Peter Corbett
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 26, 2007 12:26 PM
Brad and Michele DeGeorge looked all over the Northeast Valley for a new home before settling on a seventh-floor condominium in the Plaza Lofts at Kierland. Panoramic views were the “wow!” factor that helped sell them on their $1.62 million condo, which will be ready in January. That and the lifestyle of Kierland with its shops and restaurants attracted them to the Plaza Lofts and their 2,100-square-foot home.
“It’s truly an urban and suburban setting with everything around you,” Michele DeGeorge said. The DeGeorges, both Realtors who moved to Chandler three years ago from Orange County, Calif., said they saw the market slump as an opportunity to buy at Kierland, knowing that their property will increase in value.“We wouldn’t have been able to buy at Kierland if there hadn’t been a slowdown in the market,” Brad DeGeorge said. “We would have been in a lottery situation” to try to buy a condo.
In the Valley’s challenged real estate market, the DeGeorges are the kind of buyers developers are competing for to sell their inventory of luxury condos and townhouses. Buyers can also choose from mid-rise condos in downtown Phoenix, Tempe and the Biltmore area.
Several hundred condos in northeast Phoenix’s Kierland and in downtown Scottsdale will be completed by the second quarter of 2008, and hundreds more are in the pipeline.
The Landmark at Kierland has sold 36 of 48 condos in its second tower, with prices averaging $2 million, developer Ed Lewis said.
Both the X Wine Lofts and Safari Drive projects are completing their buildings in downtown Scottsdale.
The X (ten) lofts, built by Scottsdale-based Grace Communities, will include 82 units northwest of Scottsdale and Osborn roads. Prices start at just under $400,000, making them among the least expensive new downtown condos, said Ryan Zeleznak, a Grace principal.
Grace is also building 44 Monroe, a 34-story condominium tower with 202 units in downtown Phoenix.
Vanguard City Home and the Wolff Co. are partners in the Safari Drive project, northeast of Scottsdale and Camelback roads. It will include 97 condos and townhouses in its first phase, along with restaurants and shops.
The first condo residents on the former Safari Resort property should start to move in at the end of November, and others will move in through spring, said Chris Camberlango, a development partner.
Plans are being revised for the later phases of Safari Drive, with more retail and offices, plus an unknown number of additional condos, he said.
Grace Communities’ Zeleznak said some condo contracts have been canceled, in part because of stricter lending rules.
“The days of getting 95 percent financing in a condo project, that’s long gone,” he said.
He said the Valley’s condo market is much healthier than in places like Miami, Las Vegas and San Diego simply because there is not such an oversupply of units here.
“Downtown Phoenix is going to be incredible,” he said.
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