There's more to this story than meets the eye at first glance
Navajo Nation announces $50M contract with Mesa-based ZenniHome to help meet housing demand
Nygren made a grand entrance, shaking the hands of some 135 Navajo employees, who once worked at the largest coal plant west of the Mississippi River — the Navajo Generating Station — before it closed in 2019.
As many as 1,000 jobs were lost. That hurt the Navajo Nation, which was already facing an acute unemployment rate that sits at 56% today. During his inaugural State of the Navajo Nation address in January, Nygren expressed that “our goal for ZenniHome is to restore the jobs lost from the NGS closure.”
Now, some of those former NGS employees are finally going back to work, but this time for ZenniHome, and ready to build badly needed homes with federal funds from the American Rescue Plan.
“I want to say thank you. Even though you’ve been set up here for over a year, you haven’t got one single contract with the Navajo Nation,” said Nygren. “And that’s what I call heart and dedication to serve our people.”
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“We have to retool these fantastic workers into another trade,” said former Republican state Sen. Bob Worsley, the founder of ZenniHome, adding that this site is primed to become “a great economic center for the Southwest, right here on the Navajo Nation.”
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INSERT from Wikipedia: Environmental issues[edit]
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- ZenniHome aims to hire hundreds more Navajos once it adds an adjacent 300,000-square-foot facility.
. . .Their current facility has the capacity to build about three homes each day, but with that additional space, the goal is to construct up to 30 a day. . .
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Tamarah Begay and her team at the Albuquerque-based Indigenous Design Studio and Architecture are tasked with “‘Navajo-izing’ the units,” as she puts it.
“We don't do that now,” admitted Begay. “We see a lot of architects coming in, giving us designs, the way that we should live, the way that we should live with our HUD homes.”
One of those uniquely Navajo-inspired features is ensuring these homes are compatible with wood and pellet stoves. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that nearly two-thirds of reservation homes are heated by them.
“We want to make sure that if that happens, these units are all code to code,” Begay added. “You can tie in your wood stove as well as pellet stoves.”
- All of them are ADA compliant, able to connect to solar panels and possess Wi-Fi compatibility.
- Space and storage are other concerns Begay cited, since widespread overcrowding in existing smaller, multi-generational homes is another problem.
Despite the financial obstacles, Begay says Navajos, like herself, still deserve “homes that are durable, affordable, sustainable, and that represent our culture and our identity.”
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Worsley says he has 40,000 “soft orders” for his high-tech modular homes, and he is actively fundraising to scale up production of ZenniHomes’ factory in Page, on the site of the demolished Navajo Generating Station, once the largest coal-fired power plant in the West.
At the groundbreaking event last week, Worsley said that with 90 units on just half an acre, ZenCity will have more density than any other building in Mesa. . . .The city is allowing construction crews to stage the prefabricated units on the empty Site 17 parcel at Mesa and University drives before they are hoisted into place and locked-in with neighboring units at the Main Street site.
ZenCity
ZenCity will be ZenniHome’s first mid-rise project, made up of 90 units across two 5-story towers. The units come in 320-square foot studio and 640-square foot two bed configurations, both featuring full kitchens, automated furniture, and floor-to-ceiling glass to take advantage of the panoramic views of downtown Mesa. The residential towers will be stacked on top of ground floor commercial space that also has access to a commercial basement.
| Property Owner | Caliber Cos. |
|---|---|
| Developer | ZenniHome |
| Stories | 6 |
| Housing Units | 90 |
| Parking Spaces | 23 |
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‘ZenCity’ could bring unique structure to downtown
"If all goes according to plan, downtown Mesa will be the state’s first site of an apartment complex created from Arizona-made two-bedroom and studio homes stacked and connected together like LEGOs to form two five-story midrise towers on Main Street.
ZenniHomes, founded by businessman and former state lawmaker Bob Worsley in 2019, has signed a deal with an owner of a historic property on Main Street to create a 90-unit apartment complex on top of existing basement and ground level commercial spaces.
The modular homes would be sent to Mesa from ZenniHomes’ new factory in Page in Northern Arizona at the site of the former coal-fired Navajo Generating Station power plant, which closed in 2019.
✓ ZenniHomes’ residential units are 320 square feet for the studios and 640 for the 2-bedroom and are built to the dimensions of shipping containers to reduce the costs of construction and transport.
The company says the individual units are ideal for first-time homebuyers, retirees, rentals and resort living.
But it is also a “developer solution for affordable housing” because the apartments can be stacked together for up to five stories and 100 units.
✓ In June, Mesa’s Board of Appeals approved several form-based code variances for the company’s “ZenCity” plan in Mesa that it said were needed to construct the project on “an existing site with its unique and innovative construction techniques while maintaining the ground floor and basement commercial uses,” documents submitted to the city stated.
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Recently, the property owner announced that a deal has been signed with ZenniHomes to install the units and estimated the project would be completed next year.
