Photo Courtesy of Pablo Mason | Vestar
(Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Vestar.)
By Caroline Yu | Daily Independent
Tempe Marketplace approaches its 20th year of operations, and the shopping center continues to serve an essential role as one of the largest retail destinations in Tempe despite its past as an abandoned waste site.
It’s hard to imagine that the 1.3 million square-foot shopping center was once a Superfund site, abandoned land that had been too polluted with hazardous waste and other materials, but one developer saw the opportunity to transform it into an asset for the city and its residents.
Real estate development company Vestar embarked on the project to redevelop the site in 2003 on the heels of its 2001 opening of Desert Ridge Marketplace, even with the land’s environmental and acquisition-related challenges.
While Arizona has had a limited number of Superfund sites, Vestar has had significant experience with cases like this in its Southern California projects, according to President and CEO David Larcher.
“These are sites that were former naval hospitals, army bases, aerospace manufacturing plants, etc. that we’ve done and we had a wide array of experience doing that,” Larcher said.
