Tribune- Tempe Previews its soaring skyline

Tempe previews its soaring skyline By Garin Groff, Tribune November 9, 2006 It takes a crane to build tall buildings, and a dozen of them have sprouted up in Tempe’s skyline. “And there are a dozen more on the way,” Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said Wednesday. Those cranes will bring an unprecedented change to the East Valley’s skyline, a look the city showed off for the first time Wednesday as it released a computer-animated video of new buildings coming soon to downtown and Town Lake. The video offered the best idea yet of what Tempe will look like with a 30-story condo tower and several other buildings that range from 12 to more than 20 stories. The footage gives a bird’s-eye view, as if it were shot from a helicopter, and reveals the planned buildings from multiple angles. While the local and nationwide real estate market has slowed and even killed some projects, Hallman said the downtown’s features have made the area immune to larger market forces. “It doesn’t apply here,” he said. The look at Tempe’s future came during a second annual showcase of downtown and lakeside projects, which drew hundreds of developers, real estate brokers and others. More than 40 projects are approved or under way in the area. One of the featured projects was Onyx, a 26-story condo tower planned on the northeast corner of Rural Road and Town Lake. Developer West-Stone Communities hasn’t formally submitted plans yet, but still expects to start construction in spring. Onyx condos will range from $300,000 to more than $1 million, WestStone spokeswoman Marilyn Pfaff said. The event included projects as well-known as Centerpoint Condominiums, a cluster of 30-story towers under construction, and a three-story, 65-unit condo project called the Brownstones at Tempe. The Brownstones’ first resident, Erik Anderson, left a downtown Phoenix loft for Tempe and said he was surprised to learn how many big developments are under way around his new home. “It’s pretty exciting,” Anderson said. “It’s going to bring a lot of life to Tempe.”