State Land in Mesa Sells for Almost $38M; as Many as 525 Houses Planned for the Site

Article originally posted on AZ Central on July 6, 2023

Blandford Homes won the bid on a 115-acre prime piece of state-owned land in Mesa, paying $37.85 million. The parcel near Hawes and Warner roads is part of the 1,200-acre Hawes Crossing community. Blandford plans to build 450 to 525 houses on the site, with model homes opening in late 2025 or early 2026. It was the only bidder on the Arizona State Land property last week.

“We feel good about the housing market here in the Phoenix area due to the amount of job creation energy as well as the migration of people to Arizona from other states,” said Jeff Blandford, founder and president of the company.

“The fact there is limited land available in the East Valley and Mesa in general for residential building is a strong factor for this land acquisition,” he said.

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The Valley’s new-home market has picked up this year as the supply of resale homes has fallen.

Both new- and existing-home sales in the Phoenix area dropped during the second half of 2022 as interest rates climbed.

Through May of this year, 9,257 new houses have sold across metro Phoenix, according to the RL Brown Phoenix Housing Market Letter. That’s down less than 1% from the first five months of 2022, which started the year as one of the more robust for the homebuilding market since the boom of 2004-06.

The median price of a new Valley house is $475,185, which is about $40,000 more than an existing home.

“Home building is back,” said veteran land expert Nate Nathan of Nathan & Associates. “Population and job growth is still strong.”

Nathan and his team, including Ryan Duncan, David Mullard, Dan Baldwin, Joseph Colucci and Casey Christensen, worked with Blandford to buy the state land and plan Hawes Crossing.

Mesa annexed several dairy farms, county land and state land in 2020 to pave the way for Hawes Crossing, a mixed-use project expected to bring jobs and residents to the city.

Apartments and a shopping center are also underway in the new development.

Another state-owned piece of land in Hawes Crossing, a 165-acre parcel near the northeast corner of Warner Road and the Loop 202, is going to auction on Aug. 29. The minimum bid is $62.7 million.

Reach the reporter at catherine.reagor@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8040. Follow her on Twitter @CatherineReagor.