Riverwalk project work begins

Construction has started on the first phase of a $400 million, 187-acre business park on American Indian land that will feature an artificial river.

The Alter Group is developing the Riverwalk Arizona project, one of the largest projects built on Indian land to date, between Via de Ventura and Indian Bend Road on the east side of Loop 101 in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.

"It’s almost a microview of the Salt River community, how the whole community developed around the Salt River as a water source," said Kurt Rosene, The Alter Group’s senior vice president of national development. "It will be a wonderful, parklike environment for people to walk along and take breaks."

Construction already has started on the Arizona Design Center, a collection of the region’s home decor showrooms that sell wholesale furniture, fabrics, lighting, floor coverings and other furnishings.

"Riverwalk Arizona will yield an estimated 2 million square feet of corporate office and retail space, and create up to 15,000 new jobs," said Michael Alter, The Alter Group’s president.

Initial plans for the massive project were revealed in late 2003 after years of behind-the -scenes talks between investors, the federal government and the Salt River community.

The 142,000-square-foot design center already is 70 percent preleased, will be completed this summer and may be expanded in the future, Rosene said.

Within the next month, construction will start on two, three-story speculative office buildings totaling 164,000 square feet, he said. Those buildings will be completed by early next year, he said.

"The spec office is going to cater toward the corporate America class A office tenant," Rosene said. "We think the space is going to be received very well and will probably lease up quite quickly because of the lack of unavailability of big blocks of space."

Rosene said he has talked to national corporations located outside Arizona that are interested in locating an operation at Riverwalk Arizona.

"We’re also in negotiations with several different retailers for at least 400,000 square feet of retail space," he said. "That part of it will probably break ground during the third quarter of this year and will (be completed) in the first quarter of 2006. The retail portion will be a combination of big box and junior box . . . suburban retail businesses. And then because of the design center . . . we’ve got a lot of interest from other furniture and design-related businesses that want to be near that."

The business park will also include restaurants, and hotel chains also have expressed interest in locating there, Rosene said.

"Mid-next year you could have 1 million square feet of development either almost completed or under way out there," he said. "By any standards in Scottsdale or metropolitan Phoenix that’s a huge development. We’ve already talked to three or four different corporations about doing build-to-suits or bringing them to this location, especially consolidations. A lot of large corporations love the exposure and the visibility and to have their sign on the top of a building visible to 200,000 people a day driving by on the 101."

The entire project should be completed in five to 10 years, Rosene said.