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[kernals12]

Why does the Governor even need to approve a county-level tax measure?

[DJStephens]

The upward growth of Las Vegas, Phoenix and Boise from Bay Area and Los Angeles migration likely isn’t to end soon.  Take a look at Boise, they don’t have a bunch of infrastructure projects in the pipeline and that isn’t stopping transplants from moving there.  If Phoenix slows infrastructure development it just means that certain areas will develop too quickly and become functionally obsolete.  That’s really how the Phoenix metro area was when I arrived in 2001.

The same could be said for both Albuquerque and Las Cruces.   Decades of "ostrich" head in the sand behaviors regarding foresight and planning will likely doom both areas to crushing congestion in many places.   The "progressive" element touts "road diets" and transit.  Meanwhile thousands of additional vehicle trips are being made.   

[Bobby5280]

Toss Colorado into that group of ostrich head in the sand behavior regarding highway planning. I have family in Colorado Springs and enjoy visiting them, but I really hate driving around that region. It is a real PITA. They're play slow-motion whack-a-mole up there. For every grade-separated interchange project they do on a city street intersection there's at least 10 others with worsening traffic situations in need of the same treatment. So they're falling farther and farther behind. There is no real freeway network there. At best, the only thing city planners attempt to do is control the number of driveways and side streets connecting directly with major arterial streets.

[kernals12]

Ground is finally being broken on Douglas Ranch, now known as Teravalis. The master planned community will span 37,000 acres and be home to 300,000 people.

I hope ADOT has plans to accommodate those people's travel desires

[Max Rockatansky]

Sweet, more lame modern cookie cutter homes for the basic crowd to fawn over.  Essentially the Gilbert and Queen Creek boom all over again except this time in Buckeye.

[kernals12]

Sweet, more lame modern cookie cutter homes for the basic crowd to fawn over.  Essentially the Gilbert and Queen Creek boom all over again except this time in Buckeye.

Okay Frank Lloyd Wright, let's see what your house looks like.

[Max Rockatansky]

Sweet, more lame modern cookie cutter homes for the basic crowd to fawn over.  Essentially the Gilbert and Queen Creek boom all over again except this time in Buckeye.

Okay Frank Lloyd Wright, let's see what your house looks like.

Here is a sample of what I could find online of my current residence in public viewing spaces.

The garage presently how it is:

https://flic.kr/p/2nWpHNt

Slightly out of date yard and how the garage once was like.

https://www.flickr.com/gp/151828809@N08/4n190Zm90z

I’m not saying that I disagree my house is a generic or cookie cutter base facade.  In fact my house technically is my wife’s house.  She bought said house during a foreclosure sale during the last real estate bubble crash years before I met her.  I just happened to begin dating her basically around the exact same time I was considering staying long enough in California to purchase my own home.  My preference would have been an older home with an older aesthetic, I did walk a couple older homes in downtown Hanford circa 2016-17  but they weren’t priced to my liking.

I can’t find any decent views of the interior but my wife tends to be pretty creative and has decorated/painted much of the initial 2000s era facade away.  The highway theme (my wife’s idea) is pretty much contained to spaces I occupy, although I do have a large reference library in the game room.  My niece’s room is painted a color of her choosing, slightly polarizing hot pink IMO.

Presently I am building a terraced nursery for my wife out in the back which will also serve to eliminate the last patch of grass.  I’ll probably do rocks out front at the remaining patch of grass eventually as well.  I did preserve the irrigation for the unlikely event we move or my wife wants to go back to grass again

Worth noting, when I owned a home in Scottsdale it was a house built during the 1970s.  The fact that I had wooden sidings along made it very different aesthetically than the more modern homes in the area.  The next owner pulled those out and painted the exterior a shade of cream/white.

[kernals12]

We live in cookie cutter homes for the same reason we drive cookie cutter cars and talk on cookie cutter smartphones: economies of scale

[Max Rockatansky]

We live in cookie cutter homes for the same reason we drive cookie cutter cars and talk on cookie cutter smartphones: economies of scale

Doesn’t make any of them less boring.  Basically with the cookie cutter housing it is 2.3 kids, a dog and white picket fence with a modern coat of paint.  Paint me as someone who doesn’t get excited at the prospect of a ubiquitous/generic lifestyle.

