Culdesac Tempe’s first residents have moved in, and the company is eyeing expansion in other cities.
Photographer: Rebecca Noble/BloombergCan This Car-Free Neighborhood Clone Itself?
The developers of Culdesac Tempe, a $200 million mixed-use community without cars or parking, are looking to export their design model to other cities.
In downtown Mesa, Arizona, the 27-acre patch of land known as Site 17 has sat empty for decades, a redevelopment mystery that has yet to be unraveled. The local Mesa Tribune compared it to Nevada’s Area 51, noting that “developers have hovered, coming close to landing — then, as mysteriously as UFOs, vanished.” Past plans have included turning the city-owned dirt lot, once home to 63 single-family homes, into a health-care facility and resort/water park.
But in October, the city took a big step towards solving this real estate riddle, by selecting a proposal to build a housing project from the startup Culdesac, famous for its car-free neighborhood taking shape in nearby Tempe. Over the coming weeks, the city and Culdesac will negotiate a memorandum of understanding, which is expected to be presented to the council for a final vote early in 2024. Mesa officials are banking on the Site 17 project to help catalyze a downtown revival.