There’s a lot of activity along Rural Road as the latest portion of Tempe’s transformational Novus Innovation Corridor is expected to finish construction by the end of the year.
The big picture: The campus-area corridor project is a walkable collection of housing, office, retail and restaurants primarily along Rural between University Drive and the Tempe Town Lake waterfront.
- The innovation corridor project includes Novus Place, a new retail and entertainment district.
State of play: The area on the west side of Rural between 6th Street and Packard Drive has three restaurants from Fox Restaurant Concepts under construction — Blanco Taco Cocina + Cantina, Flower Child and North Italia.
- Novus Place also includes tea shop The Alley, Nautical Bowls and Eureka!, as well as restaurants scheduled to open later this year like Over Easy and Blue Sushi Sake Grill.
Plus: That portion of the project will also include a park with a shade structure that can be used as a small bandstand.
- It will also feature a yet-to-be-announced highrise hotel with 184 rooms, Charley Freericks, senior vice president of Catellus Development Corporation — the master developer for Novus Place — tells Axios.
- “The park” or “the Fox collection,” as that segment of Novus Place is currently being referred to, is scheduled to open in the fall. Hotel construction will begin in late 2024 or early 2025, he added.
Context: The 275,000-square-foot Novus Place development is Phase III of the corridor project.
- The first phase was the Marina Heights office development along Tempe Town Lake.
- Phase II was what Freericks called the “reinvention” of Mountain America Stadium, home of Sun Devils football.
- Phase III also includes The Piedmont and other apartment projects on both sides of Rural.
What’s next: Freericks said the fourth phase will include medical office space, and he’s also hoping to add luxury office space along the lake.