All the same, buying all the way out where this developer is building is an interesting repeat of Queen Creek and Gilbert.  Those two communities blew up before the Loop 202 and Loop 101 could serve them efficiently.  Commuting from Queen Creek and Gilbert was an absolute nightmare until that access was completed.  Now we have a similar scale of development going in around Buckeye but with less solid assurance the infrastructure capacity will be built. 

[kernals12]

We live in cookie cutter homes for the same reason we drive cookie cutter cars and talk on cookie cutter smartphones: economies of scale

Doesn’t make any of them less boring.  Basically with the cookie cutter housing it is 2.3 kids, a dog and white picket fence with a modern coat of paint.  Paint me as someone who doesn’t get excited at the prospect of a ubiquitous/generic lifestyle.

All the same, buying all the way out where this developer is building is an interesting repeat of Queen Creek and Gilbert.  Those two communities blew up before the Loop 202 and Loop 101 could serve them efficiently.  Commuting from Queen Creek and Gilbert was an absolute nightmare until that access was completed.  Now we have a similar scale of development going in around Buckeye but with less solid assurance the infrastructure capacity will be built.

Luckily Teravalis includes an easement for Interstate 11 no matter how long it takes to get funding.

[Max Rockatansky]

We live in cookie cutter homes for the same reason we drive cookie cutter cars and talk on cookie cutter smartphones: economies of scale

Doesn’t make any of them less boring.  Basically with the cookie cutter housing it is 2.3 kids, a dog and white picket fence with a modern coat of paint.  Paint me as someone who doesn’t get excited at the prospect of a ubiquitous/generic lifestyle.

All the same, buying all the way out where this developer is building is an interesting repeat of Queen Creek and Gilbert.  Those two communities blew up before the Loop 202 and Loop 101 could serve them efficiently.  Commuting from Queen Creek and Gilbert was an absolute nightmare until that access was completed.  Now we have a similar scale of development going in around Buckeye but with less solid assurance the infrastructure capacity will be built.

Luckily Teravalis includes an easement for Interstate 11 no matter how long it takes to get funding.

That will certainly help, but I-11 is one those things I’ll believe is going to happen when shovels are in the ground.  That whole course west of the White Tank Mountains makes zero sense as far as providing a Vegas-Phoenix link.

[Bobby5280]

A planned community of 300,000 home-buying customers? It sounds to me like some developers are taking some market conditions for granted. There is a lot of variables in our nation's economy that are financially unsustainable for the long term. Only so many people can afford to buy a McMansion these days.

This kind of news reminds me of the mid 2000's when lots of people were getting suckered into paying top dollar for homes built way out in the "exhurbs" and financing them with adjustable rate mortgages. "Oh don't worry, you'll able to flip this house for even more money before your mortgage rate changes!"

There's a bunch of young adults who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes and make rent on an apartment. They gotta get one or more roommates. I'm worried this situation could dramatically worsen. I already own my own home, but I have other "selfish" concerns -like whether or not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will even still exist 20 or so years from now when I'm eligible to retire and start drawing benefits. It takes so and such large of a tax base to prevent those programs from going completely insolvent. That means having enough young adults who can afford to buy their own homes, get married, have kids and all that good stuff, including contributing to the tax base. A planned community built on speculation depends greatly on having enough young adult customers.

That will certainly help, but I-11 is one those things I’ll believe is going to happen when shovels are in the ground.  That whole course west of the White Tank Mountains makes zero sense as far as providing a Vegas-Phoenix link.

Bare minimum, I-11 should be routed down US-60 to at least the Loop 303 corridor then go down to I-10. Routing it way out past the White Tanks and Sun Valley Parkway doesn't make a lick of sense. The vast majority of Las Vegas to Phoenix traffic will stay on US-60.

