Friday, March 09, 2018
Game On! Worsley's $20M Gamble To Run-The-Table on Downtown Real Estate Speculation
The stakes are high - and so is the risk - if Mesa Mega-Millionaire and AZ State Senator Bob Worsley is betting his own $20M out-of-pocket money on another new sketchy Pie-In-The-Sky scheme to capitalize on a recent snatch of a package of downtown Mesa commercial real estate to build a new fortune in his own private-pockets on the public dime.
Timing is everything with months and years of Worsley scheming behind-the-scenes in private real estate speculation deals that were undisclosed until last June when he registered a new corporation MACDEVLLC for a proposal quickly approved by the Mesa City Council in a development agreement with the city for a $130M 'above market-rate' project towering 15-stories that required zoning changes. 
The 75-room luxury hotel and 75-apartment complex is slated to get plopped down on less than one acre of land - a non-descript piece of ugly architecture that's way oversized, way-out-of-proportion and way out-of-balance in a one-to-two-story Downtown Historic District atop a parking lot behind charter school Heritage Academy on the west side of Center Street, half-a-block from the Mesa Arts Center, winner of an International Design Award in 2005 with an investment of over $100M by Mesa Taxpayers and Philanthropies.
Blogger Note: As you can see in 'the pretty picture' provided by the architects in this image above - it's way-out-of-scale, deceptive to make it look like a 6-7 story structure behind the historic 2-story Drew Building on the south side of Main Street looking west where we all know the Sun doesn't set . . .
At the same time Worsley came out last week in a rare public appearance in front of the Mesa City Council (with Revolving-Door former Congressman Matt Salmon seen sitting behind him, now sporting a beard who announced at the time of his retirement from public office in 2016 that he was hired as ASU Vice-President for Government Affairs) a public cyber 'affair' erupted in the news at the same time.
This time Worsley got caught in the middle of a CD8 public scandal in the Arizona State House over allegations of Revenge Porn/SexTexting involving his campaign consultant and business partner in the private real estate project by partner Habitat Metro in the Drew Street Parking Lot project, Kent Lyons, seen in the image to the left. . . . together with W. Tim Sprague, known for Habitat Metro's Portlandia Park Condos in Phoenix and the Found: Re Hotel on Central Avenue, Worsley also partnered-up climbing on-board to gain credence as a real estate deal-maker with a reputed successful Phoenix developer wanting to make moves in Mesa. Worsley has gambled and bet that moment has arrived
Any more Super-Goofy underhanded stage stunts by Mesa Mayor John Giles, like this one to the left posed for prime time in the State-of-The-City Speech 2016 captured by photographer Ivan Martinez with ASU mascot 'Sparky' are closely stage-managed and controlled by the mayor's Chief of Staff Ian Linssen. That photo pop, and a privately-financed $500,000+ slush fun donated and contributed to by special interests to create a bogus Public Relations campaign that blew up in their faces, to manipulate public opinion.
MESA MAYOR JOHN GILES 'OWNS THIS ASU STUNT. His political future depends on it
Money was already on the table then with Worsley setting up more bets back in June 2017 after the failed fiasco in the November 2016 General Election of a $120+M Ballot proposal called Yes1Mesa for an ASU 'satellite campus' when 80,000+ Mesa taxpayers simply said NO realizing it would benefit 'special-interests' in real estate holding companies assembling parcels of land in close proximity for commercial exploitation of educational facilities provided by ASU. . . the game of a monopoly to control downtown commercial real estate on Main Street is outlined in yellow on the map you can see to the right. Worsley bought 29-35 W Main Street, a long vacant property.
Those schemes did not pass away for Pie-in-the-Sky plans promoted by the powers-that-be in the generations-old political machine here in Mesa getting 7-0 unanimous approval from the entire Mesa City Council. . . . .This time-around Worsley got inside information that Mayor John Giles had once again gotten the votes on his council to move it forward. It wasn't so easy last week in a robust meeting the vote was 5-2 with a lot of public input.
