220-Unit Mixed-Use for Mesa Trouble Spot

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange W.M. Grace Companies and PB Bell have proposed a Planned Area Development to try to breathe new life into a long-dead site at the NWC of Southern Avenue and Alma School Road in Mesa. The 15-net-acre Fiesta Village site was originally developed as a shopping center in 1979, […]

The Changing Face of “The Mall”

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange Malls in America, and in the Valley, were once not only retail powerhouses, they were cultural centers as well. Nationwide, one point of community identity was which mall you lived closest to. The combined impacts of the Great Recession, urbanization trends, online retail and the reduction of the […]

The Next Go ‘Round for Fiesta Mall

By Roland Murphy for Arizona Builder’s Exchange After more than a decade of decline bordering on freefall, Mesa’s long-suffering Fiesta Mall has once again changed hands, this time to a local developer with plans to turn the once-dominant retail center into a “Campus” that will primarily target medical learning, community colleges and for-profit schools. Cashen […]