Downtown Scottsdale High Rise and Loft Condo Tour: June 14th, 2008.

Covering: Third Avenue Lofts, 4020 Lofts (new to tour), Main Street Plaza and Artesia (new to tour).

We had approximately thirty people join us for this tour; a really good size and a really great group of people.

We first visited Third Avenue Lofts which was one of the very first boom properties to be built in the loft condo niche. It was built by Avenue Communities, the same company building Centerpoint High Rise Towers in the Tempe Mill Avenue District. Third Avenue Lofts has gotten a lot of attention from the real estate community for the last year and a half or so due to all the short sales and foreclosures in the building.  The good news is that over the last six months nine lofts have sold.  There are still 24 condos for sale, constituting approximately 30% of the total building and almost all of them are foreclosure or short sales, but again, nine sold in the last six months.  That's a great thing.  The general consensus of the tour attendees was that Third Avenue Lofts is a wonderful community, with fantastic style and finishes and in a great location.  And with the prices having come down over half of what they originally sold for the lofts at Third Avenue make a lot of sense now. If you want to see what's for sale and take buy one of these wonderful lofts at what we think are good prices, then give us a call at (480) 510-8755.

The next stop was 4020 Lofts located just one building south of Indian School Road on the west side of Scottsdale Road.  4020 Lofts is a former office building being converted to a two story mixed use building with retail on the ground floor and condominiums on the second floor.  The location is great but the prices seem too high compared to what we had just seen at Third Avenue Lofts.  Of course, at Third Avenue Lofts we were looking at financially distressed properties as mention above compared to the brand new construction of 4020 Lofts, so one could argue that that is not a fair comparison.  On the other hand the market is what it is and if a buyer can find awesome lost style condominiums at Third Avenue Lofts for $375 per square foot it's a tough sell at 4020 Lofts at over $500 per foot.  Nonetheless the finishes were nice and the one floor plan we saw was great.  We look forward to revisiting it in six months to see additional finished units and to see the completed commercial space.  By the way, apparently Bank of America is taking most if not all of the commercial space which is great for the developer.  And as far as folks living at 4020 Lofts there is so much to walk to in the way of restaurants, bars, coffee shops, etc. that I don't think they'll mind having offices below them.

We then visited a $1.25M condominium at Main Street Plaza.  I'm sorry to admit that we still have not really seen what that development has to offer.  Main Street Plaza is located right where Main Street and Goldwater Boulevard intersect.  It is comprised of three buildings with a total of 36 condos.  There is still hope that the developer will be able to build the other 60 some odd units that he had originally planned.  However, with the real estate market the way it is we think it is unlikely that anything else will be built anytime soon.  The condo we toured is really wonderful with a kitchen right in the living area, so it's very wide open and flows great. The finishes are wonderful, the balcony space is large and the master bathroom is fantastic.  The price?  About $658 per square foot.  Even though it is more pedestrian friendly than Third Avenue Lofts we think that the $658 per foot cost will be a tough pill for most buyers to swallow, especially with Third Avenue Lofts selling for almost half that number.

Our last stop was Artesia. Artesia is a brand new mixed use project being built by StarPoint (the same company that finished Tapestry on Central) on the former site of the Regency Resort just north of Indian Bend Road on Scottsdale Road. This is a huge community with over 300 condominiums, town homes, and brownstones with two restaurants and retail.  The community backs the McCormick Ranch Golf Course but is buffered by a 10 acre park owned by Artesia.  So, many of the condos will have fantastic park like views while many others will have views of Mummy Mountain in Paradise Valley.  The location is top notch (new build in central Scottsdale!) but is not truly urban by our sense of the word.  We included it in the tour because it is still somewhat pedestrian friendly and is literally minutes from Scottsdale Fashion Square and Downtown Scottsdale and Kierland to the north. It's too early to tell how the community and floor plans will look but we like other StarPoint developments so we are hopeful that this will be an "A" class community.

We wrapped the tour up in just about three hours and we had plenty of time to discuss short sales, foreclosures, and the general state of the urban real estate market.

Once again we owe a huge THANK YOU to Mike Williard, an amateur photographer and very special friend of WeKnowUrban who shot these great photos.

Please visit our "Urban Tour" page to learn about our next High Rise and Loft Condo Tour.