"It's always difficult when you're assembling properties. That is always something I'm leery of," Brent Moser, a vice president at Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial in Phoenix, tells GlobeSt.com. "In this case, they were willing to go non-refundable with their money so quickly. It made it a lot easier to go through."

Phoenix-based sellers, Outer Ring LLC and Williams Field Land Partners, sold 80 contiguous acres each to Kitchell for close to $5.5 million per transaction. Moser says a meeting with Kitchell in December 2003 identified the site as a potential new development opportunity. The developer approached both owners with unsolicited all-cash offers. Each off-market trade lasted 90 days.

Kitchell has penciled in a fourth-quarter 2005 groundbreaking for about 1.1 million sf of mixed-use commercial product. Construction of Loop 202 nearby is expected to wrap up in March 2006, with a full-diamond interchange literally a stone's throw from the property. If the Gateway Parkway proposal eventually is green-lighted, the state highway will bisect the property, says Moser, who represented both sellers. Kitchell's brokers were Brian Heintzelman and Mike Haenel, also with Grubb & Ellis/BRE Commercial's Phoenix office.