Downtown Chandler is getting more restaurants and hundreds of apartments
Hundreds of new housing units will be coming to downtown Chandler in the next few months, and one building, which could be the tallest downtown, is making its way through the approval process.
“We’re starting to see a lot of people moving downtown,” said Lauren Cole, Chandler’s downtown redevelopment program manager.
She said two new apartment complexes, DC Heights and Encore Chandler, are completing construction and are expected to open by the end of the year. The two will bring about 360 new housing units to downtown.
New building plans for offices, apartments and restaurants
In late July, the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission recommended that the City Council approve the rezoning of One Chandler, a proposed mixed-use building planned at Arizona Avenue and Chandler Boulevard.
The building is planned to be seven stories, making it the tallest downtown, Cole said. The project is planned to include restaurants and retail on the ground floor, 13,000 square feet of offices on the second floor, and floors three through seven will be residential units.
The building was planned on a mostly empty site, with the exception of the Jack in the Box restaurant which was built in the middle of the western portion of the site. The Jack in the Box will remain open, and the One Chandler building will be built around it, surrounding it on three sides.
The City Council has not discussed or voted on the One Chandler development yet, but if the project receives council approval, construction would likely take about 18 to 20 months, Cole said.
“The property represents an exceptional opportunity for a vibrant, walkable and visually stunning mixed-use development that will become a landmark for the area and complement the northern gateway to downtown Chandler,” the Jackson Dearborn Partners development team wrote in the submission to the City of One Chandler.
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A food court and new restaurants are planned to open
Cole said the city’s focus has been on growing its unique offerings. Along with One Chandler, a new planned food hall is on that list, Cole said.
The food hall, which could include about a dozen different restaurant concepts in one building, is slated to be built on a third of an acre at the southwest corner of Chicago and Oregon streets. The food hall still needs to go through the planning and zoning approval process before it can be built.
“What we’re starting to see is more unique concepts downtown, and the majority of businesses downtown are locally owned,” she said.
In August, the City Council approved a development agreement with developer Spike Lawrence to expand the Hilton Garden Inn downtown, which Lawrence developed along with office space and restaurants near the northeast corner of Oregon and Chicago streets. The addition will include approximately 69 hotel rooms, new conference space and a new restaurant.
At an event hosted by the Chandler Chamber of Commerce, Cole said a few new restaurants and dessert places have opened or are about to open downtown.
Crispy Cones, a European-inspired ice cream shop, opened in mid-August. Mexican brewery Buqui Bichi Brewing opened in July, and Elliott’s Steakhouse opened in July in a building that was once a movie theater.
“We see a lot of people coming to downtown Chandler because of our uniqueness, and we still have the historic aspect,” she said.
Contact the reporter at cvanek@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter @Corinna Vanek.
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