Construction on Hayden Flour Mill redevelopment project could start next year

Lorenzo Perez expects to spend the next few months in due diligence on the transformation of a historic site in Tempe. He's hopeful that by the end of the year or early next year construction will start moving forward.

Perez, the co-founder and managing partner of Venue Projects is partnering with Sunbelt Holdings to turn Hayden Flour Mill at Rio Salado Parkway and Mill Avenue into a gathering space and back into a community asset. The two Valley developers were chosen to make that happen last February by the city of Tempe after responding to a request for proposals in late 2021.

Since then, Venue and Sunbelt have had their calendars filled with community outreach efforts, including regular meetings with stakeholders from the city of Tempe and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. Perez said he asked Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community to be a creative collaborator on the redevelopment.

"I was born and raised here, and I know people are very emotionally connected to that site in the Indigenous community, Latino community and all of Arizona," Perez said. "I knew it was going to be important that we took time to get to know everybody and listen. I wanted to understand the history of it."

The mill, which is the namesake of Mill Avenue, closed in 1998. In 2003 the city bought the mill, and two different private companies have previously gotten development rights for it over the years, but those rights have expired.

Perez and Sunbelt presented a site plan at a special meeting Monday night in front of a Tempe City Council and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Council joint meeting. The plan calls for eight buildings, including six newly built structures.

"We want to create a one-of-a-kind experience that's specific to our region. ... It's not going to just be a beautiful, historic place, we want to be activated and energized," Perez said.

Perez added that the partners will seek a national nomination for historic preservation for the site.

A big task ahead for the partners is carefully removing heavy milling equipment from a five-story structure. Perez said the intent is to preserve as much of the machinery as possible, which will be utilized as a way to tell the story about the mill over the years.

There will also be a retail component to the site with a few on-site food and beverage options, specialty shops and entertainment retail all being possibilities. Perez expects that there will be space for smaller community events as well.

Venue and Sunbelt are still in negotiations with the city of Tempe for the development agreement for the site, which will still be owned by Tempe upon execution. Perez said he's hopeful that gets finalized in the coming months.

"Once we figure all that out, then it's a matter of going to work and doing what we normally do," Perez said. "Designing the buildings, leasing them — we want to be mindful about the types of tenants and what activities happen there — that stuff is coming."

The cost of the project along with the construction and architecture team has not been established as of Monday.

The city released the request for proposals in September 2021 for an adaptive reuse project that would include a lease and development of the 5-acre site.

Venue Projects is behind several of the city's high-profile redevelopment and adaptive reuse projects, including the adaptive reuse of the Rise Hotel in uptown Phoenix with Vintage Partners.

Sunbelt Holdings was a co-developer of Marina Heights in Tempe, the Valley's largest office complex. The company is also developing Union Park at Norterra in north Phoenix and was also chosen to lead the 10-million-square-foot expansion of Wild Horse Pass on the Gila River Indian Community.

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