Scottsdale has evolved from retirement, tourism

December 7, 2004

Conrad A. Conrad might have had the longest commute in Scottsdale. The Dial Corp. executive would spend the week at the company’s Scottsdale Airpark headquarters and fly home to Texas for the weekends.

Additional photos and graphic.

Every Sunday night he’d leave his Dallas home, say goodbye to his wife, Pat, and hop a plane bound for Scottsdale.

"My wife and I said, ‘This is crazy. Scottsdale is one of the nicest spots we’ve seen,’ " the 58-year-old chief financial officer said.

Once viewed as a place for the retiring wealthy, Scottsdale has become a city of choice for the working wealthy.

It’s a place where entrepreneurs come to start businesses and where growing families are choosing to put down roots. It has evolved from a community that was built almost entirely on the tourism industry to one that is today a diverse center of commerce, exporting jobs to the rest of the Valley.

Like many corporate executives who have flocked to Scottsdale over the past few decades, Conrad’s relocation decision wasn’t a difficult one.

The couple found a home in Sincuidados, a north Scottsdale enclave situated in a spectacular natural setting near the Tonto National Forest, yet close to nice restaurants and shopping malls. Homes in the community sit on acre-plus lots and range from $500,000 to well over $1 million.

They eat in restaurants twice a week, take in jazz concerts, walk their dog in the desert preserve. Pat enjoys the museums; Conrad joined a country club. Instead of a three-hour plane ride, it takes Conrad about 15 minutes to drive his Porsche 911 to the office.

Both are impressed with the cleanliness of the community and the perks that come with its image-conscious reputation, such as a ban on billboards and the Southwest-themed public art along Loop 101.

"A lot of people would suggest, ‘Why would you spend that kind of money?’ Things like that are very much a draw to the community," Conrad said. "It’s just a very agreeable lifestyle."

EVOLUTION OF WEALTH

A trip to the downtown nightclub district, the valet stands at the shopping malls or the highend restaurants will reveal that the Scottsdale area is the entertainment and shopping mecca for the well-heeled and those who adopt that image.

New businesses, restaurants and stores cater to people with seemingly bottomless pocketbooks.

"Scottsdale is an extremely wealthy, upscale community. What a lot of people don’t realize is that’s a more recent phenomenon than not," said Rick Kidder, public policy director for the Scottsdale Area Chamber of Commerce. "Scottsdale’s history is one that began as partly a resort area and partly a middleclass kind of community. If you look at Scottsdale from a national perspective, this newer Scottsdale is the Scottsdale they imagine."

The vast majority of the Valley’s luxury and exotic car dealerships are located in Scottsdale or along its border in Phoenix. Even those out-of-town businesses that are close enough incorporate the "Scottsdale" name in their advertising and signs.

It’s a city where even the public library system offers an independent film series and wineeducation classes aimed at teaching residents how to host a proper wine-tasting.

To be sure, Scottsdale always has been an upscale community that attracted resort-bound visitors and retirees. But it’s the widespread display of this wealth that has become more obvious.

Laurel Soutus is a graphic artist who has lived in the same neighborhood near Scottsdale Fashion Square for more than 40 years. She recalls when Scottsdale was a resort town — "really relaxed, but it was also ‘old money’ " — its businesses run by longtime, well-known local families.

Now, she said, "Everybody is driving Hummers or an SUV they never take off-road. I don’t know what happened, but it’s not the Scottsdale I grew up in."

Yet even Soutus participates in a lifestyle found nowhere else in the Valley. As a member of the North Scottsdale Polo Club, she spends most weekends in the winter running her horse, Larry, on the polo fields of WestWorld.

"It’s not that ‘Pretty Woman’ image you would think of," she said. "When we have a charity event, you’ll see more of those people out there. We drink beer and get dirty."

Soutus lives on the fringe of downtown, which is undergoing a remarkable transformation with nearly $1 billion of private and public reinvestment. High-end condominiums and lofts, trendy hotels, nightclubs and public beautification projects are planned within its 786 acres.

Soutus knows she’ll reap the rewards of that revitalization when the time comes to sell her modest single-family home, which sits less than a mile from a pair of planned luxury condominium towers on Camelback Road.

"It’s exciting and unsettling," she said.

GROWING SCOTTSDALE

Cold winters and an unbearable three-hour commute in Chicago spurred Cheryl and Roderick Prince to move to Scottsdale seven years ago.

At 36 years old, the couple and their three children, all of whom are under 10, represent the changing Scottsdale demographic.

In 1990, families made up about 63 percent of the total population. By 2000, they made up about 75 percent.

Cheryl does the finances for their church. Roderick is a software developer, working either from home or at his clients’ offices.

The value of their five-bedroom home in the upscale Grayhawk community has more than doubled since they purchased it. Initially, the couple paid about $20,000 more than similar homes they were considering in Phoenix.

They were willing to pay a premium for living in Scottsdale. Good schools, a clean environment and the community itself — with its greenbelts and mix of housing — were among the key draws.

Their home is in the nongated section of Grayhawk, and, by current home building trends, it’s of average size. Homes in the Princes’ neighborhood range from 2,200 square feet to 3,400 square feet.

"I know a lot of people think Scottsdale is snobby and wealthy, but we’re not like that," Cheryl said. "We’re an average family living in an average home."

