Peter Corbett
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 13, 2007 11:01 AM It has been called Kierland Uncommon, Scottsdale Crossing and now Scottsdale Quarter.By any name, the 1.2 million-square-foot mixed-use project directly east of Kierland Commons is under way.
George Melara, a principal with Nelsen Partners, one of the project’s architects, said some of the initial work on utilities and excavation will begin this week southeast of Greenway-Hayden Loop and Scottsdale Road. Scottsdale Quarter will include restaurants, shops, offices, condominiums and a hotel. A 38,000-square-foot cinema will feature six 40-seat theaters with reserved, leather seating and a lounge.The 28-acre project will be similar to Kierland Commons, which Nelsen Partners designed, but with improvements and more diverse architecture, Melara said.
Completion of the first phase is targeted for fall 2008, he said.
The Wolff Co. and Vanguard City Home are developing Scottsdale Quarter. Glimcher Realty Trust will lease and operate the retail and office component.
Research is still going on at the Dial Innovation Center in Scottsdale and will continue as the first phase of a shopping and office complex is built over the next year.
Developers of the Scottsdale Quarter have started boxing trees and preparing the 28-acre Dial site for construction.
“This is about creating a place,” Melara said. “When it gets done there will be some similarities to Kierland, but the architecture is totally different.”
Scottsdale Quarter is the latest mixed-use project at what is becoming a crowded table in the Northeast Valley, with more participants expected.
That includes these fledgling projects:
• CityNorth, a 144-acre development that the Thomas J. Klutznick Co. has started work on northwest of 56th Street and Loop 101. A Nordstrom department store is an anchor tenant.
• Palisene, a 72-acre project that Westcor is planning northwest of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road. A tract of state land that Westcor wants for the project is up for auction Oct. 29.
• One Scottsdale, a development of up to 1,100 residential units and a hotel northeast of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road, where Dial Corp. is building its new U.S. headquarters.
The intent is for Scottsdale Quarter to build off Kierland’s success of creating an urban shopping feel in a suburban setting.
“We’re creating a district that Kierland is a part of,” Melara said.
There will be more variety in the architecture, and the buildings will have a feel of having evolved over time, he said.
“We don’t want it to feel like it was all done by one hand,” Melara added.
The Scottsdale Development Review Board approved plans for the project in late August.
Scottsdale Quarter will have fewer parking spaces on ground level than Kierland Commons has and more in parking garages. A pair of four-level garages, with two decks below ground, will provide about 2,300 spaces, 900 more than required. Street-level shops will surround the garages.
The first buildings will be constructed around the Dial Innovation Center, which will continue its research until the fourth quarter of 2008.
Dial spokeswoman Natalie Violi said Dial is scheduled to move into its new headquarters by November 2008.
Dial’s research center was one of the Scottsdale Airpark’s first large corporate facilities when it opened in 1976. It will be razed after the researchers leave. That will allow development of the second phase at Scottsdale Quarter, which will include more shops and restaurants and an urban park with date palms that will be a focal point of the development.
A third phase will include roughly 240 condominiums and a hotel of 120 to 150 rooms.
The buildings will range from 30 to 60 feet high, with the taller buildings set back from Scottsdale Road.
As planned, Scottsdale Quarter will have about 365,000 square feet of retail and restaurants, 246,000 square feet of offices and 408,000 square feet of condos.
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