By Mark Carlisle | Daily Independent
This site plan shows how the wash will split the apartment complex into two portions.
An 882-unit apartment complex is going to be built on the northern edge of Desert Ridge Marketplace in Phoenix.
The local planning committee wants those residents, many of whom will move in because of the appeal of the proximity to the shopping center, to have a safe way to cross the street.
During its meeting last week, the Desert View Village Planning Committee added a requirement that the developer of the apartments, northeast of Tatum Boulevard and Deer Valley Drive, add some sort of pedestrian crossing across Deer Valley Drive.
The complex, developed by Garden Communities, will stretch across about half a mile of Deer Valley Drive, meaning the longest walk to a crossing for those at the center of the complex would be about a quarter mile.
Committee Member Rick Powell said many people living in the apartments would naturally gravitate toward jaywalking across Deer Valley Drive, especially if their destination is directly across from them.
“They’re not going to want to walk to Tatum, … they’re not going to want to walk to Marriot Drive, … they’re going to want to walk right across Deer Valley Road, and I think we need to have a crosswalk with signage,” Powell said.
The development was before the committee for a request to modify the stipulations attached to zoning approved in 2006 for a development that never came. Garden Communities purchased the 41.2-acre property at an Arizona State Land Department auction for $44.1 million in December. The property was approved for 882 multifamily units and buildings up to 38 feet in one area and 48 feet in another.
However, Garden Communities was asking for changes or deletions in the 2006 stipulations it felt no longer applied in 2023.
The key stipulations centered on the wash running north-to-south through the property that will split the complex into two segments. The old stipulations required a private pedestrian trail be built through the wash and a pedestrian bridge be built over it, connecting the two segments of the complex.
However, Ed Bull, the development lawyer representing Garden Communities, said federal regulations on the wash bar those additions. He showed the committee an email from a representative from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirming that. So, the developer asked for those two stipulations to be deleted.
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