Commercial realtors call it the Red Mountain/Mesa submarket, a northeast Mesa area that encompasses the city’s biggest aerospace companies, high-end neighborhoods and golf courses.
Yet, with all the alluring demographics, vacant retail spaces abound on many street corners as a lingering impact of the nation’s second-worst economic downturn that ended in mid-2009.
A significant sign that business is bouncing back has emerged with the $1.45 million purchase of a shopping center at the southeastern corner of Brown and Recker roads.
The new owners have made a commitment to invest $1 million or more to reinvigorate it.
“We have a full marketing and renovation plan for the center,” said Jeff Hawke, an owner of Kinetic Companies, a Phoenix company that specializes in real estate investment, retail shopping center development and management.
Among the company hallmarks is engaging neighborhoods affected by Kinetic’s redevelopment of property like the 53,267-square-foot Recker Brown Center, said Hawke, and the company’s co-owner, Joel Moyes.
“We spend a lot of time going to neighborhood meetings and listening to the needs of the community as we assess what we will do,” Hawke said.
A statement from Moyes on the company’s website said its subsidiary, Kinetic Investment Holdings, has a $500 million targeted private-equity placement within the next 18 to 24 months throughout the southwestern U.S.
He said Kinetic does all of its work in-house and company executives often visit the company’s commercial property.
“We are not absentee landlords,” Moyes told the Mesa Republic.
“We’re very bullish on that area and the center.
“We love the demographics. … We are proud to be a part of the neighborhood.”
Despite the proximity of the center and nearby retail property to some of the city’s highest household incomes, Hawke said, “there is no question that the area has been undervalued in buying capacity.”
The center was built in 1992 on almost five acres .
It sold for $9 million in 2005 to a previous owner, Moyes said.
When Kinetic purchased it in December from Arizona Investment Funds, LLC, a firm registered to San Jose, Calif., manager, 20 percent of the center was occupied, by two tenants.
The center’s tenants were Club Tan, a tanning salon, and Tuesday Morning, a chain retailer that sells closeout merchandise, such as home decor, bedding and collectibles.
It was the third shopping center acquisition for Kinetic Companies in 2011 in the Valley.
Tom Semancik of Commercial Properties, Inc., Tempe, represented the seller, and Nick Miner of the same firm, represented the buyer.
Hawke and Moyes said Kinetic is looking to buy more structurally sound property with good potential from “distressed buyers.”
“We believe in Phoenix and its outlying cities,” Hawke said.
“Both Joel and I are ASU grads.
“We believe cities in the Phoenix area will be at the top of the list once again for growth and we are actively pursuing more projects like Brown and Recker.”
He said Kinetic also recently purchased Kiowa Village, a strip center near the southeastern corner of Baseline and Power roads.
“Now is a good time for Mesa,” he said.
“There is reason for people to have optimism.”
