix’s hotel fiasco is even worse than you thought.“It’s not just Phoenix losing money on the downtown Sheraton hotel. We all are… [It’s] a fiasco” [that] radiates from the city to engulf the entire state. And for what?… The saga begins in 2001, when the city asked voters to approve $300 million in bonds to expand the convention center.” Read on atAZCentral. http://bit.ly/2wMkxk4
Scottsdale approves 150-foot towers in Fashion Square mall expansion.“Scottsdale City Council voted [5-2] to let property owners [Macerich] build 150-foot towers on the north end of the property.” AZCentral reports that, at this point, plans for the towers are “purposely broad,” as it’s “not clear how many buildings will go in or if they’ll house condos, apartments, hotels, or a combination of the three…” http://bit.ly/2x9JtBM
Chewy.com joining Amazon, Macy’s, Aldi in West Valley: BREW. “[Business Real Estate Weekly] is reporting Chewy [‘a big online seller of pet food and products’] will land a 819,000-square-foot distribution center along [I-10] in Goodyear on a 48.8-acre parcel. The Chewy center could employ as many as 750 workers, according to BREW.” PBJ notes that Chewy reps “did not respond to request for comment.” (To get them to speak, perhaps a treat would do the trick?) http://bit.ly/2glKEUG
Hilton hopes for new Garden Inn near Surprise Stadium. (To totally mangle the Garden Inn ad slogan: “Right where Surprise needs it!”) “Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. wants to build a Hilton Garden Inn in the Surprise Stadium Village area West of Bullard Avenue and south of Bell… The hotel would be a four-story building with 124 rooms, a restaurant with outdoor dining and a pool on 2.5 acres of land.” YourWestValley. http://bit.ly/2wV7JIw
Glendale Planning Commission approves 1,340-acre annexation near Luke. “Council is expected to approve the annexation and rezoning later this year of the proposed land at 8805 N. Reems Road near Northern and Peoria avenues west of 143rd Avenue and Luke Air Force Base… Woolf Logistics plans to use the property and build warehouses to house goods and products and for possible manufacturing.” The Glendale Star. http://bit.ly/2grN2x4
Proposed Coolidge annexation sparks outrage among property owner. “After Pinal County gave the green light to [NextEra Energy’s] 257-acre solar farm, the city of Coolidge is now looking into potentially annexing a portion of the project’s land as well as several other surrounding properties… A public hearing on the annexation was held during Monday’s City Council meeting, where several property owners urged the council members to reconsider.” Coolidge Examiner. http://bit.ly/2glSo9j
Scottsdale economic picture rosy but city not immune to commercial vacancy trend. Tuesday, Economic Development Director Danielle Casey “presented to city council her department’s latest efforts ‘to elevate, enhance and ensure Scottsdale’s sustained desirability’”– and it was positive news! (other than the “up-tick to vacancy rates”). But even with that slight increase, “her department was able to fill nearly 500,000-square-feet of commercial space in the last fiscal year alone.” Read on at Scottsdale Independent. http://bit.ly/2eI2EIV
MORE ‘BREW’! – Retail and industrial markets see modest boost as craft beer becomes king. “Arizona had a 152.9 percent increase in the number of breweries in five years from 2011 to 2016, [according to the Craft Brewing Revolution report released by Cushman & Wakefield]… Many of these breweries have been filling up spaces in the Downtown Scottsdale and Old Town Scottsdale, Downtown Tempe and Downtown Phoenix areas. (Not to mention places like Gilbert’s Heritage District, which AzBigMedia notes is “one area attracting local and independent places, such as brewpubs.” But, ironically, not the Milwaukee Brewers!) http://bit.ly/2wUZOLo
WalletHub: Gilbert ranks fourth most affordable real estate market.“[The] study rank[ed] 300 U.S. cities by the best and worst real estate markets. It identified 21 indicators of housing-marking attractiveness including factors such as job growth, home prices as percentage of income, foreclosure rates, median home-price appreciation… Gilbert, Surprise and Chandler all landed within the top 10 for most affordable markets.” Get an overview along with the link to the completeWalletHub study, at PBJ. http://bit.ly/2wqjLqv
