Nothing New Under The Sun: Special Report On Speculators

In idle moments (and there aren't many these days) your seven-decades-old MesaZona blogger is a history buff - that's both kinds of history anywhere from official history that's written in books published under the name of "Our Town", with roots going back six generations to the mid-19th Century from Mormon Pioneers in Utah expanding The Kingdom of Desert into the Promised Land of The New Zion, and to what's called Pre-History mostly not written about from all the centuries before. Life is too short now to dig into all that, so let's just go back just a little in time to the year 2005. Here's what yours truly serendipitously stumbled into cruising the internet highway: Some things haven't changed much:

Part I - Land barons have locked up empty fields
from Mesa to Florence              

Mark Flatten Oct 9, 2005

"NOTE: The Tribune used public records to identify the owners of the large tracts in a 450-square-mile area bounded by U.S. 60 on the north, Gilbert Road on the west, state Highway 79 on the east and Florence on the south.
But nothing about the site has been random since the day Bill Lund bought it in January 1999. On paper, the land has been carefully carved up and sold through a chain of interrelated partnerships. Millions of dollars have been pumped into it, not just to buy it but to prepare for the day that it is paved over and turned into a premier auto mall surrounded by a high-end shopping center and medical complex.
The reasons this particular patch of ground in Gilbert is so precious are all around. Upscale homes are clustered behind stucco walls in a sea of subdivisions to the north. A hospital, crafted in a style reminiscent of an old Spanish mission, is being built to the east. And a few hundred yards to the south is the ultimate money-multiplier when it comes to real estate — a freeway. . .
The channel for the Santan Freeway stretch of Loop 202, the artery that is feeding the land boom in the south East Valley, has already been cut.
Lund is one of a cadre of savvy investors who had the foresight and cash to lock up large blocks of land in the area in the last 10 years. They bought when land was cheap, when the freeway was just a line on some planner’s map.
A decade ago the far south East Valley was little more than raw desert and plowed fields, a refuge where those fleeing the crush of urban sprawl could still find open spaces and affordable homes.
Today, land barons hold thousands of acres in the nation’s hottest growth corridor. Each of those acres would have sold for about $30,000 in 1995. Today an unimproved acre can be worth $150,000 or more.
While hundreds of investors own land in the area, most of the major blocks of undeveloped properties can be tracked to a dozen or so individuals, families or investment groups, a Tribune analysis shows.The East Valley’s land speculators generally fall into three categories:
• There are the old farm families whose parents and grandparents locked up large blocks of desert and converted it to fields. Streets throughout the East Valley bear many of their names: Ellsworth, Dobson, Lesueur, Sossaman and Schnepf.
• There are the traditional development companies that buy land with plans to cover it with houses or shopping centers. John Graham has been one of the most ambitious builders through his company, Sunbelt Holdings Inc. In 1995, Graham began building the 2,150-acre Power Ranch that runs for three miles south of Pecos Road along Power Road.
• Finally there are the pure land speculators. They are investors who use the land as a commodity. They have no ties to a particular patch of ground, as the farmers do; nor do they have plans to build on it themselves, as the developers do. They buy land and hold it. Some master plan it and get it zoned. Ultimately they sell it to builders and either pocket the profits or plow it into their next venture.
Sometimes the speculators form partnerships with the builders to share profits.
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The source: East Valley Tribune Special Report October 2005