Phoenix's Urban Core Is Attracting Tech, Millennials. Here's Why.
With thousands of new residents moving to the Downtown area and coveted tech and biotech firms looking to the city for a new home, Phoenix is building itself quite the urban core. We gathered the biggest names in the market to talk about the latest trends at Bisnow's Phoenix Construction & Development event at the Arizona Center.
City of Phoenix Community and Economic Development Director Christine Mackay gave the event's keynote, emphasizing the recent change in Downtown. The Downtown market is hot because it's an urban, livable place where tech companies and a creative workforce want to be.
That's a remarkable shift from only a few years ago, when the focus of the area was government, law firms and financial services. Recently there's been a wave of tech and bioscience companies relocating here.
Every day, Christine says, 55,000 people come to work Downtown, and 2,000 new people have moved into Downtown Phoenix to live in the last two years. In terms of educational attainment of the Downtown population, there's been a 400% increase in the same period in the number of residents with bachelor's degrees, and 13,000 students live there. Also, Downtown Phoenix has evolved from an eight-hour market to a 16-hour market, which is attributable to the growth of residential properties in the area.
People are coming into the urban core for its density and because there are things going on in the area, our speakers pointed out. What was the catalyst of the density? Light rail. Also, neighborhoods that are proactively seeking development to promote urban density. One example is the Roosevelt historic neighborhood, which invited developers to do projects. During the age of sprawl, it was bypassed for development, but no more.
Snapped: Crescent Communities regional director Scott Makee and MetroWest Development principal Matthew Seaman.
For multifamily development, Phoenix is a rising star nationally, our speakers asserted. The area was late coming out of the recession, so now demand is exceeding supply, and that will probably be the case for the next three years. The upshot will be continued occupancy and rent growth. Phoenix will be one of the country's top markets for rent growth, trailing only San Diego and Oakland.
Here's CCBG Architects CEO Brian Cassidy, Lennar VP Robert Trujillo and Habitat Metro principal Tim Sprague.
Moreover, the quality and location of multifamily properties in Phoenix is changing, the speakers explained. For one thing, new apartments aren't just garden-style stucco boxes any more. Developers and designers are experimenting with new designs and looks, in part because that's what a rising generation of Millennial renters wants—that and an urban location and better amenities.
Tower Capital principal Adam Finkel, SmithGroupJRR principal design John Tran, and KEPHART principal Bryce Hall, who moderated.
