Developer Jeff Cline of Signature Properties West LLC submitted plans Monday to build a 15-story business/residential tower next to Chandler Fashion Center.
The 200-foot high-rise would include one floor of retail, three floors of office condominiums and 11 floors of residences. Buyers could choose from lofts, luxury condos and penthouses with price tags ranging from $300,000 to $4 million. Floor plans range from 766 to 2,885 square feet.
Office condos could range from $250,000 to $1 million and from 1,000 to 3,000 square feet.
The Elevation Tower would sit beside the Renaissance ClubSport Hotel, a Marriott franchise on which Cline expects to break ground this summer and open in 2007 near Loop 101 and Chandler Boulevard. Cline announced plans for the Renaissance in September 2003.
The 10-story hotel will have two floors of penthouses and a 75,000-square-foot athletic club with racquetball courts, yoga rooms and an Olympic-size swimming pool.
Cline was out of town Monday and could not be reached. Those close to the plans say the hotel penthouses generated so much interest that Cline decided to add a second, taller tower of residences.
Mid-rise and high-rise condos are a growing trend in the Valley, with several under development in Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale. But erecting $4 million penthouses in Chandler is an experiment, to say the least.
"Chandler was historically a rural community, but we’re becoming more urbanized," Chandler Mayor Boyd Dunn said. "We’re facing residential build-out in seven years, so development is going to be going up instead of out."
The city is trying to establish a "live, work and play" environment, much like Tempe and Scottsdale. It already has a mall, resort, plenty of restaurants and high-paying jobs. Luxury condos are the next logical step, Dunn said.
Developers are eager to build condo towers in the Valley right now, but their success with home buyers remains to be seen, said Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University.
"While these have worked in other parts of the country, it’s still a wait-and-see thing in the Valley," he said. "If there’s any downturn in the residential market, and that’s a big if, do people retreat from these new concepts? . . . A lot can happen in two years."
Butler pointed out that home buyers with $4 million to spend could afford a home anywhere in the world. In that sense, Elevation Tower faces a lot of competition.
"Why would people with that kind of income want to live there (Chandler)?" Butler said. "I’m not disparaging it, but it doesn’t have all the amenities like high-end restaurants and golf courses."
Scott Graff, the project’s broker, said he has received a steady stream of calls from interested buyers in and out of Arizona. The first round of units, atop the hotel, go on sale at the end of the year.
The contractor, Weitz Co., revamped the Orpheum Lofts in downtown Phoenix and is slated to build the 33-story 44 Monroe Place condos as well as the 23-story Summit at Copper Square.
Elevation Tower would dwarf Chandler’s tallest building, a five-story office tower at Loop 101 and Ray Road. The East Valley’s tallest building is the 17-floor Bank of America Financial Plaza in Mesa, which is 226 feet.
The Planning and Zoning Commission will review the second tower, an amendment to Cline’s hotel project, before the City Council votes on it in the next few months.
Stephanie Paterik
The Arizona Republic
