Tribune - August 2007
The latest phase of a plan to bring thousands of homes, shops and offices to Gilbert is taking shape with two new housing subdivisions in the works.
Longtime farmer Jeff Cooley plans to put 900 homes near the southeast corner of Williams Field and Recker roads, as part of the massive Cooley Station development.Cooley's family set plans in motion nearly a decade ago to transform 950 acres of farmland into some 4,000 homes and more than 2,000 apartments and condominiums.
Those will surround Cooley Station's Village Center - a mix of lofts, offices, shops and entertainment venues.
It's the family's legacy in a way, Cooley said.
"It's a place we hope people will be proud of," he said. "This is kind of now our last hurrah."
The homes in Cooley's project, called Eldon Point, will be built by Gilbert-based Thornton Homes in multiple phases.
Houses will range in size from 1,100 to 2,400 square feet and likely cost in the low-to mid-$200,000s, said Quentin Thornton. Construction could begin as early as next summer with sales starting the following fall.
Access to Loop 202's Santan Freeway and proximity to Williams Gateway Airport and Arizona State University Polytechnic make the location ideal for housing, Thornton said.
It's in the heart of the southeast Valley, where the growth is, Cooley said.
Still, how long Eldon Point and the larger Cooley Station development take to build will depend on the state of the real estate market, Cooley said.
"We hope, maybe, within the latter part of 2008 things will start picking up again and stabilizing," he said. "The problem now is where's the bottom?"
Cooley Station is going to be a major player in Gilbert's commercial development, said John Zupon, a town business development specialist. It will help serve the future Big League Dreams sports complex, he said.
North of the Eldon Point project, another Cooley subdivision is being planned, which will have 100 houses and 270 town homes.
The multifamily market is much stronger than the single-family market right now, so the town homes will likely be built first, said Greg Davis, president of Iplan Consulting.
Construction could start on the Fincher Fields project in the third quarter of 2008, though a builder hasn't signed on yet, Davis said. It will compl