Back-to-the-future Fast-Forward: Game On for another ASU Public Relations Ploy two years after Mesa taxpayers REJECTED the first. Will the banks go for it this time? _________________________________________________________________________
Looks like 'The Salvation Train' that Mesa Mayor John Giles talked about at the ceremony for the inauguration has arrived, at least for a particular group called 'Caliber' posing on the light rail tracks with the mayor and W. Tim Sprague from Habitat Metro again included last week.
Let's get up-dated to the next stage of the Public Relations Ploy
Here's ANOTHER ONE two days after last week's City Council Meeting on February 26, 2018 - not from the chosen mainstream media Spoon-Fed reporters - from ASU State Press
BLOGGER NOTE: There already appears to be some internal ASU differences
Game On! Let's have some more!
This time from "Today Tells" .....
https://www.todaytells.com/asu-extension-in-downtown-mesa-holds-promising-future-for-gaming-program/
ASU extension in downtown Mesa holds promising future for gaming program
Photo by Madeline LeBarron| The State Press
HEADLINE: “Game development may have a future with ASU in downtown Mesa.”
Illustration published on Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018 by Andrew Thaung |
44 minutes ago
Following the recent announcement ? that ASU will expand to downtown Mesa with a presence focused on the arts and technology, the future looks promising for the University’s ever-growing game design program. Through the extension, the program can bring a more immersive education to students who are interested in entering the niche, competitive market of game design.
Yoshihiro Kobayashi, a lecturer and coordinator for the game certificate program in the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, said the new facility should have a clear focus on gaming rather than arts and media. 44 minutes ago
Following the recent announcement ? that ASU will expand to downtown Mesa with a presence focused on the arts and technology, the future looks promising for the University’s ever-growing game design program. Through the extension, the program can bring a more immersive education to students who are interested in entering the niche, competitive market of game design.
According to a proposal for the intergovernmental agreement between the Arizona Board of Regents and the City of Mesa presented earlier in February, the downtown Mesa programs will focus on the intersection of film, media and gaming, with special attention paid to virtual reality and prototyping of new technology.
Kobayashi said the extension of such facilities would be well suited to the populated campuses of Tempe and downtown Phoenix, but noted that downtown Mesa has potential due to the accessibility of the light rail. . .
> Brandon Bayles, a computer science sophomore who is in the game development certificate program, said he is excited that ASU is reevaluating its game design . . .
“As a student in the current game design program, I can tell you that the program is suffering through lack of faculty support,” Bayles said. . .
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Additional notes:
first phase of the project could include a five-story building on the northwest corner of Pepper Place and Centennial Way. That city-owned land is currently a parking lot, next door to Mesa’s City Council chambers.
The project’s cost, its burden on public-safety resources and what potential tax breaks ASU would receive, are unclear.
The university development is the linchpin in Mesa Mayor John Giles’ plan to transform downtown.
“Absent an anchor like ASU, we will continue to tread water in downtown and won’t make any meaningful progress,” Giles told The Arizona Republic.
Question: Is East Mesa State Legislator Rusty Bowers In the Back-Pockets of Real Estate Developers??
Howie Fischer, who writes and reports for AZ Capitol Times has another story on 05 March that's been published in http://nearbynews.com
East Mesa lawmaker on hot seat with governor
over water bill
March 5, 2018
By Howard Fischer"An East Mesa legislator has drawn the governor’s ire for helping to push legislation that would undermine the state’s conservation efforts that enable it to keep drawing water from the Colorado River.
Top officials in the Ducey administration are reaching out to the media – and, by extension, the public – to blunt efforts by Republican State Rep. Rusty Bowers and Cochise County Sen. Gail Griffin that would allow developers to circumvent requirements that they show there is sufficient water to sustain their projects. . . "
. . . Governor Ducey's top aide Kirk Adams has taken the unusual – and possibly unprecedented – step of reaching out to reporters to generate stories designed to put pressure on lawmakers to make the legislation, up for debate this coming week, more acceptable to the governor. . .
The new bills would require supervisors to revisit those ordinances regularly. It would take a unanimous vote to renew; anything short of that would make the requirement disappear.
That is something that some developers want.
Ducey made his views clear in vetoing the 2016 measure.
