851 apartments, shopping center planned for east Mesa
Developers want to turn about 60 acres of raw desert in Mesa at Signal Butte Road and Southern Avenue into a hub of apartment complexes and a shopping center.
Bela Flor Communities LLC and Vivo Partners submitted initial plans to the city on Aug. 21.
Bela Flor is expanding its footprint in the area. In 2020, the company received approval for the Mountain Vista master plan, a development at the southwest corner of Southern Avenue and Signal Butte Road. Development for the area had been on the books since 2007 after an attempt to bring a Super Target on the western parcel failed.
That Mountain Vista project is near buildout. An EOS Fitness Center will open at the beginning of 2024 at the plaza. Between the two master-planned areas, about 2,500 apartment units are expected, said Bela Flor President Hudd Hassell.
“We think this area is the area to focus on,” Hassell said. He pointed to employment development along the Elliot Road Technology Corridor and the need for additional housing for those workers.
Medina Station, on the east side of Signal Butte Road, would bring 851 apartment units and roughly 246,800 square feet of commercial development.
Bela Flor bought the land, which is nearly 65 acres, in 2021 from the Arizona State Land Department for $13.5 million.
The city will need to annex the land and rezone it from rural to limited commercial and residential uses. Bela Flor is aiming to get the plan to the Planning and Zoning Board by the end of the year and to the City Council in January 2024 with development starting shortly after.
“This is us running as quickly as we can and hopefully having stuff open by fall of 2025,” Hassell said.
Initial plans for Medina Station
The Medina Station project is divided into four parcels. Vivo Partners will be in charge of the building out commercial development and the firm envisions a 148,000 square-foot anchor tenant. The site plan shows another 15 buildings for retail and dining. “A mixture of full and limited-service restaurants will diversify dining options for existing and future residents,” according to the documents prepared by the developers.
The commercial development will be built closer to U.S. 60 to buffer the proposed residential units.
“It is anticipated that the anchor tenant will be developed first with additional commercial build-out to follow,” planning documents state. What that anchor tenant will be has not been announced, but a planning document has the anchor tenant slated for a Target. The building size would be in line with Target’s new approach to build “new large-formant” stores. A Mesa location, as of Aug. 29, is not on the list of future store openings.
Hassell deferred questions on the commercial development to Vivo Partners, but he said he’d welcome a Target.
Other unique amenities that could come to the development include electric car charging. Hassell said Tesla has preliminarily approved up to 50 superchargers at the development, but that the two companies were still working out the details.
Hawkins Companies is proposing to build 686 apartment units, split into two phases.
The Greystar community is expected to be developed in conjunction with Hawkins Phase 1, according to the planning documents.
Greystar plans to build 165 units for “active adults.” The company in 2021 added the 55 plus multi-family product to its portfolio to fill the “void” for the growing demographic. The housing units are built for the “the specific needs of Baby Boomers,” as stated on Greystar’s website.
“The housing development will create a strong, vibrant and diverse community,” it states in city documents.
Developers will be required to hold neighborhood meetings prior to a planning a zoning board hearing, but that has not yet been scheduled.
In December of that year, the company took dramatic steps to shake its problems.
First, a bankruptcy judge approved a plan to manage the company’s debts, according to an account at the time by the Wall Street Journal.
Days later, the company signed a settlement agreement with the federal government stemming from alleged overcharges to Medicare, the largest source of income to the company, according to financial records filed with the government.
The billing disputes occurred while Gallego worked with Southwest Ambulance, but his campaign maintained that his duties were not in areas such as business strategy or operations.
The federal investigation found Rural/Metro and its various corporate holdings — including Southwest Ambulance — incorrectly coded its hospitalto-hospital ambulance services as pricier emergency rides for five years, from 2007 to 2011.
“The United States alleged that as a result of these false and ‘upcoded’ claims, Medicare paid substantially more for the ambulance services than was warranted,” the government said in a statement at the time.
Under the agreement, the company didn’t acknowledge guilt for the incorrect billings, but it did agree to pay $2.8 million to end the government’s investigation.
Rural/Metro said at the time it settled to matter to “avoid expensive and timeconsuming litigation and to maintain focus” on its patients.
After battling bankruptcy and sagging revenues, Rural/Metro was bought in 2015 by Colorado rival American Medical Response. Three years later, that company merged with a Texas air ambulance service and was rebranded as Global Medical Response.
Long before that, Gallego had been laid off, but his exact departure date isn’t clear in records from that time.
Gallego reported Southwest Ambulance as his sole employer in 2010 and in 2011 in personal financial records state lawmakers file annually with the secretary of state.
In 2012, he identified Strategies 360, a political consulting firm, as his sole employer.
But Gallego also made eight $25 contributions to Southwest Ambulance’s employee PAC in 2012, between January and April. His campaign could not explain the timing of those contributions and his employment.
At the time of his final contribution, Gallego was identified in campaign finance records as an employee of Southwest Ambulance.
Since then, Gallego has spoken disapprovingly of corporate money in politics.
In 2015, for example, he wrote an oped in The Republic lamenting the Citizens United ruling.
“Big-money campaign donors and wealthy special interests have amassed unprecedented political power,” he wrote. “They have shown absolutely no hesitation in exercising that power to benefit their narrow objectives. It’s a corrosive influence on our government that is only growing.”
Gallego marked the 10th anniversary of the Citizens United ruling with a tweet condemning it.
Citizens United “continues to uplift dark money special interests & drown out voices of hard working Americans,” Gallego wrote. Democrats “won’t stop working until we’ve enacted campaign finance reform & ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in our democracy.”