FLIP FLOP CAUSED MARKET MESS? – House flippers triggered the US housing market crash, not poor subprime borrowers. “Mounting evidence suggests that the notion that the 2007 crash happened because people with shoddy credit borrowed to buy houses they couldn’t afford is just plain wrong. The latest comes in a new NBER working paper arguing that it was wealthy or middle-class house-flipping speculators who blew up the bubble to cataclysmic proportions, and then wrecked local housing markets when they defaulted en masse.” Quartz. http://bit.ly/2wqsZmk
Buyers ‘fight over scraps’ in ever-pricier housing. “‘It’s a new normal in the housing market,’ wrote Cheryl Young, senior economist at Trulia, in a response to new price reports. ‘Ever rising prices being met by insatiable demand… There’s no indication that America’s starving housing markets will be fed, as buyers fight over scraps.’” Read about it at CNBC. http://bit.ly/2vN50M9
70% of contractors report labor shortage. “Chronic labor shortages are changing the way many firms recruit and compensate workers, according to a new AGC report… [O]fficials cautioned that [the] shortages could have significant economic impacts absent greater investments in career and technical education.” Builder. http://bit.ly/2xPz8br
[GUEST COLUMN] ’Zestimates’ wreak havoc for buyers and sellers. Ahwatukee Foothills News guest writer Stacey Lykins calls Zestimates “one of a Realtor’s worst nightmares.” The Ahwatukee resident and broker suggests using “Zestimates as no more than starting points in pricing discussions with the realtors in your local real estate markets.” http://bit.ly/2wqgsj0
Cave Creek councilwoman under fire for indecorous ‘whereases.’ While the “status of the town’s 12-year old application” to the Bureau of Land Management “to procure the rodeo grounds,” was one of the agenda items at Monday night’s council meeting, it was a “cover page” to a grease trap “ordinance presented by Councilwoman Eileen Wright” that spawned the headline to this Sonoran Newscoverage. With “six paragraphs of explanation beginning with ‘Whereas,’” the cover page did not sit well with Councilman David Smith: “I have some concerns with some of the ‘whereases.’ I think we need to be more decorous in the way we word this.” http://bit.ly/2vJ9PXK
Judge strikes 2016 law preempting cities from imposing business mandates. “A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled [Wednesday that] a 2016 law preventing cities and towns from telling companies what fringe benefits they must offer employees is voter-protected and unconstitutional.” Arizona Capitol Times. http://bit.ly/2glOehx
Phoenix area has added more than 90,000 private-sector jobs since Great Recession, says new report. PBJ notes that this job-growth number has us “outpacing the growth rates of a quarter of the nation’s major markets, and that the “inventory of private-sector jobs is larger now than prior to the recession.” More on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics private-sector data here: http://bit.ly/2glNUPQ
A race is on between freeway opponents, pace of work. “The fight between highway planners and opponents of the South Mountain Freeway has become a race with the state contending taxpayers’ dollars and progress are at stake and those against it arguing Ahwatukee’s environment will be permanently damaged. That race became clear last week as opponents pressed an appeals court to halt blasting and bridgework along Pecos Road, and work crews started pouring concrete for the highway’s first deck in Ahwatukee.” Ahwatukee Foothills News. http://bit.ly/2wqBfTy
The new strategy for limiting money’s role in elections. “The dream of eliminating the influence of large, private donors from the election equation is pretty much dead… Now, the hope among some advocates of publicly financed campaigns is to impose limits on the size and scope of campaign treasuries while increasing citizen involvement.” Governing. http://bit.ly/2wlgdat
New fathers are older than ever. The New York Times looks into a study out of Stanford University that found the “average age of the father of a newborn in the United States… has risen to 30.9 from 27.4” since 1972. (Any older and their kids are going to start saying, “Hey, Dad? Wanna go out on the front lawn and play catch with your Life Alert?”) http://bit.ly/2xALK6T
Arizona sues Chandler opioid company over safety of drug, ‘deceptive’ practices. “A lawsuit filed late Wednesday in Maricopa County Superior Court claims Insys Therapeutics engaged in a nationwide scheme to deceive patients, doctors and insurers about the safety of Subsys, its sublingual spray form of the powerful opioid fentanyl.” A Capitol Media Services/Howard Fischer report in Arizona Capitol Times. http://bit.ly/2vMO1K9
