Japanese Affiliate to Develop in Arizona : Torrance Firm, Partner Plan to Build $500-Million Mixed-Use Mesa Community

Torrance-based Taiyo Investments USA, and American Continental Corp., of Phoenix, have announced plans to develop a 1,023-acre, $500-million master planned community in Mesa, Ariz.

It will be Taiyo Investment’s first major venture into stateside real estate development since its founding in 1984, specifically to invest and develop income, residential and commercial properties.

The firm is affiliated with Taiyo Real Estate Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, a 31-year-old organization that ranks as one of Japan’s largest building firms.

Masao Horiuchi, Taiyo Investment’s chairman of the board, said his firm’s entry into the Arizona market is part of a long-range goal to invest in prime U. S. properties.

The firm’s first real estate transaction here took place just recently when escrow was closed on a 34-acre site in Anaheim Hills for a 49-lot custom home project.

Named “The Crossings,” the Mesa project is expected to start construction in May for development in five phases over five years. The site is at the intersection of the Superstition Freeway and the projected Southeast Loop.

With American Continental Corp. serving as managing partner, the firms initially will build a mixed-use development, including a 600-acre residential community of single-family, patio and town homes and multifamily residences.

To follow are a school, church and racquet club; recreational facilities including an amphitheater surrounded by a promenade of restaurants, cafes and specialty retail shops and commercial services to support the neighborhoods.

A 350-room hotel, three commerce parks, mid-rise office towers and a medical campus are also planned. The developers believe the project will function as a regional employment center for a potential labor base of about 300,000 residents in the area called East Valley, a growth corridor east of metropolitan Phoenix.

Land planning for the project was by Clark/Van Voorhis Architects Inc. of Phoenix.