Yet she acknowledges that "average" by Scottsdale standards today might have kept them out of the community if they hadn’t purchased their home in 1997.

At nearly $572,000, the median price of a new Scottsdale home last quarter was more than three times as expensive as the Valley median.

The average size of a custom home being built in Scottsdale this year is 5,076 square feet. Standard homes today average 3,700 square feet.

"We kind of laugh about it and wonder whether we could have afforded this today," she said.

Development of the area north of Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard also has exploded since they bought their home. It used to be that Rawhide Western Town and Steakhouse — the 1880s-faux Western town at Pinnacle Peak and Scottsdale Road — was the most identifiable landmark. Now it’s Loop 101.

"It’s gone from a kind of wayout-by-Rawhide location to a great location. If you look on the map, it really is the middle of Scottsdale now," Cheryl said. "It was kind of a suburb. Now it’s kind of its own location."

Rawhide, while still operating as a Western theme park, recently was sold and the land is expected to be developed someday as a mixed-use housing community.

And while they were witness to some of Scottsdale’s classic development battles of the late 1990s, Cheryl said most of those cries to slow growth have been hushed.

That suits them fine. Partly because they contributed to that land rush, but mostly because they enjoy the amenities. They shop at nearby Desert Ridge Marketplace and Scottsdale 101. They eat at local restaurants, although they wish there were more nearby.

"We like it. It’s more our lifestyle," she said. "There were people up here who liked the open spaces. Many of them moved to Cave Creek."

BUSINESSES CATER TO WELL-HEELED

It’s not only the residents who are changing Scottsdale.

Twenty-five years ago, 60 percent of Scottsdale’s jobs were tourism-related. Today, only 11 percent connect to the tourism industry, which now ranks as the No. 4 industry in the city.

Much of this diversity has taken place in the Scottsdale Airpark, which has grown over the last two decades from an industrial center to a high-powered business core.

A recent airpark survey shows companies there offer annual salaries of about $60,000 on average. That’s nearly twice the average salary of $33,000 offered by Arizona employers in general.

Businesses in the area cater to these well-paid employees.

Perhaps nothing melds Scottsdale’s Old West image and its new identity more than guns and wealth. Even the indoor shooting range caters to the wealthy and offers services that go beyond a nice place to sling lead.

Scottsdale Gun Club co-owner Terry Schmidt opened the $8 million, 30,000-square-foot building in June, hoping its central location in the Scottsdale Airpark and an impressive demographic base — flush with highly educated and high-income families — would feed its success.

He was right. Membership numbers have more than doubled pre-opening projections. But it wasn’t a gamble. Schmidt and his partners chose the location, in part, because of the area’s high gun ownership, which includes, perhaps surprisingly, one of the Valley’s top rates for concealedweapons permits.

The club, which is open to the public, has a country club feel. In addition to a large showroom, the place boasts a clothing line, a corporate board room and a small locker room with showers. Most impressive is the Titanium Lounge, a members-only area decked out in the theme of a "cattle baron’s library." Members gain entry to the place by looking into a device that scans their retinas, much like something out of a science -fiction movie. The membership fee is nearing $7,500, plus $200 a month, to enjoy the private shooting lanes and the (nonalcoholic) lounge, which features chess, backgammon, poker and pool tables, a fireplace and high-backed leather chairs.

"People demand or expect a little more in Scottsdale. When somebody comes in here, all of their expectations should be met," Schmidt said. "There is a different demand on services and products here than any other demographic throughout the United States."

NORTHERN LIFESTYLE

Tim Bakels works in a place where many people would like to vacation.

Nestled in the boulder-studded foothills of north Scottsdale, Desert Highlands feels more like a country club than a masterplanned community.

As the general manager, Bakels seems to be as well-known as a doorman at a Manhattan loft.

"Good to see you, Mr. Bakels," says a middle-aged woman leaving the fitness center.

"Always, ma’am," replies Bakels. It’s a scenario played out every day as if the residents are guests at a formal resort. Bakels described his management style as having "1,200 bosses," in reference to the number of residents who live in the community.

"We run a residential community with a country club attitude," he said.

The 850-acre guard-gated community boasts an 18-hole golf course, fitness center, spa, lounge and four dining rooms (no denim after 5:30 p.m.).

Homes sell for about $1.5 million, which doesn’t include a $75,000 membership fee and $750 a month for the amenities.

Desert Highlands is just one of the master-planned communities that have come to define the north Scottsdale lifestyle. Many have proliferated over the past couple of decades, successfully marketing the area’s golf courses, desert lifestyle and amenities found in few places in the Valley.

Bakels, who arrived at Desert Highlands in 1999, said the biggest change he’s seen is the growth in competition for residents among these communities.

Desert Highlands competes with Desert Mountain, Estancia, DC Ranch, Silverleaf, Whisper Rock and Troon. All are located in the same area, north of the Central Arizona Project Canal.

Jackie Westland, a retired school administrator and former clothing wholesaler, spends summers in Michigan and the rest of the year at Desert Highlands. She originally intended the home to be an investment.

"It’s a lifestyle I think anyone would aspire to," she said. "A lot of people here say we live in a little kingdom and it’s la-la land, and it truly is."