1st restaurant opens in Tempe Innovation Corridor with apartments, hotel still to come
On the heels of the first retail opening at the Novus Innovation Corridor at Arizona State University, a 300-acre site on the east side of the Tempe campus, more restaurants are gearing for opening and hundreds of apartment units are under construction.
The corridor near Tempe Town Lake is a mix of offices, apartments, a hotel and sports facilities.
Developments already completed in Novus include the Marina Heights office development, Mullett Arena and a newly opened apartment building that will include street-level restaurants.
A piece of the shuttered Karsten Golf Course has made way for an office building and parking garage, with more in the works to redevelop the former course, Charley Freericks, senior vice president of Catellus Corp. and the master developer of Novus, said.
Now, with much of the construction work underway near Sixth Street and the new Novus Place just west of Rural Road, another project is under construction east of Rural Road.
One restaurant, a boba tea shop called the Alley, has already opened on the ground floor of the Piedmont, the apartment complex that opened on Sixth Street and Novus Place.
Four restaurants to open soon
Four other restaurants will also open in the building in the next few months. They are:
Eureka!, a gastropub with a whiskey bar, was expected to open in December.
Blue Sushi Sake Grill, a sushi and sake restaurant, submitted applications for building permits to the city, and should open in early 2024, Freericks said.
Nautical Bowls, an acai and superfood bowl shop was expected to open in November.
Over Easy, a breakfast and brunch restaurant with locations around the Valley. It is expected to open in early 2024.
Two other retail spots remain available in the building, Freericks said.
Restaurants, hotel and apartments all coming
Near the Piedmont, two other apartment complexes are under construction. Vero, a 200-unit, “micro-unit” apartment complex is being developed by Transwestern Development Company. The smaller units have space-saving furniture fixtures that can convert or move for storage. Freericks said leasing for Vero is expected to begin in March.
East of Rural Road, a 330-unit apartment complex is under construction. That project will include 30 units of workforce housing, which will give preference to ASU employees who qualify, Freericks said. That complex is expected to open in mid-2025.
On the eastern side of Novus Place, west of Rural, there are plans for three restaurants from Fox Restaurant Concepts: Flower Child, Blanco Cocina + Cantina and North Italia. The restaurants will be built along the edges of a public park with lawn gathering space and shade structure.
A hotel developer planning a 184-room hotel is in escrow on the southeast corner of the site and is working on designing the project now. Freericks said the hotel site is expected to close escrow in the beginning of 2024.
One office building, directly south of where new Fox restaurants and park will be, has opened and is fully leased in Novus. There are plans for two other “sister” office buildings to be built on parcels near the first office, but construction on those was paused because of the slowdown in office leasing during the pandemic, Freericks said.
Long-term plans could include major corporate campuses
Some longer-term plans for the corridor include:
Relocating the track and field and tennis facilities from west of Rural to be near the existing softball field and intramural field. After those are relocated, another building is planned in front of Mullett Arena, which could include a team shop and other retail. That site is currently occupied by the track complex.
The former baseball stadium will be razed, and the site will be bisected by Novus Place, which will be extended. Mixed-use buildings with ground floor retail are planned on both sides of the street.
On the western side of the former golf course, two medical office buildings are planned along with a senior living complex. Freericks said there is almost no available medical office space in the Tempe submarket.
On the farthest east portion of the golf course, one office building in the “Rio Yards” development is completed and is open for leasing. Two more buildings are planned, and could be connected to one another with a bridge.
North of Rio Salado Parkway and west of McClintock Drive, there is room for two more large, campus-style developments that could be similar to Marina Heights, which was built as a campus for State Farm.
Adjacent to Marina Heights, along Rural Road, there are plans for three high-rise towers, with one planned to be an office building and two planned for residential.
In total, when Novus reaches buildout, about 10 million square feet of new buildings will have been added to the area.
Funding mechanism for athletics
Instead of property taxes, because the land is owned by the university, buildings in Novus pay fees to ASU, which are used to fund the athletics department. ASU officials have said the fees are comparable to what a building would pay in property taxes. University Realty, the real estate arm of ASU Enterprise Partners, is an investor in many of the buildings in the corridor, so the university benefits from the sale of buildings there.
Reach the reporter at cvanek@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @CorinaVanek.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe's Novus Innovation Corridor: apartments, restaurants, hotels
