Today, the Phoenix Business Journal reports:

The metro region’s key growth areas for commercial and mixed-use real estate in the near future are downtown Phoenix, the light rail corridor, downtown Mesa and the southwest and southeast areas, according to a new report from Colliers International. The annual report, called 2020 Vision, was released Wednesday by Colliers at its meeting at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa.

The most immediate growth is expected in and around downtown Phoenix’s bioscience community and along the 20-mile light rail system from northwest Phoenix through downtown to Tempe and Mesa, said Colliers Managing Director Mike Fitz-Gerald. In downtown Phoenix, where more than $3 billion in public and private redevelopment projects are under way, officials are awaiting a final decision from Florida pharmaceutical executives interested in opening a regional office in downtown Phoenix. It would open with 20 employees and expand to as many as 300. Fitz-Gerald and Colliers Associate Kevin Lange declined to identify the Florida company. They are anticipating an official announcement from the company soon.

Lange said the Florida company’s president and chief executive officer, during their recent visit to Arizona, were courted by a team of representatives from the offices of Gov. Janet Napolitano, Mayor Phil Gordon, Translational Genomics Research Institute, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, University of Arizona, Arizona State University, Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and The Plaza Cos. Lange said the meetings with the Florida executives “just a couple of months ago” took place at Mayo Clinic Hospital and at TGen before they ended up in the offices of GPEC President and CEO Barry Broome.

Lange said the Florida executives, who visited San Diego and other cities, were attracted to downtown Phoenix because of the existing 28-acre bioscience community northwest and northeast of Van Buren and Seventh streets. Its members include TGen, UA College of Medicine, UA College of Pharmacy; ASU School of Nursing; Arizona BioMedical Collaborative, the proposed Phoenix Biomedical Plaza and a proposed teaching hospital.

Fitz-Gerald and Lange said they are receiving more inquiries from developers and investors interested in property within about 2 miles of the bioscience community and other new work in downtown Phoenix. “They want to be as close as possible to the biomedical campus,” Lange said.

He also briefs callers about properties along the light rail system, which is scheduled to open in late 2008. “The light rail corridor has become very important,” Lange said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 pm and is filed under Downtown Phoenix. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.