This townhouse development started going up at some point after we left the neighborhood after the fire. At the time we left, this was a vacant lot that had once (long before we moved back to Phoenix) been occupied by a rambling single-family house that was bulldozed at some point. For years it sat vacant and overgrown with weeds.
I was heading to lunch after visiting one of our west-side offices about three years ago and was surprised to see this going up. It looked interesting in a stark, brutal modernist sort of way and I was looking forward to seeing it completed.
Sadly, even after we moved back it seemed construction had stalled, and I cursed the developer every time I rolled over the huge steel plates covering underground sewer work that had literally been in place for over a year after our return.
Then, one day the plates were removed, holes filled, and paving was replaced. Construction stalled again a couple months later and the property was broken into. Work finally resumed (I guess the City lit a fire under the developer to get it finished) and a year later they're finally finished, but apparently unsellable. They were originally on the market for around $300K, but folks weren't exactly beating the doors down to buy at that price point because they're now up for rent—and even now no one seems to want to live there.
It's not surprising. While they have a nice view of the golf course across the street, they're at the corner of a noisy, very well-traveled intersection, and the only vehicular entrance to the property—and the units' garages in the back—is a single entrance that's accessed either by a right turn going east or an impossible left turn going west (necessitating pulling into the left turn lane of the intersection on the street immediately to the north of the property. There's a paved alley out back that could be used for access but they'd have to drive a block down 19th Avenue and then double back.
There's no private space (which from the looks of it could've easily been accomplished out front with some fenced patios), no protection from the elements above the front doors, and absolutely no guest parking. And oh, did I mention…there's no street parking on either of the roads bordering the property? Even if the chained and padlocked gates in the fence that surrounds the property are one day opened, there's no place for trucks to deliver without pulling into the bus stop immediately out front. It's no wonder they can't give them away…
*I stand corrected…apparently are still for sale…at an absolutely ridiculous price for this neighborhood. And at least one is for rent…at an equally ridiculous rate.