“We’re not going to allow bills that get in the way of the 1980 Groundwater Management Act or take away from the work of the people that have come before I came into office in protecting Arizona’s water,’’ he said at the time. . .
“This bill, in its current form, falls short,’’ Adams said, contending that provision and others “actually turn back the clock on water management and actually undermine consumer protections, particularly as it relates to adequate water supply and assured water supply.’’
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Related content on Rusty Bowers:
Doug MacEachern on Twitter: "ADWR Director Tom Buschatzke on PBS ...
Twitter
Rusty Bowers discussing pending water-supply legislation #horizon #pbs #azwater… https://t.co/Rt8lhjrwyn"
Russell "Rusty" Bowers is a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives, representing District 25. He was first elected to the chamber in 2014. Committee assignments. 2017 legislative session. At the beginning of the 2017 legislative session, this legislator served on the following committees: ...
https://votesmart.org/candidate/3021/rusty-bowers
Justice Delayed Is Not Justice Denied: Mesa Police Case
There were at least 10 posts on this blog that readers can find here including this one from 08 Dec 2017
Reactions To Daniel Shaver Killing | The Verdict: Ex-Officer Not Guilty
[see below]
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at an Arizona motel in January 2016. It was posted online by the attorney for Shaver’s wife, Laney Sweet, who is suing the Mesa Police Department for $75 million and had been fighting for the release of the video.
Brailsford shot Shaver with a personal AR-15 rifle, which he was allowed to use, according to police reports.
You can watch the video below. The shooting occurs just after the 16-minute mark of the video.
Link >
http://heavy.com/news/2017/12/daniel-shaver-philip-brailsford-mesa-police-shooting-video-full/
WATCH: Daniel Shaver Police Shooting Video Released
These are four reporters from news alerts yesterday:
1
AZCentral.com
U.S. News & World Report-12 hours ago
Mesa police say records have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department in a civil rights investigation involving a former police officer who was acquitted in the ... Brailsford, a Mesa policeman for about two years, was fired in March 2016 for violating department policy in the shooting of 26-year-old Daniel Shaver of ...
2
ABC15 Arizona-9 hours ago
MESA, AZ - Mesa police say they've been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department in a civil rights investigation involving a former officer who was acquitted in the fatal shooting an unarmed man late last year. A Maricopa County Superior Court jury found Philip Mitchell Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder in ...
3
AZCentral.com-9 hours ago
A media representative in Washington didn't return a phone message from The Arizona Republic seeking comment. Laney Sweet, Shaver's widow and mother of her husband's two daughters, and her lawyer, Mark Geragos, also didn't return phone messages seeking comment. After the trial, Geragos called the shooting an ...
4 Mesa records subpoenaed in US probe of deadly police shooting
Posted: Mar 08, 2018 7:10 PM MST Updated: Mar 08, 2018 7:10 PM MST
MESA, AZ (AP) - Mesa police records have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Justice Department in a civil rights investigation involving a former officer who was acquitted in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Texas man last year, authorities said Thursday.
A Maricopa County Superior Court jury found Philip Mitchell Brailsford not guilty of second-degree murder on Dec. 7 . . .
Mesa police said in a statement that they've been asked to provide all documentation surrounding the Jan. 18, 2016, shooting and will comply and provide any records requested.
Calls to Brailsford's attorney for comment weren't immediately returned Thursday.
Brailsford, a Mesa policeman for about two years, was fired in March 2016 for violating department policy in the shooting of 26-year-old Daniel Shaver of Granbury, Texas, at a hotel.
Authorities said no gun was found on Shaver's body and two pellet rifles related to his pest-control job were later discovered in his hotel room.
Shaver left behind a wife and two young daughters. His widow, Laney Sweet, and Shaver's parents have filed separate wrongful death lawsuits against the city of Mesa.
READ MORE: Associated Press via AZ Family
Thursday, March 08, 2018
BIG BONANZA > Data Center Investments Here In Mesa: A Jackpot for Land Acquisitions @ The Edge
It's the happy intersection of Real Estate and Technology with a new name PropTech.SkyBridge is another investment portfolio.