If this 300,000 person residential development actually succeeds then, yes, a secondary 3 digit Interstate from Wickenburg straight down to I-10 might make sense. But it doesn't cancel out the need for a direct Phoenix-Vegas Interstate.

[Max Rockatansky]

The irony for me in all this real estate speculation is that it mirrors what happened during the previous bubble in Metro Phoenix.  At least back then the homes being built weren’t stuffed behind a presently impassable mountain range and had actual planned access waiting to be developed.  Paint me a skeptic, but I’ve been hearing this speculation regarding Buckeye going through a boom like this since I was 18 and it still hasn’t happened.  The city of Buckeye has about 392 square miles of land, much of it is open desert west of the White Tanks with close to zero inhabitants. 

This development is over 30 miles on I-10 to get from AZ 85 east to downtown Phoenix, who is this community going to actually serve?  If this was a retirement community like one of the many Sun City variants that would be one thing.  There is no way in hell 300,000 people from working class ages are going to move west of the White Tank Mountains. 

I really think that I made best possible choice for myself leaving Phoenix in 2013.  When the Metro Area has about 3,000,000 residents things were great and real estate prices were good.  Now to get an affordable home around Phoenix you have to live in the sticks and potentially drive an hour or more on a commute, no thanks.

Regarding I-11 you hit on the same route I preferred in the earlier threads on the topic.

[kernals12]

A planned community of 300,000 home-buying customers? It sounds to me like some developers are taking some market conditions for granted. There is a lot of variables in our nation's economy that are financially unsustainable for the long term. Only so many people can afford to buy a McMansion these days.

This kind of news reminds me of the mid 2000's when lots of people were getting suckered into paying top dollar for homes built way out in the "exhurbs" and financing them with adjustable rate mortgages. "Oh don't worry, you'll able to flip this house for even more money before your mortgage rate changes!"

There's a bunch of young adults who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes and make rent on an apartment. They gotta get one or more roommates. I'm worried this situation could dramatically worsen. I already own my own home, but I have other "selfish" concerns -like whether or not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will even still exist 20 or so years from now when I'm eligible to retire and start drawing benefits. It takes so and such large of a tax base to prevent those programs from going completely insolvent. That means having enough young adults who can afford to buy their own homes, get married, have kids and all that good stuff, including contributing to the tax base. A planned community built on speculation depends greatly on having enough young adult customers.

That will certainly help, but I-11 is one those things I’ll believe is going to happen when shovels are in the ground.  That whole course west of the White Tank Mountains makes zero sense as far as providing a Vegas-Phoenix link.

Bare minimum, I-11 should be routed down US-60 to at least the Loop 303 corridor then go down to I-10. Routing it way out past the White Tanks and Sun Valley Parkway doesn't make a lick of sense. The vast majority of Las Vegas to Phoenix traffic will stay on US-60.

If this 300,000 person residential development actually succeeds then, yes, a secondary 3 digit Interstate from Wickenburg straight down to I-10 might make sense. But it doesn't cancel out the need for a direct Phoenix-Vegas Interstate.

Phoenix is forecast to add 2.5 million people in the next 30 years. I think a community this size can succeed. Just look at Irvine or The Woodlands

[Bobby5280]

Irvine and The Woodlands don't broil in the Summer like that part of Arizona. Water supply isn't much of a tough issue in the Woodlands (but that area of the Houston metro is expensive as hell).

[brad2971]

A planned community of 300,000 home-buying customers? It sounds to me like some developers are taking some market conditions for granted. There is a lot of variables in our nation's economy that are financially unsustainable for the long term. Only so many people can afford to buy a McMansion these days.

This kind of news reminds me of the mid 2000's when lots of people were getting suckered into paying top dollar for homes built way out in the "exhurbs" and financing them with adjustable rate mortgages. "Oh don't worry, you'll able to flip this house for even more money before your mortgage rate changes!"

