Trellis celebrated the groundbreaking of its first townhome infill project on May 29, 2019, Trellis @ Colter located at 1617 West Colter Street, Phoenix, Arizona will be a 20-unit three story townhome project. The townhomes are located less than a half-mile walk to the Light Rail and support the City of Phoenix’s Walkable Urban Code, higher density developments within walking distance of the light rail.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held at 930 am and everyone attending was thankful that this May day was 20 degrees cooler than it normally would be. Over 50 supporters of this project attended which included City of Phoenix District 4 Councilwoman Laura Pastor, Trellis staff & board members, local neighbors and partners of the project.
Designed by architects Doug McCord and Christian Solario of Phoenix’s Architectural Resource Team this was a high impact project that they enjoyed working on because it creates and strengthens community. Christian Solario who was the final speaker at the ceremony who told the crowd he was especially excited to work on one of Trellis @ Colter because it is one of the first projects that is not only zoned WU-Code (City of Phoenix Walkable Urban code to increase walkability and ridership on rail and bus), but also zoned Townhome. The addition of the WU-Code to the Townhome zoning allowed Trellis to place 7 more homes in an area that was originally zoned for less homes.
The project will consist of 20 new townhome units in 4 separate buildings with a choice of two different 2-bedroom, 3-story homes with garage. These are energy efficient homes with HERS index score of 65 so they are 35% more efficient than regular new builds and are solar ready. The location of Trellis @ Colter will put homeowners within walking and biking distance of many local restaurants and shops and downtown and other Phoenix amenities are only a ride on the light rail away. Access to Phoenix’s Universities is easy as well, Grand Canyon University is less than two miles away and ASU is just a hop on the light rail away. Trellis @ Colter truly is in an exciting part of Phoenix.
Maco Construction will be constructing these homes with John Beaulieu supervising and ensuring these are homes that are built the Trellis way. We are thankful to the staff from Maco Construction for attending: Rick Cohen, President and Kelly Hendrex, Volney Fike, John Beaulieu were with us on this cool but sunny May day. Our partner Security Title will be providing title insurance, closing and escrow services and they were represented by Marie Warren and Grady Young who helped celebrate the groundbreaking.
Glenn Karlson, Trellis Real Estate Development Manager and the assistant Real Estate Development Manager put in tons of hard work as well as worked with the neighbors to ensure this was a project that not only high in quality but also supported by the community. Glenn kicked off the ceremony by providing the audience an overview of the project, thanking our partners and a telling a few good jokes.
Patricia Duarte Garcia reminded us that it’s neighbors that help community development corporations like us succeed and that is why we always have residents and neighbors, compose at least 1/3 of our Board Membership. She also told us that Trellis knows how important education is for homeownership. Trellis offered foreclosure assistance for seven years after the mortgage crisis and we saw many people that had 0% or AMI loans going through our foreclosure assistance program who would likely nnot have had those loans if they knew what they were. Education is important. Patricia also discussed why we choose the name Trellis when we rebranded from Neighborhood Housing Services of Phoenix “Trellis is a framework of support for growth and that truly captures the work that we have been doing for the last 44 years”.
Angelo Chinfoo, Vice President at First Bank and serves on the Trellis board as the Chair of the Real Estate committee. His presentation started by reminding us of the Trellis vision. “Trellis’ vision is an Arizona where everyone has a place to call home and Trellis’ strategic plan focuses on working with cross sector partners, to advance social enterprise, increase sustainability and advocate the value of home.” He stated that Trellis @ Colter meets all those goals.
Joel McCabe, Trellis COO & designated broker for Trellis Realty thanked the crowd especially the support from the community neighbors and neighborhood representatives from the Pasadena, Solano (Colter Block Watch) and Camelback Light Rail Corridor that were able to attend. Joel completed his presentation by introducing Councilwoman Laura Pastor who is a strong advocate for the communities where we live, work and play in and who is a champion for projects like Trellis @ Colter.
District 4 Councilwoman Laura Pastor started her portion with a “thank you to everybody who is part of this collective of making this happen. Affordability can’t happen in our city if we don’t a have a collective and believe in it and believe in housing and ownership. Ownership, what it does, it causes a whole different mindset within a family. Because when you own it you watch everything you do, you fix it, you maintain it… Ownership really gives pride to a family.” We truly appreciated Council Woman Pastor attending.
AJ Marsden, local resident since 2001, the president of the Pasadena Neighborhood Association and one of the leads in the Camelback Light Rail Corridor revitalization project in partnership with International Rescue Committee and lead by Isaac Jensen, came to represent the neighborhood and show their support for this project and others that are bringing more families into the Solano and Pasadena neighborhoods.
The ceremony closed with group photos in hardhats and with golden shovels. Everyone took home a piece of Colter as well… dirt from the worksite in a corked small glass jar.
Check out all some of the photos here