And, of course, after the Apple Data Center (to be powered with 100% renewable energy) landed here, it's a good thing SRP can supply 286MW for all these new ones
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PropTech can broadly be defined into three sub-categories, classified by the service it provides
Real Estate Fintech
Real Estate Fintech refers to software and platforms that enable or aid the process of real estate transactions. The sector has grown to include a variety of different services, that include purely researching and gathering information about real estate all the way to executing real estate transactions.
Shared Economy
Shared economy is a separate industry in its own right, but has been an extremely important part in the real estate sector, with prime examples like Airbnb and HomeAway.
Companies in this sector entail:
• Short term housing rental, co-living and hospitality
• Shared workspace and co-working
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The status quo of the PropTech industry
Since 2013, there has been a surge in both the number and size of the deals in the PropTech sector, with the total funding size having increased from $450m to nearly $3bn in a period of 4 years.
medium.com
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Blogger's Note: Coincidentally, your MesaZona blogger made it a point to attend a Meeting in the City of Mesa's Saguaro Room with Planning Director John Wesley where approval of a not-so-minor Site Plan Review was held for another development of a data center campus on 67 acres located south of Elliot Road on the 3900-4200 blocks of South Signal Butte Road . . . Typically all these data centers use both a great amount of water and electricity.
Please notice that nowhere in all these media announcements are good jobs mentioned.
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Land was acquired back in February
Published on Mar 8, 2018
Views: 92
The groundbreaking of a new 180,000 sq. ft. facility was held on March, 7, 2018 in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor.
www.Edgecore.com
www.Edgecore.com
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Here's the latest from Arizona Governor Doug Ducey published on AZ Big Media 02.08.18
EdgeCore breaks ground in Mesa on state-of-the-art data center
Real Estate | 17 hours ago | AZRE
A groundbreaking ceremony has been held for EdgeCore Internet Real Estate’s Mesa Data Center Campus, 13303 S. Ellsworth Road. The 180,000-square-foot building will help EdgeCore offer cloud-connected data center solutions to the world’s most demanding customers.
“We’re thrilled that EdgeCore has selected Mesa, Arizona as the site for its first North American data center campus,” Governor Doug Ducey said. “We’re focused on making sure Arizona remains the ideal place for technology companies to succeed over the long-term, and this impressive project shows we’re achieving that mission. I thank EdgeCore for their commitment to our state.”
When it is eventually built out, the Mesa Data Center Campus will have seven buildings totaling more than 1.25 million square feet.
. . . from the Mayor’s office and City Council through the Departments of Planning and Engineering, the City has been a true partner in supporting EdgeCore’s investment, and as such building value for the City’s residents.”
. . . from the Mayor’s office and City Council through the Departments of Planning and Engineering, the City has been a true partner in supporting EdgeCore’s investment, and as such building value for the City’s residents.”
The company is investing more than $150 million on its first data center and a commensurate additional investment from its customers of $300 million. Upon full build out, the total combined investment is estimated to exceed $2 billion for EdgeCore and its customers. The first building at the EdgeCore campus is scheduled to open in late 2018.
“The new EdgeCore co-location data center will be a great addition to the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, and serve a growing demand of customers,” Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC) President & CEO Chris Camacho said . .
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A new data center development is coming to Mesa in the Elliot Road Tech Corridor on 150 acres of land once slated to become a regional shopping and employment center.
EdgeConneX, a global technology company headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, plans to build a data center on over 150 acres of land on Elliot Road just west of Loop 202 that it owns through an entity called Loop 202 & Elliot Road LLC.
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Prior to EdgeConnex’ $40M acquisition of the land, the parcel was designated to be the site of Gateway Super Regional Center, a planned retail and employment hub for East Mesa. Those plans date back to 2007 when Mesa signed a development agreement with NKS Group III Limited Partnership to build the center.
Those plans fell through, however, and the land sat dormant for years. . . In November, the city of Mesa agreed to a development agreement with Loop 202 & Elliot Road Parcel #2 LLC – an entity operated by EdgeConneX CEO Randy Brouckman and COO Edmund Wilson – concerning over 121 acres of the property.
