By Jim Carlton, and Nicole Friedman | Wall Street Journal
BUCKEYE, Ariz.—Earth movers were grading the scraped desert in this city 40 miles west of Phoenix one day last month in preparation for construction of the first 1,100 homes in a master-planned community called Teravalis.
Developer Howard Hughes Corp. last year spent $600 million to buy 37,000 acres in a valley flanked by two mountain ranges. It plans to build 100,000 homes over the next half-century, along with 55 million square feet of offices and other commercial real estate—the largest such project in state history, according to the developer.
But whether it is completed will depend in part on whether there is enough water for the people who would live, work and shop there. The Arizona Department of Water Resources is currently conducting a study of an underground basin to determine whether the groundwater supply is adequate to support the planned population for 100 years.
Howard Hughes executives said they believe there is enough, but if state regulators determine otherwise, the developer could be forced to scale back its plans.
