Aquaterra part of Fiesta district revitalization

The depressed economy and other obstacles haven't slowed progress on a high-end condominium project that's expected to help transform the Fiesta Mall area into a destination for young business professionals.

Aquaterra is more than just another condo project in the East Valley. It is viewed as a major catalyst to hasten revitalization of the Fiesta district as an urban village. The Fiesta district includes the area surrounding Fiesta Mall and west to Banner Desert Medical Center.

Aquaterra will include a six-story condo complex with 430 units, a plaza with shopping, dining and services, and a 132-key Starwood Hotels brand midlevel hotel, built in three phases.

The project will be a big help in encouraging other revitalization projects in the Fiesta district, said Cathy Ji, a Mesa economic development specialist.

"It's a nice, urban, mixed-use project that really helps speed transformation in that area," she said. "When you drive by, you're going to know that you're in the Fiesta district because it's such a unique design and a unique concept for the area."

Construction on the Starwood hotel is slated to begin this fall on the southeast third of the acreage, said Thomas Roszak, president of Evanston, Ill.,-based Roszak/ADC, Aquaterra's developer. The hotel should be open by the end of 2009, he said.

"It's kind of lined up with all the other hotels in that area, so the hotels will all be in one area near each other, and we'll be the best hotel in Mesa, obviously," he said.

Construction on the condos is expected to begin in spring/summer 2009 in two phases, and overall construction should be completed in about three years, Roszak said. At this point, more than 50 condos have been pre-sold, meaning potential buyers have put down a refundable $5,000 to reserve one, he said.

The condos, which are priced from the $190,000s to the $900,000s, cannot yet be sold until a property report is completed in order to receive financing for the project, Roszak said. At that point, condos would then be sold and buyers would be required to pay 10 percent of the cost up front.

"The economy obviously is affecting the real estate market," he said. "We're starting the hotel as phase I and that gives us some more time to sell the condos in phases II and III. Sales, like everywhere, have been slow, but we have a unique product. We're kind of a one-of-a-kind thing in Mesa that competes with the products in Phoenix, Tempe and Scottsdale."

Roszak said Aquaterra is not unlike other projects he has undertaken in the past that helped revitalize other areas.

"We've done the two largest planned developments in Evanston ... and now over the last 10 years, Evanston ... has changed, it's reinvigorated," he said. "There's about 70 new restaurants in the area, there's very successful offices that have been built in that area ... the rents have gone up and vacancies have gone down."

Having Aquaterra in the Fiesta district is going to help drive the market in a different direction because it will change the demographics of the population, Ji said.

"Condo projects typically drive the young business professionals who are maybe single and looking for (different entertainment uses), whereas now we have the more residential, single-family homes around there and some of the apartment complexes where you see a lot of the Mesa Community College students living," she said. "So this adds another dynamic to the area, and helping to recruit retail in that fashion as well as office users in that fashion."

Aquaterra is going to happen and the condos are going to sell, Roszak said.