Fresh & Easy at least two years out

Judging from the site, it is difficult to tell any progress is being made. However, Sonoran Creek Marketplace, the future home of Fresh & Easy, is full steam ahead.

Sonoran Creek Marketplace is a retail shopping center that, once completed, is scheduled to be home to one 42,620-square foot retail anchor, two mini-major 10,000 to 14,000-square foot shops, six smaller retail shops and three non-connected pads.

“When people see just an empty dirt lot, they wonder why no work has been started, but the fact is we have been working hard to get this project started for the past two years,” said Michael Koslow, president of Sonoran Creek, LLC, the development company behind the project.

The work that Koslow’s company has been focusing on over the past two years is city permitting and Arizona Department of Transportation approval.

“The city has approved all of our permits, and we could start construction, assuming ADOT would approve the project,” Koslow.

However, in today’s marketplace Koslow said those retailers are not likely to sign on to a project that hasn’t yet received all of its approvals. “Companies are trying to eliminate risk,” he said.

Koslow’s engineers have been working with ADOT for two years now, and Koslow said he thinks they are closing in on an approval. “The problem with ADOT is they are s-l-o-w,” Koslow said. He added that the reason they are so slow is because they are severely understaffed, hampering the commercial growth in Arizona.

“If we could start this project tomorrow, we would,” he added.

Realistically, Koslow said the transportation study should be completed sometime before the spring, and, once his company receives the green light, it will take about eight months to put the necessary infrastructure in place and another eight months to build phase one of the three-phase project.

The first phase of Sonoran Creek will feature a roughly 10,000-square foot Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market (read more about Fresh & Easy) and four other smaller stores with one possibly being a restaurant, according to Koslow.

“Once we fill out the first phase, we will start the second, and so on,” Koslow added.

However, Koslow explained that his company is running into problems with a possible big anchor store for the plaza because of restrictions placed on the development by the Maricopa Water Improvement District.

The Maricopa Domestic Water Improvement District, which the county established in the late 1980s to provide water service for the Maricopa area, serves basically all of the developments along John Wayne Parkway between Edison Road and the Alterra sub-division as well as a 280-acre area in the city called Seven Ranches.

“At the time there wasn’t another option for water in the area,” said Alicia Hernandez, office manager for the company.

The problem that the developer is facing with the water provider is related to pressure. “They can only provide the required pressure for a building of 22,500-square feet, and with a big box retailer you are looking to build a store twice that size,” Koslow said.

Hernandez said that all of the company’s service area is not up to code with the city’s new pressure requirements, and it could possibly be two years before it gets up to code.

To work around the lack of water pressure, Koslow said he attempted to get the property annexed out of the city, but that measure failed.

“Until Global comes in and takes that area over, it is going to be a struggle,” he said.

Other development stories:
Maricopa Marketplace II

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