By Richard Smith | YourValley
Residential infill development in the West Valley is tilting from single-family communities toward more vertical apartment- or condo-style dwellings.
The speed of the changeover in three suburbs west of Phoenix depends on the degree new housing units are truly “infill” compared with master plans arriving on previously annexed but undeveloped land.
Those conditions propel Glendale to the forefront of the wave of multifamily units, while the increase in apartments in Surprise is still dwarfed by the number of planned single-family units churning through the developmental pipeline. Meanwhile Avondale is trending almost directly toward the middle.
“The north-south oriented part of Glendale is almost fully matured except with a few pockets that were not developed for whatever reason,” said Jamsheed Mehta, Glendale director of development services. “There’s a big shift to multifamily. That doesn’t mean single-family has stalled. Single-family, medium-density and high-rise, high-density are growing. It can change within a month.”
Conversely, the overwhelming amount of recent and upcoming housing construction in Surprise is not what the city classifies as “infill” development.