✓ ZenniHomes advertises its product as good for the earth and the economy while promising to deliver “luxury, style and sophistication.”
The units, listed currently for $75,000 and $100,000, respectively, might also help housing-starved communities all over the country add workforce residential units at lower costs than conventional apartments.
A representative for ZenniHomes told the board of appeals that downtown Mesa is currently experiencing high demand for new residential units from “urban professionals,” students attending classes downtown and workers in downtown’s restaurants and boutiques.
By manufacturing the modular homes in Page, Worsley said in the release, ZenniHomes would be “reshoring manufacturing from China to an opportunity zone investment at the Navajo Generating Station.”
Before it closed, the Page coal plant employed over 500 workers, including many people from the nearby Navajo Nation, so the loss of jobs was an economic blow to the region.
If ZenniHomes ramps up production, it could help replace some of the industrial jobs lost after the closure.
✓✓ The investments in Page and downtown Mesa also has tax benefits for investors, as the two locations are within designated opportunity zones that allow investors to delay or eliminate federal capital gains taxes on income they put into opportunity zone projects.
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For Mesa’s ZenCity stacked units concept, ZenniHomes has partnered with opportunity zone investment company Caliber to bring the project to a property Caliber owns in downtown Mesa at 29 W. Main Street.
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CH Mesa Holdings was registered on June 27, 2017 in Delaware.
Maricopa County Recorder documents shows that CH Mesa Holdings, LLC, a registered limited liability corporation (File Number: 6458344) filed deeds for the following properties:
| APN | Address | Last Deed Date |
| 138-35-015 | 114 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 10/03/2017 |
| 138-35-016 120 | 120 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 10/03/2017 |
| 138-36-008A | 18 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 10/30/2017 |
| 138-36-012 48 | 48 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 07/19/2017 |
| 138-42-022 155 | 155 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 07/07/2017 |
| 138-42-030 | 137 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 12/12/2017 |
| 138-55-004 | 202 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 10/03/2017 |
| 138-55-009 | 206 W MAIN ST MESA, AZ 85201 | 10/03/2017 |
According to the Arizona Corporation Commission, as of 2017, Worsley has been registered as a member of Lyons Development LLC.
Lyons Development LLC registered the following entities in 2017:
| L21665169 | LYONS DEVELOPMENT LLC | MESA 114 W MAIN LLC |
| L21757686 | LYONS DEVELOPMENT LLC | MESA 137 W MAIN LLC |
| L21853908 | LYONS DEVELOPMENT LLC | MESA 48 W MAIN LLC |
| L21638767 | LYONS DEVELOPMENT LLC | MESA 155 W MAIN LLC |
| L21657535 | LYONS DEVELOPMENT LLC | MESA 18 W MAIN LLC |
[View Worsley 2018 Financial Disclosure Statement]
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In 2017, Caliber began betting big on the revitalization of downtown Mesa, eventually purchasing 10 buildings totaling 160,000 square feet.
Brian Snider, senior vice president of real estate at Caliber, said the firm believed downtown Mesa “had the potential for pretty dynamic change.”
“I think it’s still emerging, but I think all the pieces are going to come together,” Snider said of downtown. “When we get into the new year, we get more into the potential of the university.”
A key element of downtown’s transformation will be enticing the influx of students and professionals in downtown to stay after work hours and explore the burgeoning craft brew and restaurant scene.
Other Caliber projects recently opened or announced will contribute to this nightlife.
Earlier this year, Caliber announced downtown leases with Level 1 Arcade Bar, a venue featuring fully restored arcade and pinball machines along with a full menu and bar, and Copper City Spirits, an Arizona distillery that uses local ingredients.
Caliber announced last week that it has signed a lease with Sonoran Rows, a Craft Malthouse, which will be located at 18 W. Main. Set to open in the second half of 2023, Sonoran Rows will serve as a working malthouse along with a restaurant and bar operating in more than 15,000 square feet along with 3,000 square feet of patio space.
Malting is the process of soaking and germinating grains to release enzymes that enhance the grain for brewing and baking.
In a release, Caliber said the Sonoran Rows plans to malt 25 tons of Arizona grown barley and other grains in the traditional style of floor malting each week. The malted grains can be used by local breweries, distilleries and restaurants.
> Snider suspects Sonoran Rows will be working with other players in Mesa’s craft beer scene. Craft breweries “are a fairly tight network, and they see a lot of synergy being together and seeing that brewmaster atmosphere,” he said.
Caliber also is working with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community to build an entertainment-residential district on 10 acres of the Talking Stick Resort between Mesa and Scottsdale off the Loop 101.
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✓ Caliber has found users for many of the historic buildings it purchased in 2017, but Snider said it hasn’t been easy getting them renovated.
“These have been challenging buildings. They’re old,” he said, but “we’re largely on top of that and moving forward with getting these tenants in.”
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