The city previously agreed to a similar development agreement with Loop 202 & Elliot Road LLC in September concerning another 48 acres owned by EdgeConneX.
The project is the most recent win for Mesa’s still-developing Elliot Road Technology Corridor and the first major development for the area since it attracted a data center from DuPont Fabros and bottling plant from Niagara Bottling last summer.
EdgeCore Launches, Plans $2 Billion in Data Center DevelopmentEdgeCore Internet Real Estate launched today, and outlined ambitious plans to build large data center campuses in six North American markets. The new company is led by former CoreSite CEO and Tom Ray, and its lead financial backer is GIC, the sovereign wealth fund for the government of Singapore.
GIC’s financial partners include Denver-based Mount Elbert Capital Partners and OPTrust, one of Canada’s largest pension funds. Mount Elbert is led by Ray, who will be the chairman and CEO of EdgeCore.
EdgeCore has already acquired land in Mesa, Arizona for its first data center campus in the Elliot Road Technology Corridor, with an on-site SRP substation designed to deliver 280 MW of utility power. The campus will support 225 MW of critical load across 1.25 million square feet of data centers.
Construction on EdgeCore’s Mesa Campus will commence in Q1 of 2018 with substantial completion of the initial capacity in Q4 of 2018.
The data center industry has historically had a high barrier to entry, requiring significant capital and experience to succeed. The entrance of EdgeCore illustrates how the success and maturity of the data center industry is changing the equation. Leading operators have delivered strong financial performance, attracting new investors from around the globe. The availability of experienced executive teams creates the potential for new entrants to have game-changing impact.
“As a long-term value investor, we believe the secular growth in data consumption and public cloud usage will generate attractive returns in the data center sector,” said Lee Kok Sun, Chief Investment Officer of GIC Real Estate. . . "
READ MORE > Source: Data Center Frontier 14 Feb 2018
The Real Deal: No Need To IMAGINE MESA > Just Input The Data
Always curious to see how all the important data we have here in a well-funded IT Department gets used and made available to the public with info graphics and 3D animated maps, it might be nice to see something - or any thing - like the animation inserted to the left on the City of Mesa's Open Data Portal (open.mesaaz.gov/home)
New York City, as viewed through a 3D data lens
(via The Real Deal)
Animated 3D data maps of New York City & beyond
By Julia Ingalls Oct 1, '15 1:31 PM EST
"Created by graphic engineer Patricio Gonzalez Vivo, the animated map gives a sky-high view of the city's hustle and bustle, capturing cars cruising along streets and lights buzzing on and off in buildings. Vivo, who created the project for open source mapping lab Mapzen, applied mathematical functions to street data to create the animated scene.
— The Real Deal
Vivo's mapping isn't limited to New York City: you can input a variety of different cities, from Aachen to Zemun, and get a hypnotizing 3D view . . .
Source > https://archinect.com/news
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Here's a view of downtown Los Angeles:
And a view of London (with the black, mostly data-less swath of the Thames cutting through):
Wednesday, March 07, 2018
One-Stop To Watch > 2 Streaming Vids + 2 Agendas for Mesa City Council Meetings Mon 05 2018
Who's so excited and more than thrilled to find out what your Mesa City Council is doing to earn the salaries they get paid by Mesa taxpayers??
QUESTION: Are they doing their jobs and earning the salaries they get paid to represent your interests??
AGENDA for Mesa City Council Study Session
Mon 05 Feb 2108
You can get it here >
https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2018/03/agendas-for-mesa-city-council-meetings.html
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Streaming Vid Upload of the Mesa City Council Study Session from YouTube
See what they did and didn't do and how they did it in less than 10 minutes
19 views so far - in a city of over 480,000
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AGENDA for Regular Mesa City Council Regular Meeting Mon 05 Feb
AGENDA for Mesa City Council Regular Meeting
Mon 05 Feb 2108
You can get it here >
https://mesazona.blogspot.com/2018/03/agendas-for-mesa-city-council-meetings.html
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See what they did and didn't do and how they did it in less than 22 minutes
Less than 200 views in a city of over 480,000. How many people do you see present in Council Chambers??????????????????????????????????????
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