Pinal Today

The Maricopa City Council recently approved a plan paving the way for 162 more multi-family townhouse units near Estrella Gin Business Park.

In a unanimous vote, Maricopa.com reports the council formally signed off on measures that include a minor general plan land-use amendment to high-density residential from employment use. Measures also include a zone map amendment switching the zoning to high-density residential from light industrial and the rezoning 10.2 acres on the southeastern corner of West Edison Road and North Estrella Parkway for high-density residential.

“As more and more people are living in the city of Maricopa, more and more commercial will be coming,” Maricopa Vice Mayor Vincent Manfredi told Maricopa.com. “We’ll see big box stores coming, the Lowe’s and places like that in the near future. We’ll see the places like the stores you see in Tempe Marketplace. You’ll see more and more of that in the city as more people move to Maricopa.”

Built by Developer Construction Solutions, the units are slated to be composed of five three-story buildings standing about 40 feet high with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom units. Community amenities will also include a clubhouse, pool area, greenbelt, walking paths throughout the site and enclosed parking garages.

Manfredi is adamant in expressing that city officials plan to ensure that all housing units are spoken for before they move forward in breaking ground on other construction.

“To think that all that is going to happen before the people get here, it’s not happening,” he added. “You’re not going to open up a store and hope people move to an area. The Promenade is basically empty. That’s why Target is no longer there, Sam’s Club is no longer there, Best Buy is no longer there as well Foot Locker and so many other stores that opened there in anticipation of the growth, and it didn’t happen. 

"Commercial development follows rooftops, not the other way around," he concluded. "We need multi-family housing for the growth we want as a city." 

City officials have long-pushed the idea of more multi-family housing, commissioning a recent study that showed Maricopa needs 25% of its housing to be multi-family. Currently there are more than 22,000 single-family homes in Maricopa, leaving the city 6,253 multi-family units short of its benchmark. On the multi-family units front, 2,133 such approved units currently stand, leaving a shortfall of more than 4,100 multi-family units to reach 25%.

“Every community in the metro area, probably every community in the state of Arizona, is behind on multi-family development. They’re behind,” Maricopa Mayor Nancy Smith said. “And that is why the state legislature is looking to take control of zoning. And then, if they do take control, they get to pick what goes where, how much housing you put in, what it looks like, and we do not want that to happen. No community within the metro area wants that to happen."

Smith stressed city officials are keeping close watch over the entire project.

“The challenge is to stay on top of it, so we continue to win the argument that local control is the way this needs to go," she said. "We determine what goes where, what it looks like and we have control of our destiny. In order to have economic development, you have to have people who can work there, and you have to have housing they can afford.”