Mesa advances plan for first 8-story downtown office building

Article originally posted on AZ Central on February 26, 2026

A vacant, desolate one-story building along Mesa’s Main Street could be transformed into an eight-story building with Arizona State University’s partnership.

The city is set to release a bid in the coming weeks to redevelop a site in front of the Mesa Arts Center.

It’s part of a larger plan to expand ASU’s presence in downtown Mesa, bring in Class A office space and add additional retail opportunities.

Downtown Mesa currently doesn’t have Class A office space, and none has been built in the city since 2021. With the rise of hybrid and remote work in a post-pandemic world, absorption of office space has not rebounded, according to a recent study from Colliers, a real estate agency.

But the city is confident that with ASU’s partnership, it will be able to attract Class A users, said Jeff McVay, the city’s urban transformation manager.

The City Council gave McVay’s team the thumbs up to seek developers who could build out the site under the vision it had established. The council also told staff to continue negotiations with the university to transform the city’s downtown post office into new classroom and studio space to expand its footprint.

In 2018, Mesa and the Arizona Board of Regents approved an agreement to develop the ASU campus downtown to include ASU’s Media and Immersive eXperience Center, which is focused on film production and digital technology. That was completed in 2022.

ASU’s presence, along with the extension of the light rail, has largely been viewed as the catalyst for downtown revitalization.

Nearly 850 students attend the MIX center in Mesa, according to data from ASU, surpassing its initial goal of 750.

New high-rise proposed in downtown Mesa

The site known as 51 – 55 East Main Street was originally built in the 1980s, McVay said. The city purchased the site when it was to build the Mesa Arts Center, but it was later left out of the plans. Over the years, it was used as a café and, most recently, by Benedictine University.

Currently, it’s used as storage for the city but has since gone into a “certain level of disrepair” that would need “a significant amount of improvement,” which would not be cost-effective to do, McVay said.

The bid application would bring back life and use to that area of the city, planners hope.

McVay said the bid application will be released in March or early April and will be open for 30 to 60 days. After that, McVay and his team will review applications from developers who will expand on the preliminary plan set by the city.

The first floor would be reserved for retail space, and the second floor for event space to support the Mesa Arts Center.

Class A office space would likely fill the rest of the space, he said.

McVay said the office space would not be as speculative but would likely require pre-leasing with an expectation that ASU will take up a certain amount of space within that building.

The city has no Class A office space in the downtown core. It only has lower-classified workspaces, according to the city’s data. Across the city, Mesa has 1.5 million square feet of Class A across 13 buildings, with nearly 33% of that space vacant, according to city data.

McVay said the city will retain ownership of the land and enter into a long-term ground lease with a private developer. He said it was too early to know the finances of the project.

Downtown Mesa post office to get makeover

The redevelopment of the city’s downtown post office could add 350 ASU students to Mesa, bringing the total to 1,200.

The city owns the land where the post office along Center Street sits. It would redevelop the space as studios, computer classrooms and workstations.

Mesa’s lease with the United States Postal Service ends in 2028.

The city plans to build a smaller retail post office near the current one to keep downtown service. A cost estimate to build the post office was $3.3 million, McVay said.

ASU’s renovation of the current post office was estimated to be nearly $25 million, with an additional $5 million for infrastructure improvements.

McVay said it was too early to know how the city and university would split the cost.

The city has also identified two other locations for ASU’s future expansions that could one day lead to 3,000 students. He told the city council it was important to move forward with ASU expansion to keep the momentum in downtown.

“That snowball is starting to roll down. The gains we have achieved so far in developing this downtown arts and innovation district could be stalled,” he said.