Architect Mark McKechnie (left) and property owner Vin Mehta examine plans for a four-story 55-unit apartment project to be built on the spot where Mehta’s VS Plaza shopping center burned down in the Almeda fire. Photo by Jim Flint An architect’s rendering shows a planned 55-unit house to be built on the spot where the VS Plaza shopping center burned down during the fire in Almeda. The four-story complex will have 16 two-bedroom apartments and 39 one-bedroom units. Drawing courtesy of Oregon Architecture, Inc. Two shopping malls that burned along Highway 99 in Phoenix will be converted into homes. In the 10 months since the Almeda fire destroyed nearly 2,500 homes in the Phoenix Talent area, new and Transitional housing is slow to develop. The families are still looking for an apartment. Two new projects to be built in Phoenix will help alleviate the shortage and provide an estimated 135 new rental apartments. The projects will be built in locations previously used by the Pacific Plaza Shopping Center on 4149 S. Pacific Highway and VS Plaza on 4150 S. Pacific Highway, behind and across from the Jack in the Box Restaurant. Both centers were destroyed by the Almeda fire last September. Construction of the VS Apartments on the former VS Plaza site is expected to begin in October or November of this year and be completed in early 2023. Specific plans for the former Pacific Plaza site will be announced at a later date. Oregon Architecture, Inc., a Medford-based company, is the noted architect for the projects. It is also working on other housing projects in the cities of Phoenix, Talent, Medford and Ashland to address housing loss from the Almeda fire. The projects will create almost 300 new units. Mark McKechnie is the principal architect of the eight-person office, which specializes in historic renovations, energy-efficient buildings, apartment buildings, medical practices and the hospitality industry. He credits the City of Phoenix for making the two new projects possible. “In a bold and forward-looking move, the city changed its building code in April of this year to allow residential use within the Highway Commercial Zone,” said McKechnie. The city has two business parks – Highway Commercial and Center City Commercial. Before April, residential use was only permitted in the Center City commercial zone. “This change makes a lot of sense in the post-COVID era,” McKechnie said. “Online shopping has exploded and the current need for commercially demarcated land has fallen sharply.” The change also enables the development of multi-purpose properties that offer a combination of residential and commercial use without having to go through a conditional use or exemption procedure. “In the case of the VS Apartments project, residents can take advantage of the convenient location near many existing businesses,” said McKechnie. Owned by Vin and Seema Mehta, a couple who developed the Jack-in-the-Box franchise flag in Oregon and South Washington. Ultimately, they owned more than 60 franchise locations before selling them about two years ago. You also own other restaurant and hotel properties in Oregon. The change in zone regulations was welcome news to Mehta. “I want to thank the City of Phoenix for making this possible,” he said. He also thanked his insurance company Oregon Mutual for quickly handling the loss of his business center. “They wrote me a check in two days,” he said. The VS Apartments will be four stories high and roughly the same footprint as the burned down Strip Center. It will consist of 55 units – 16 two-room and 39 one-room apartments with different floor plans. The apartments will range in size from 625 to 700 square feet for the one-bedroom units and 850 to 925 square feet for the two-bedroom units. All of them will be apartments on one level. The building will have a public lobby, post office, elevator and fire extinguishing system. Each residential unit is equipped with its own washing machine / dryer connection. A green area for the residents is being developed in the immediate vicinity. “The site is next to Coleman Creek, which was largely spared from the fire, even though all the structures around it were on fire,” McKechnie said. “The retail center had a nice little landscaped park next to the stream that is being renovated with shrubs and trees.” The project will be built to meet current environmental and energy efficiency standards and will have mini-split mechanical units for heating and cooling. “The building will be structurally equipped to accommodate solar panels in the future,” he said. The project is currently in planning permission from the city. McKechnie expects to file the building permit application in August. The final construction costs have not yet been determined and a general contractor has yet to be selected. You can reach Ashland author Jim Flint at jimflint.ashland@yahoo.com.
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