What's Missing at Wood's Latest Project?

Wood Partners announced plans to transform a one-time steel plant into Alta Steelyard Lofts, a 301-unit luxury apartment community at 353 S Washington St. Wood's Todd Taylor (here with his family) tells us one way to make those rents work in today's environment is surface parking. While the apartment will be vertical with elevators—a rarity in Chandler—it'll save "meaningful dollars" by not building a parking deck, Todd says. “That way you're taking pressure off the rents.”

Rents are a sensitive issue, considering the prime customer for Alta Steelyard are Millennials working for such nearby employment juggernauts as Motorola, Orbital Sciences, eBay, and Intel. And despite an overall pipeline of nearly 6,000 new apartment units—many in Chandler, according to Colliers—Todd says there's still room for more Wood projects here. “I've got 10 deals behind this one in various stages.”

The company that lures you to shop 30,000 feet above the earth for things like Star Wars toasters, miniature singing gondoliers, and this zombie statue is just fine with its current HQ needs in Phoenix. We got our hands on Xhibit Corp's recent SEC filing about its facilities at 1520 E Pima St. According to docs, the company leases 20k SF for its corporate office and 14k SF for its tech ops and storage and call center through 2035. “Management believes that the company's existing facilities in Phoenix are sufficient for its current needs."

Xhibit, which merged with SkyMall earlier this year—producer of those ubiquitous shopping catalogues you find tucked into the back of airline seats—is subleasing its former nearly 16K SF HQ space at Hayden Ferry Lakeside I, which expires in 2018. Xhibit did not identify the sublessee in docs.