Reywest – Phoenix, Arizona

The Principals of BlackRidge along with Majestic Realty Co. as our development partner developed the Reywest Commerce Center project.   Although zoned industrial and almost pad ready, the site was an industrial infill project not without challenges including:

• History of environmental issues
• Tight physical site constraints with shared access easements.
• Existing railroad easement encumbering the buildable area of the site
• ADEQ Easement – possible leading to future disruption of tenant operations
• BlackRidge contractually obligated by the PSA agreement to use Seller’s General Contractor – Difficult AIA contract negotiation
• Unknown conditions found during construction

Understanding the overall market velocity and demand for developable industrial land, BlackRidge promptly aligned themselves with Sun State Builders, a large landowner in the Phoenix metro area and one of the leading general contractors.  Quickly establishing our relationship with Sun State, we secured purchase contracts on three other parcels in addition to Reywest.

Knowing the past environmental issues at Reywest, we assembled a first rate team including a top local environmental consultant, responsible for much of the previous on-site testing, together with a leading national firm to cross check information and provide valuable third-party analysis.  Employing our time-test strategy, we conducted meetings with various consultants and municipal organizations including ADEQ, educating them on the development challenges, leading to our mutual agreement to limit their easement rights regarding any possible disruption to our future building or tenant’s operations. 

Our existing relationship with several of the national title insurance firms allowed us to assess the existing rail easement and mutually conclude that the rail easement could be terminated without the signature of every property owner in the park.

Additionally, the negotiation of the AIA Owner/ General Contractor Agreement proved to be considerably more difficult than usual.  Our ability to understand the long-term viability of the various projects along with our in-house knowledge of the contract process allowed us to keep pushing for solutions whenever and however many times the attorneys on both sides found “Deal Killer” issues.

Construction exposed unknown subsurface conditions, including an old existing railroad bed and abandoned, unmapped water and storm sewer lines.  The construction management team assembled the contractor, civil engineering and environmental consultants, and worked through solutions on these various issues with no schedule impact.  Conflicts with neighboring property owners also required resolution due to shared easements and access.  BlackRidge negotiated a “win win” scenario resolving these issues, and keeping the project on schedule and in budget.

Ultimately, we were successful in working through the obstacles resulting in the construction of a Class A, institutional quality building that we sold to a 1031 investor for a solid profit to the partners.