Fronteras

Tempe is primed for new development projects in and around downtown. The city has long used infill development as a way to boost its tax base, but now some other Valley cities are looking to use the same approach. In the course of one week, Tempe got word that USA Basketball wants to relocate its headquarters to a massive, mixed-use complex next to Arizona State University, and construction kicked off at the Marina Heights project along the Town Lake. Marina Heights is being touted as the largest office deal in Arizona history. The development is pretty huge.

So will development in the Valley turn inward? For answers, we turn to Tempe Councilwoman Shana Ellis, who cochairs a council committee dealing with downtown and transportation among other things and Mark Stapp, the director of the Master of Real Estate Development Program at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business.