Location: Main Street and Date in Mesa
Description: The Mesa Royale project, planned by Chicanos Por La Causa, a nonprofit social services and community development organization, along Main Street and Date, is slated to be built in two phases.
The project, just west of downtown Mesa, is slated to bring affordable multifamily housing.
According to Chicanos Por La Causa, the total redevelopment is planned for multiple phases and includes both for-sale homes and apartments.
Phase one of the Nuevas Vistas 56 townhome project. Ten of the 56 units have been completed and are currently 50% sold out, Nic Smith, the vice president of real estate development with the organization, told The Arizona Republic.
Nuevas Vistas townhomes are available to first-time homebuyers who make 80% or less than the area median income, he said. Two additional phases are in development.
Additional phases include plans for two three-story residential buildings with a total of 89 new apartment units along a plot of land where the historic Kiva Lodge Motel originally stood.
Those rental units will be available for families at or below 60% of the area median income, according to the organization. That would bring a total of 145 affordable housing units to the non-profit’s development.
The organization plans to include about 7,736 square feet of commercial area on the ground floor of the southern apartment building, according to planning documents.
The cost of the additional phases represents “an investment of approximately $50 million,” according to Smith.
The organization will seek to apply for the state’s 2026 low-income housing tax credit round to help fund the project.
Chicanos Por La Causa plan a 89-unit affordable housing project dubbed Mesa Royale along Main Street and Date just west of Mesa’s downtown.
History of the site: Planning for the project has been underway since 2018, when Chicanos Por La Causa purchased the land.
Part of the site included a mobile-home park that the city deemed “unfit for human habitation” in 2015. The land was put on the market in 2016, leading to Chicanos Por La Causa’s purchase.
Additionally, the Kiva Lodge Motel stood west of the mobile home park. The motel opened in the 1930s and had a neon sign of a Native American chief in full headdress. The motel was demolished in 2023 despite preservationists’ calls to save it.
When will the work be done? It is not immediately clear when construction could begin or be completed.
Source: City of Mesa, Chicanos Por La Causa
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Reporter Maritza Dominguez covers Mesa, Gilbert and Queen Creek and can be reached at maritza.dominguez@arizonarepublic.com or 480-271-0646. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @maritzacdom.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Non-profit adds affordable housing on Main Street near Mesa’s downtown