There's a bunch of young adults who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes and make rent on an apartment. They gotta get one or more roommates. I'm worried this situation could dramatically worsen. I already own my own home, but I have other "selfish" concerns -like whether or not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will even still exist 20 or so years from now when I'm eligible to retire and start drawing benefits. It takes so and such large of a tax base to prevent those programs from going completely insolvent. That means having enough young adults who can afford to buy their own homes, get married, have kids and all that good stuff, including contributing to the tax base. A planned community built on speculation depends greatly on having enough young adult customers.

That will certainly help, but I-11 is one those things I’ll believe is going to happen when shovels are in the ground.  That whole course west of the White Tank Mountains makes zero sense as far as providing a Vegas-Phoenix link.

Bare minimum, I-11 should be routed down US-60 to at least the Loop 303 corridor then go down to I-10. Routing it way out past the White Tanks and Sun Valley Parkway doesn't make a lick of sense. The vast majority of Las Vegas to Phoenix traffic will stay on US-60.

If this 300,000 person residential development actually succeeds then, yes, a secondary 3 digit Interstate from Wickenburg straight down to I-10 might make sense. But it doesn't cancel out the need for a direct Phoenix-Vegas Interstate.

Phoenix is forecast to add 2.5 million people in the next 30 years. I think a community this size can succeed. Just look at Irvine or The Woodlands

Sure. Keep believing that. In the meantime, consider this: In 2005, Buckeye approved a 49000 unit development called Tartesso. This development is 1-2 miles off I-10 along Sun Valley Parkway. The development finished its first phase of about 3375 homes...just within the last year, and opened its second of what are planned to be 17 elementary schools just three months ago.

You may be waiting a while for that buildout of Teravalis (though to be fair, the east part of Teravalis does appear to be right next to Sun Valley Parkway as well).

[kernals12]

A planned community of 300,000 home-buying customers? It sounds to me like some developers are taking some market conditions for granted. There is a lot of variables in our nation's economy that are financially unsustainable for the long term. Only so many people can afford to buy a McMansion these days.

This kind of news reminds me of the mid 2000's when lots of people were getting suckered into paying top dollar for homes built way out in the "exhurbs" and financing them with adjustable rate mortgages. "Oh don't worry, you'll able to flip this house for even more money before your mortgage rate changes!"

There's a bunch of young adults who can't afford to move out of their parents' homes and make rent on an apartment. They gotta get one or more roommates. I'm worried this situation could dramatically worsen. I already own my own home, but I have other "selfish" concerns -like whether or not Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will even still exist 20 or so years from now when I'm eligible to retire and start drawing benefits. It takes so and such large of a tax base to prevent those programs from going completely insolvent. That means having enough young adults who can afford to buy their own homes, get married, have kids and all that good stuff, including contributing to the tax base. A planned community built on speculation depends greatly on having enough young adult customers.

That will certainly help, but I-11 is one those things I’ll believe is going to happen when shovels are in the ground.  That whole course west of the White Tank Mountains makes zero sense as far as providing a Vegas-Phoenix link.

Bare minimum, I-11 should be routed down US-60 to at least the Loop 303 corridor then go down to I-10. Routing it way out past the White Tanks and Sun Valley Parkway doesn't make a lick of sense. The vast majority of Las Vegas to Phoenix traffic will stay on US-60.

If this 300,000 person residential development actually succeeds then, yes, a secondary 3 digit Interstate from Wickenburg straight down to I-10 might make sense. But it doesn't cancel out the need for a direct Phoenix-Vegas Interstate.

Phoenix is forecast to add 2.5 million people in the next 30 years. I think a community this size can succeed. Just look at Irvine or The Woodlands

Sure. Keep believing that. In the meantime, consider this: In 2005, Buckeye approved a 49000 unit development called Tartesso. This development is 1-2 miles off I-10 along Sun Valley Parkway. The development finished its first phase of about 3375 homes...just within the last year, and opened its second of what are planned to be 17 elementary schools just three months ago.

You may be waiting a while for that buildout of Teravalis (though to be fair, the east part of Teravalis does appear to be right next to Sun Valley Parkway as well).

Back then, house flippers were illegally getting Arizona license plates, so many so that it was inflating Arizona's estimated population. Unlike then, today's demand is real.

