Phoenix-based Pivotal Group is partnering with Los Angeles-based William S. Simon & Sons for Esplanade Place, a 12-story project that will be built at the southeast corner of 24th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix. The condominium project, estimated to cost more than $30 million, will be built in the Camelback Esplanade, just south of the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix hotel. A set of tennis courts and some parking space will be sacrificed in order to build the project. Construction, which kicks off May 29, is scheduled to take about 15 months.

The 56 condominiums will be priced from $500,000 to $2.5 million, says Pivotal Group CEO Francis Najafi. Pivotal, which owned the Ritz-Carlton Phoenix for several years before selling in late 1990s, has owned the developable parcel around the Camelback Esplanade for some years.

Esplanade Place's site is the last developable acreage in the immediate area. Opus West is under construction on the fifth and last office tower at the site. When completed, the site will boast nearly one million sf of the highest priced office space in the Valley. Office space along the Camelback Corridor, and especially at the corner of 24th Street and Camelback, leases for $25 per sf to $30 per sf.

Geoffrey H. Edmunds, who is a long-time residential builder in the Valley, is heading up the project. In 1995, Edmunds had sold his luxury home building company to Toll Brothers and has since formed other companies and consulted on several other residential projects, including a luxury condo project in La Jolla, CA. Najafi got Edmunds to come out of semi-retirement to work on Esplanade Place.

The 18-story Crystal Point was the last luxury condo project built in the Valley. It is located at 1040 E. Osborn Rd., just north of the Phoenix Country Club. A number of upscale condominium projects are under way in the downtown area, including an eight-story project west of Crystal Point and Willo Walk, a 303-unit condo project at Central Avenue and Encanto Blvd., but those projects are more moderately priced, with prices below $1 million. McCarthy Building Cos. Inc. is the contractor, and Cornoyer-Hedrick, the architect.