The New Urban Downtown Mesa Welcomes Partners in Community Development

08 October 2015

The New Urban Downtown Mesa Welcomes Partners in Community Development

Drivers - or shall we say accelerators - of new urban growth are the private/public partnerships, finance, community investment and creative place making that expand affordable housing opportunities.
Rancho del Arte is a prime example of these initiatives, featured in one of the very first posts on March 2, 2015 on this blog to start off what this blogsite is all about ... Creative Place Making
Readers can see in the announcement in the image on the left all the eleven partners who worked together to make this affordable housing habitat happen [and, yes, it is a project in the best sense of the word: moving opportunities forward].
Building/construction progress at this location on Main Street was updated on this site as time moved forward with other posts here.

On the right is one rendering of the building shown in the first post when it was simply called "El Rancho Apartments".
El Rancho del Arte is one of the first Form Based Zoning projects in the City of Mesa.
Ground was broken in August of last year, after the removal of a one-story blighted motel. Perlman Architects of Arizona came up with the unique design for families with children. PHASE 2 has been funded and approved in an adjoining parcel of land.

Photo by Neil Koppes

Rancho del Arte rises four stories on Main Street not far from a new Valley Metro Light Rail station, where investment in the expansion of transit-oriented development promoted by LISC PHX is now established and attractive in the new urban landscape here in Mesa.
The 66-unit apartment community is the latest in a series of new housing opportunities in Mesa - Escobedo @ Verde Vista [now finishing Phase 2 and new construction for Encore on First West at 47 W First Avenue. All three have been prominently featured on this blog from the start.
The City of Mesa has invested heavily in the pursuit of creating a local culture conducive to supporting the arts which this project fully supports.
Mesa-born artist Zarco Guerrero, to the left and photographed in his studio below, met with the developer Eric Paine to come up with a series of mandala designs that were produced in iron works incorporated into both the stunning monumental ironwork façade on the front of the building and on the west side vehicle entrance.

In addition to public art spaces, there is an inside parking garage, a large communal gallery, a flexible large studio space for children's service programming complete with a kitchen, , a media room, computer lab, a large outdoor eating/activities area in an interior atrium , a community garden (in cooperation with Mesa Urban Garden) and a pool.
Readers will note that Rancho del Arte will be hosting a celebration of Dia de Los Muertos - the real celebration of life and the celebration of lives after death in new beginnings - not the spooky Anglo-Saxon Halloween traditions with trick-or-treat.
If residents of Mesa don't know too much about that celebration and tradition in Latino culture, it's both an eye-opener and exposure for cultural interchange in what we hope is our diverse community.

"We’re looking at a $13.6M total project,” says developer Eric Paine shown in the image to the left who is the CEO for Community Development Partners - that includes land and soft costs. The construction cost is about $9M.” The project will be leased at affordable rents, although Eric says that the difference between market and affordable in that area of Mesa is pretty close.

Building For The Future > Community Development Partners is a forward-thinking organization based in California and focused on meeting the housing needs of local citizens through the thoughtful planning and development of life-enhancing affordable communities.