[Max Rockatansky]

There was plenty of in-state flippers back then also.  As an example my brother did a bunch of flipping until he got stuck holding six houses when the real estate bubble burst.  He along with his construction buddies (also from Arizona) pretty much all ending up declaring bankruptcy.

But hey, you’re the guy who didn’t live through the era and has never owned a house in Arizona so that makes you an expert right?

[brad2971]

There was plenty of in-state flippers back then also.  As an example my brother did a bunch of flipping until he got stuck holding six houses when the real estate bubble burst.  He along with his construction buddies (also from Arizona) pretty much all ending up declaring bankruptcy.

But hey, you’re the guy who didn’t live through the era and has never owned a house in Arizona so that makes you an expert right?

I do apologize for apparently striking a raw nerve with some of my commentary on how metro Phoenix (and Las Vegas, for that matter) is about to have growth slowdowns in their future.

Now to be fair, the Howard Hughes Corporation is a well-funded development corporation that has been known to build freeways through their developments. Summerlin Parkway (in Las Vegas, now Nevada SR 613) famously comes to mind. And they could very well pay for much of the costs of building a four-lane freeway from I-10 up to the existing four-lane US 93 connection northwest of SR 89 near Wickenburg. I'm just...skeptical about Teravalis's full buildout prospects, especially when we're in the early stages of a huge transfer of housing from Baby Boomers to their Millenial/Gen Z children/grandchildren. And especially since, when it comes to moving, we as a nation, despite the last two years, are still in the lowest rates of moving in the entire post WW2-era.

[Max Rockatansky]

There was plenty of in-state flippers back then also.  As an example my brother did a bunch of flipping until he got stuck holding six houses when the real estate bubble burst.  He along with his construction buddies (also from Arizona) pretty much all ending up declaring bankruptcy.

But hey, you’re the guy who didn’t live through the era and has never owned a house in Arizona so that makes you an expert right?

I do apologize for apparently striking a raw nerve with some of my commentary on how metro Phoenix (and Las Vegas, for that matter) is about to have growth slowdowns in their future.

Now to be fair, the Howard Hughes Corporation is a well-funded development corporation that has been known to build freeways through their developments. Summerlin Parkway (in Las Vegas, now Nevada SR 613) famously comes to mind. And they could very well pay for much of the costs of building a four-lane freeway from I-10 up to the existing four-lane US 93 connection northwest of SR 89 near Wickenburg. I'm just...skeptical about Teravalis's full buildout prospects, especially when we're in the early stages of a huge transfer of housing from Baby Boomers to their Millenial/Gen Z children/grandchildren. And especially since, when it comes to moving, we as a nation, despite the last two years, are still in the lowest rates of moving in the entire post WW2-era.

To clarify, my last comment wasn’t directed towards anything you said.  It was directed towards the a certain poster who has never owned a home much less lived in Metro Phoenix. 

I do agree that part of Teravalis will get built, how much though remains to be seen.  When Buckeye incorporated it grew substantially around the corridor I-10 and MC 85 due to ease of access.  I’ve been hearing how Buckeye has been planning to expand west of the White Tanks since they incorporated as a city. 

The trouble is that even with improved infrastructure that is a long way from any of the working centers of the Phoenix area.  I can’t fathom that 300,000 people from working class homes will be able to reasonably live in a place so disconnected from the rest Phoenix Metro Area.  If there isn’t demand, the development simply won’t take off anywhere near to the scale being boasted Howard Hughes Corporation.

[kernals12]

There was plenty of in-state flippers back then also.  As an example my brother did a bunch of flipping until he got stuck holding six houses when the real estate bubble burst.  He along with his construction buddies (also from Arizona) pretty much all ending up declaring bankruptcy.

But hey, you’re the guy who didn’t live through the era and has never owned a house in Arizona so that makes you an expert right?

I do apologize for apparently striking a raw nerve with some of my commentary on how metro Phoenix (and Las Vegas, for that matter) is about to have growth slowdowns in their future.

