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News Articles on the
Tucson/Vail Area
These articles support the
fact that land for homes
is hard to find and prices continue to rise.
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Vail might get 368-acre
mall
By Nicole R. Grubbs, ARIZONA DAILY STAR
A Minnesota developer plans to build a series of "villages," featuring
shops, fitness centers, offices and housing on 368 acres southeast of
Tucson.
The development. Mountain View Villages, would be in Vail, just outside
Tucson's city limits off Interstate 10. Its developers bought the land
over several years, but they do not yet have investors or tenants lined
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The "super
regional" center would have nine areas to include activities and shops
focusing on fitness, culture, education and health, among other things. It
would include mall-type stores along with car dealerships, furniture
stores, fitness centers, fine dining and perhaps a water park, said the
project's developer, Robert Hoffman, owner of Hoffman Development Inc.
Hoffman is a partner in a law firm that represented developers of the Mail
of America, the nation's largest mall in Bloomington, Minn.
Developers hope to attract shoppers from Tucson's South and Southeast
sides, Benson and Sierra Vista. That may be overly optimistic, considering
that the far Southeast Side area is just now getting its second full-scale
shopping center, said Brian Harpel, a commercial broker who put together
The Shoppes at Rita Ranch deal at the northwest comer of South Houghton
and East Rita Roads.
That shopping center, anchored by Fry's Food and Drug, is to open in 2004.
The area's first center, with a Safeway, opened less than five years ago. |
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(Job growth: Tucson is
No. 1 article details)
David Pittman 9/20/00
Assistant Business Editor
When it comes to job
growth, Tucson is No. 1 in the nation. During the first 6 months of this
year, the number of new jobs here grew by 6.12%, tops among the 290 metro
areas surveyed by the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics. And Tucson's
record setting performance helped Arizona's job growth jump by 4.7% during
the first half of 2000, outperforming every other state, according
to the Western Blue Chip Economic Forecast. "Tucson is actually growing
faster than Phoenix in terms of job creation so far this year, said Tracy
Clark, senior economist and associate director of the Bank One Economic
Forecast Center.
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(Land values
rising article details)
By Nicole Greason 2/8/01
Citizen Assistant Business Editor
Population growth and environmental concerns have driven up the market for
land in Tucson and the surrounding areas, according to a semiannual
commercial real estate report released by Tucson Realty & Trust based on
activity in 2000.
Tucson's growth and the ongoing movement to preserve local pygmy owl
habitats and other natural environs are putting the squeeze on available
land for development. Within Pima County, vacant land with commercial and
high density residential zoning and access to utilities is at a premium,
and the prices for such acreage are out-pacing inflation.
A
bright spot in the industrial real estate scene is a plan by the
University of Arizona to develop 180 acres near its science and technology
park southeast of Tucson to accommodate so called smart shell buildings
for use by optics and bio-technical companies.
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(Home Prices are expected to surge article details)
By Macarlo Juarez
2/14/01
Arizona Daily Star US Home Corp.
Tucson President Steve Craddock expects new home prices to increase this
year by at least $10,000. However, "the storm hasn't hit yet" when it
comes to the cost of a new home in coming years as development
regulations-including the state Growing Smarter Plan-increase and
development ready land disappears.
"We have a 14 month supply of developable lots right now,
but that supply is diminishing very rapidly," Craddock said. Developers
currently are paying upward of $30,000 per acre of raw land, said Richard
Foerster, land specialist for Tucson Realty & Trust Co. Commercial.
R.L. Brown, a Phoenix area
housing consultant, said that growth restrictions are only partly
responsible for soaring land prices. Home builders, he said, really don't
negotiate land prices anymore. "We just pay what the developer thinks he
can get." Affordability of future housing is in jeopardy in the absence of
some downward pressure on land prices, Brown added.
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(Tucson grew in 90's
article details)
By David Wichner 3/26/01
Arizona Daily Star
Pima County's population grew by 26.5% to nearly 850,000 in the 1990's, as
the Hispanic community swelled and new arrivals flocked to the suburbs.
Tucson's 2000 population was pegged at 486,899, up 20% from 405,390 in
1990, and Tucson's Hispanic population grew 46.6%. The pace of growth is
much greater outside Tucson's city limits. The population in Pima County
outside the Tucson city limits grew 36.5% in the past decade, thanks
largely to rapid growth NW of Tucson and the incorporated areas SE of the
city. |
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Average new home tops $200,000
15% price surge seen in one year
By Macario Juarez Jr.
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
The average price of a new home in
the Tucson area exceeded $200,000 m
May for the first time — an increase of
nearly 15 percent in just one year.
It's not just demand that's driving
up prices. Increasing land costs and
goverrunenTTegulations and~Iees also
are factors, said Steve Craddock, presi-
dent of US Home's Tucson division.
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