Rockefeller Group eyes Chandler site

A major national developer has set its sights on Chandler with plans to build one of the largest commercial projects in the city’s growing airport area.

Based in New York City, The Rockefeller Group is proposing a roughly 820,000-square-foot mix of office, retail and industrial space at the northwest corner of Queen Creek and Gilbert roads.

It’s one of two developments that mark Rockefeller’s entry into the Valley.

The company is highly active in California, so coming to Arizona was the next logical extension, said Tom McCormick, senior vice president of development.

“It’s a dynamic market. It’s growing,” he said.

The Rockefeller development will be one of the most significant business parks in Chandler to date, said city economic development specialist Christine Mackay.

Construction has started to ramp up around the airport in recent months after nearly a decade of planning. The city set aside 9 square miles of land around the airport in the late 1990s to become a future business hub, which will employ an estimated 25,000 workers by 2020.

Though plans are preliminary, the Rockefeller project would include 20 buildings, ranging in size from 16,000 square feet to 130,000 square feet, Mackay said. Its industrial spaces would cater to technology-based companies.

Construction is likely at least a year away, McCormick said. The New York company has a second Chandler project in the works near Chandler Boulevard and McClintock Drive, which would likely be built first, he said.

The airpark project is the latest in a string of developments that have been scheduled for the area in recent years.

Opus West Corp. is building two 90,000-square-foot office buildings where Loop 202’s Santan Freeway crosses Cooper Road. A $150 milliondevelopment, mixing offices, restaurants and shops, is in the works at Queen Creek Road and Arizona Avenue.

The overriding factor in making that development possible was the Loop 202 expansion, said Rich Sica, executive vice president at commercial brokerage GVA Daum.

A shortage of land also has pushed commercial developers farther east into the Chandler Airport and Mesa’s Williams Gateway Airport areas, he said.

Sica said he wasn’t aware of Rockefeller’s project but wasn’t surprised to hear about the group coming to the East Valley.

“Phoenix is a place where everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon,” he said. “They come from all corners of North America.”

Rockefeller and other companies building in the area face a certain amount of risk, since the region has no historical trends on how quickly office and industrial space is leased out, said Pete Wentis, senior vice president at brokerage CB Richard Ellis.

The area also could face a glut of available space with many projects opening in the same 12 month-period, he said.

“You’re venturing into a brand-new market,” Wentis said. “You’re kind of taking a leap of faith.”

Still, growth is expected to fuel demand for commercial space in the long-term, he said