Arizona’s Suburb of the Future

Atlantic Cities details the new urbanist vision of a master planned community called Eastmark in Mesa, Arizona. The development’s mix of uses, form-based code, and walkability create “an uncommon sales pitch for car-dependent Arizona.”

February 7, 2014, 9am PST | James Brasuell | @CasualBrasuell

Alan Stark

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Developer DMB Associates is in the midst of the first phase of the “first major new master-planned development to break ground in the Phoenix metro area in almost 10 years,” writes Sommer Mathis. The development site totals 3,200 acres adjacent to the small but growing Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport, and a master plan that looks, at least on paper, like a new kind of of suburban community—one that prioritizes the public realm and a jobs-housing balance made possible by two major employers.

The specifics of Eastmark’s suburban differentiation include:

“Two major employers, Grand Canyon University, Arizona's largest for-profit Christian university, and GT Advanced Technologies, a supplier of sapphire-glass iPhone components for Apple, announced in the second half of last year that they would be moving in to Eastmark.”
“...multifamily buildings, retail centers, civic areas, and a 100-acre Great Park will all converge down the middle of the development to complete the package…”
“[Mesa’s] first application of a form-based zoning code.”

The article is part of the America 360 series.

Full Story:

The Future of the Suburbs Is Unfolding in Arizona's East Valley

Published on Thursday, January 30, 2014 in Atlantic Cities