Residential will offer four different products. Condominiums and attached townhouses will make up the bulk of this. There will also be 14‑20 loft units over the retail–the exact number not known at this point as the units will correspond to the retail spaces, which are not yet set in stone.

In addition, Aspen Place at the Sawmill will offer 48 live‑work units: three‑story units offering the owner a street‑level space for retail or office with two floors of living space above it.

“It’s a very urban environment,” offered Peter Kleis, CEO of Granite Capital.

He also noted Aspen Place is a big enough project to allow diversity of product, and their interest in achieving that diversity is the reason they are considering bringing in multiple local and regional builders. Residential will be sold as finished product, anticipated to be mostly in the $350,000 to $900,000 range.

Aspen Place’s commercial core will also be diverse, offering a mix of national chains and local and regional businesses. “If you have too many national stores, then it’s the same thing you get everywhere else, but if there are too many locals, you don’t get a draw,” explained Kleis.

And a draw is what Aspen Place is being designed to create–from a 50‑mile radius.

“We expect it to draw from (as far as) Sedona,” said Jonathan King, president of New Frontiers.

The home‑grown natural foods grocery retailer is on board as one of the shopping center anchors.

“We’re excited by this opportunity to find a larger site,” he said. “The challenge of being in a smaller town is finding good sites as you grow.”

Grown from its first 1,000‑square‑foot store to a 9,000‑square‑foot store, New Frontiers was stymied by the lack of a site that would allow even a 15,000‑square‑foot store–and is now planning a 24,500‑square‑foot flagship store at Aspen Place.

The New Frontiers store will include a full‑service meat department and an extensive deli–with an expanded menu that will offer sushi, natural pizza, a bakery selection and an Asian Bowl in addition to made‑from‑scratch salads. It will also be the first New Frontiers store with space devoted to classroom, where local chefs will be invited to teach cooking classes.

“It fits the energy of the lifestyle center. And the smaller‑town’s environment supports this kind of interaction,” King said.

“It’s been neat being able to kick ideas around (with The Aspen Group) and feel they listen,” King shared, pointing out his store will use solar panels to provide 15 to 20 percent of its energy. Noting that such construction requires more scrutiny by the city building department, he credits The Aspen Group for being open to the idea.

“New ideas” seems to be a common thread to the entire development. For The Aspen Group and Granite Capital, Aspen Place represents their first mixed‑use project. Each has extensive experience with individual retail and commercial, but this, said Meyers, is a tremendous challenge creatively and takes both an architectural and financial background.

“It’s completely unique. We can take all those years of experience doing residential and commercial, and put it together; you get to combine all those things you’ve learned,” Kleis added. “Every time you make a move in one part of the puzzle, it affects another part of the puzzle.”

Integrating the residential and retail aspects, for instance, means keeping focused on amenities that will be important to the residents. Creating a synergistic flow throughout the retail is also a key concern.

Official groundbreaking was held June 21, and Flagstaff mayor Joe Donaldson recalled working as an apprentice electrician at the site when it was an operating sawmill, and lauded Aspen Place at the Sawmill as an opportunity to again provide jobs and income by reestablishing Flagstaff as a regional center of business.

“And it will reduce the leak of retail money to Phoenix,” Donaldson said.

It’s an unusual embracing of commercial development by the Flagstaff City Council, but Cronk offered the reasons for their approval: “It’s an infill project, and we’re trying to encourage that rather than development on the outskirts of town, and it’s on a major transportation corridor.”

It’s also a brownsfield site.

“So it gets rid of a negative,” Cronk said.

Further, The Aspen Group donated two acres of land to the city, which it expects to use for affordable workforce housing.

Cleaning the brownfield incurred a lot of infrastructure expense, Cronk explained.

“They had to dig down four to eight feet to remove everything,” he said.

The City Council granted Aspen greater density so they could spread out the cost.

Cronk also noted Aspen Place is designed compactly, with utilities, water and sewer incorporated underneath the road so that wouldn’t take up more space.

The Aspen Group expects retail product to be available to tenants in fall 2008, and residential product at approximately the same time. Builders for residential have not yet been determined, but general questions can be directed to The Aspen Group at (602) 553‑4100. Retail leasing is being handled by John Corritore of The Corritore Company, (480) 947‑7200.