[Don B.]

Article in today's Arizona Republic:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...wncondo30.html

Downtown plan calls for 50-story condo tower

Glen Creno and Ginger D. Richardson
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 30, 2005 12:00 AM

Phoenix's condo craze has kicked into overdrive with talk of a 50-story downtown tower that would be the state's tallest building.

The building would go on the site of the Ramada Inn-Downtown, a hotel at 401 N. First St. that opened in 1956. Plans are preliminary, but one idea being kicked around is a 50-story condo tower with space on the site set aside for Arizona State University's journalism school. The ground floor would have retail.

Investors in the project are shopping for a developer, and Donald Trump's name is already in the mix. So is Optima, the Chicago-area company that already is putting up a couple of big condo projects in the Valley.

The investors, a group called City Centre LLC, which owns the Ramada and includes local and out-of-state investors, would donate the land to the city and ASU and keep the development rights.

Downtown Development Director Pat Grady declined to comment on who might ultimately be selected to develop the condominium project, but he expects property owners to make an announcement in the next two to three weeks.

Grady said that it isn't clear at this point whether the site will be home to one or two condominium towers and that the height has not yet been decided. Downtown Phoenix's Bank One Center, at 40 stories, is the state's tallest building.

"Whether it is 25 stories or 50 stories will have to be determined by a market assessment," Grady said. "But it is very exciting."

Trump and development partner Bayrock Group are trying to win approval for a hotel-condo project in the city's ritzy Camelback Corridor near 24th Street and Camelback Road. Optima is building a project near the intersection and planning another north of Scottsdale Fashion Square.

Mark Stanton, Trump and Bayrock's local spokesman, said the group has looked at several downtown Phoenix properties, including the Ramada site. He said the developers are not giving up on their Camelback plans despite some neighborhood opposition. Any downtown project would be a separate endeavor, he said.

"What they are building downtown would be a totally different product," Stanton said. "It's a totally different area."

Nick Wood, a zoning attorney at Snell & Wilmer who represents the Ramada's owners, said construction could start in 18 months.

He said the condo tower could contain 1 million square feet of space, developed at an average cost of $225 to $250 a square foot.

Metro Phoenix is the country's top home-building market, specializing in affordable single-family houses built on the city's fringes. But there is a surge of interest in condos and urban lofts.

And many of these new projects are heading downtown to piggyback on the bioscience buzz and the prospect of an ASU campus in the center city.

Keith Mishkin, condo broker with Cambridge Properties, said the Ramada site is a prime spot in the heart of the planned ASU campus and across the street from a planned Sheraton convention hotel.

The project could spin toward high-end or affordable condos or even some kind of student housing, Mishkin said.



--don