Valley investment group buys north Scottsdale parcel at land auction – The Business Journals
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The paperwork took longer than the bidding process.
Michael Lieb’s firm, Legacy 76 LLC, won 20.5 acres of north Scottsdale land on Wednesday at the Arizona Land Department building. The minimum bid was $28.07 million, which is what Lieb’s company paid for the land as no others raised a paddle.
The auction lasted just over two minutes.
“It doesn’t get much better than north of the 101 with three hospitals and Nationwide,” Lieb said. “I had butterflies in my stomach as if it was the World Series because you spend so much time getting prepared for this day. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Valley-based real estate developer Talos Holdings was the initial applicant, requesting the Arizona State Land Department to consider selling the parcel at the northwest corner of Legacy Boulevard and Miller Road, just north of Loop 101 in Scottsdale. The firm registered to bid but ultimately decided not to raise a paddle for the land on Wednesday morning.
With the newly acquired land, Lieb and Legacy 76 will partner with developer The Dinerstein Cos. to bring a multifamily project to the site. Details for what that project ultimately will look like are still being finalized, but Dinerstein expects the site to be three stories with a mix of townhomes and apartments, said Jessica Cassolato, the firm’s development director.
“We’re going to design and develop a high-quality product. I think the area could certainly use more of it,” Cassolato said.
Cassolato expects to move forward on building out its project by the middle of next year.
The Dinerstein Cos. lists four Arizona projects on its website, three of which are “coming soon” in the Valley. One of those is a 278-unit apartment complex at the Park Central Mall redevelopment in midtown Phoenix.
Lieb said Wednesday marked his ninth winning bid at an Arizona land auction, dating back more than a decade. Many of those wins took place near the Loop 101 freeway that brought new residential developments to the area.
Areas north of the Loop 101 have continued to attract development in recent years across multiple sectors. Recently, multiple state land auctions have also occurred in that part of the Valley including the Desert Ridge Marketplace property, which retail developer Vestar acquired in December, and another site purchased by HonorHealth in a bidding war for state land.
In December, Scottsdale-based Discount Tire won 35 acres of north Phoenix land for $29.4 million, where it plans to build a new office campus.
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