Best-in-class locations like the Biltmore area in Central Phoenix attracted a national multifamily developer with plans to raze a former Hard Rock Café and specialty shops to build 270 units of high-density residential on a 4.8-acre site across from the Biltmore Fashion Park, a million-square-foot outdoor pedestrian mall. Hot spots like the Kierland area in North Scottsdale experienced the rezoning of an assemblage of parcels including a former nightclub and corporate headquarters that is now slated to become a 240-unit apartment project. In addition to being near high-end, condo-quality amenities, the 5.8-acre project will benefit from its location across the street from two of the most distinguished mixed-use developments in the Southwest, Scottsdale Quarter and Kierland Commons.

Countless other projects, big and small, are surfacing predominantly in the more urban cores of Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe. A foreclosed, mid-block South Scottsdale parcel, formerly home to a grocery store and fitness center, has just been sold to a prominent local multifamily developer who plans to build more than 500 units and additional retail on the 20-acre site.

Lincoln Center, at the marquee intersection of Scottsdale and Lincoln roads, was once a 30-year-old, 60,000-square-foot garden office building. Now it is the future home to high-end multifamily in the supply constrained Paradise Valley/Scottsdale submarket.

There is significant momentum and municipal/government support for this trend. How long it will last is uncertain, but in the red-hot Phoenix multifamily market, the old adage that retail follows rooftops can be amended for the time being. Right now, it's rooftops that are replacing retail.