Now to be fair, the Howard Hughes Corporation is a well-funded development corporation that has been known to build freeways through their developments. Summerlin Parkway (in Las Vegas, now Nevada SR 613) famously comes to mind. And they could very well pay for much of the costs of building a four-lane freeway from I-10 up to the existing four-lane US 93 connection northwest of SR 89 near Wickenburg. I'm just...skeptical about Teravalis's full buildout prospects, especially when we're in the early stages of a huge transfer of housing from Baby Boomers to their Millenial/Gen Z children/grandchildren. And especially since, when it comes to moving, we as a nation, despite the last two years, are still in the lowest rates of moving in the entire post WW2-era.

To clarify, my last comment wasn’t directed towards anything you said.  It was directed towards the a certain poster who has never owned a home much less lived in Metro Phoenix. 

I do agree that part of Teravalis will get built, how much though remains to be seen.  When Buckeye incorporated it grew substantially around the corridor I-10 and MC 85 due to ease of access.  I’ve been hearing how Buckeye has been planning to expand west of the White Tanks since they incorporated as a city. 

The trouble is that even with improved infrastructure that is a long way from any of the working centers of the Phoenix area.  I can’t fathom that 300,000 people from working class homes will be able to reasonably live in a place so disconnected from the rest Phoenix Metro Area.  If there isn’t demand, the development simply won’t take off anywhere near to the scale being boasted Howard Hughes Corporation.

I predict that Interstate 11 will attract lots of industrial and commercial development. If Tervalis is like other "new towns" like Woodlands, Irvine, or Columbia, it will become a major job center.

[Bobby5280]

It's funny how people don't seem to remember economic conditions prior to the 2006 housing industry bust. $150 per barrel oil is one of the things that precipitated that collapse. That's when I saw $4 per gallon gasoline in the states for the first time.

Prior to that Hummer TV commercials were all over the broadcast air waves. Cheap gasoline was one of the things fueling new home developments farther and farther out from urban centers. Combine the cheap fuel with so many people buying homes with adjustable rate mortgages ("cuz we'll flip this house for a big profit in a copule years""). They weren't prepared for gasoline prices to spike and completely upend their already badly stretched financial game plans. I think this Teravalis development will depend on a lot of people to financially over-extend themselves to get anywhere near that 300,000 goal.

We've had gasoline prices hitting all time highs again. While gasoline prices have fallen some the prices for diesel remain stubbornly very high. Prices of so many things have risen and at rates well beyond average wage gains. These current conditions (and the rising interest rates associated with them) may be temporary. But they're not easily forgotten either. Prospective home buyers trying to weigh the pros and cons of living an hour's drive from work have to keep fuel costs (or even tolls) in mind.

Advances in technology, particularly Internet (not "Interstate" -freaking typo) infrastructure, may boost the growth of virtual work environments. That makes the overall outlook of where an employer may choose to build new offices less clear. I certainly don't see a boom of new office buildings happening in Buckeye anytime soon.

[Pink Jazz]

ADOT finally added travel times to the Loop 202 SanTan Freeway, as well as the eastern portion of the Loop 202 Red Mountain.

I personally thought it would have been a good idea to include a comparison of minutes to Queen Creek on L-202 EB via Val Vista vs. SR 24, as well as minutes to Phoenix via US 60 vs the Loop 202 Red Mountain.

[ztonyg]

ADOT finally added travel times to the Loop 202 SanTan Freeway, as well as the eastern portion of the Loop 202 Red Mountain.

I personally thought it would have been a good idea to include a comparison of minutes to Queen Creek on L-202 EB via Val Vista vs. SR 24, as well as minutes to Phoenix via US 60 vs the Loop 202 Red Mountain.

They also finally added L-202 in addition to I-17 Peoria or I-17 Durango to W/B I-10 downtown (prior to the South Mountain Freeway construction they listed time to 59th Ave).

[Roadwarriors79]

Proposals to redo the I-10/Loop 101 interchange.  Will include direct HOV connectors and maybe modify existing ramps. Some flyover simulations below:


https://apps.azdot.gov/files/23/i10-pm2/Loop-101-at-I10-Alternatives-Flyover-Video-English.mp4