Facing the needs of the ever-changing residential market and a complex lakefront Tempe Town site, the team building three multifamily towers on Tempe’s South Pier is moving quickly to bring the concrete towers vertical. Standing 21 to 23 stories tall, the skyscrapers known as Lot 6 make up the first phase of a $1.8 billion mixed-use development that will eventually include multiple apartment, condominium, hotel and office towers along with a overhanging entertainment pier. in the lake
But that same body of water also added challenges to the foundation work, which penetrates three levels down into the alluvial soil and cobbles of the Salt River. By the early 2000s, some site preparation and geotechnical work had been completed, but plans for the area at the time stalled due to the recession and the site remained untouched, until now.
The current iteration of Lot 6, developed by Silverstein Properties and South Pier Tempe Holdings LLC, an affiliate of McBride-Cohen Management, places it in a key location on the south side of Tempe Town Lake, which will eventually be surrounded by Novus Innovation. Corridor, a 10 million square meter mixed-use urban space where private companies and Arizona State University will collaborate on various technologies.
Lot 6 Architect Davis joined the project in 2021 and inherited some early programmatic design work from another firm that had been done when the project was started by another developer team. “Our brief was really to come in at that point to reset the direction of the project in terms of its program and quality, do some value engineering and get it to a good level of design development,” says Richard Drinkwater , director and chief design officer of Davis. .
Construction began in August 2023 with contractor Clayco at the helm. The towers will include 724 multifamily units, service and retail space in 1.2 million square feet.
Expansive amenity decks provide space for pools, fitness areas and clubhouses with lake views.
Photo by Scott Blair/ENR
Water management
The towers are supported by 9-foot-thick carpet foundations that sit below the three parking levels. “The water table is about 30 feet, which is about where our basement level three is,” says Scott Thomas, Clayco’s senior project manager. “So, with the base of the carpet underneath, we ran into some dewatering and it seemed to get worse as we pushed the water eastward. We spent about 45 to 60 days just dewatering the project, pumping between 40,000 and 80,000 liters of water per shift. It was quite a process that we worked on to get that water out of here, so we could continue to push the carpet foundations and all the other bases.”
Davis had previously worked on another development to the west next to a deeper part of the lake, where the water table required a more expensive bathtub-style foundation.
For South Pier, Davis “wanted to have a safeguarding approach to the residences because there are three towers connected by a common garage below. So in the vertical culvert, there’s an early warning water sensor ” says Buck Yee, Davis’ principal and project architect.
In the system, which would probably only be needed for a 1-in-50-year flood, pressure relief valves in the lower level of the garage can open and deliberately flood the basement when too much hydrostatic pressure builds up. The system, which provides ample notice to residents to move their vehicles, eliminated the need for a much more expensive and complex bathtub design, Drinkwater says.
Concrete subcontractor Suntec lays a new deck every six days and says it’s running ahead of schedule.
Photo courtesy of Clayco
Subcontractor Suntec Concrete says it has been delivering full 14,000 square meter decks for both Towers 1 and 2 every six days. The underside of the floor coverings will be exposed, requiring strict quality control.
The team aims to finish Tower 1 in August at 230 feet. Tower 2 will follow in September at 207 feet, and then crews from the first tower will go up to the 226-foot-tall Tower 3 and finish the concrete there in March. Placement typically occurs overnight to mitigate heat, increase security and keep site logistics on track, Thomas says. PK Associates performed the structural engineering.
“We spent about 45 to 60 days just dewatering the project, pumping about 40,000 to 80,000 gallons of water per shift.”
—Scott Thomas, Senior Project Manager, Clayco
The project incorporates prefabricated panels into the building’s skin, manufactured in a 200,000-square-foot shop in Gilbert, Arizona, by MKB that employs 80 to 100 workers. “This allows us to work on our skin and incorporate all the elements of the building as we go vertical with our structure,” says Mike Broughton, senior project manager at Clayco. Prefabrication not only increases sustainability by reducing construction waste, but “allows us to maintain safety and overall quality, and also make sure we have a good air/water barrier while we’re doing it in the shop.” Windows are also being prefabricated in Mexico.
At peak, around 550 trade workers will be on site. Thomas says Clayco has maintained a good safety record with no recordable incidents or lost time.
Daily foremen’s meetings and a morning debriefing with all site workers tell everyone “what’s going on in general on site so they’re safe and understand where they need to be and what might be going on around them, even with other trades,” says Thomas.
Clayco offers a training space for safety and site orientation in both Spanish and English simultaneously.
Photo by Scott Blair/ENR
In addition to two full-time Clayco security personnel, the contractor also employs a full-time nurse to handle minor scratches or chips. Clayco strategically places cool zone tents at key locations on the site, including elevated decks, so workers can enter an air-conditioned space for respite from the intense heat of the Vall del Sol.
At the jobsite trailer complex, where many of the project team members are stationed, Clayco offers a site-specific orientation classroom with two parts set up, one for training in Spanish and one in English .
“We can do about 40 people at a time. So far, we’ve oriented about 1,100 workers on site. As trades come in and out, we make sure everyone is aware of everything that’s going on at the site,” says Thomas.
The designers aim to maximize the connection to the lake and views of the nearby desert landscape with large windows and ample indoor and outdoor space.
Courtesy of Davis
Maximizing views
Clayco expects to close Tower 1 in early 2026, with the other two towers to follow in mid-2026.
The site’s high density offers design opportunities to maximize the unique setting of a “large urban enclave on the lake,” says Drinkwater. “We wanted to play with that with the design of the building to create some really wonderful residential units in terms of incredible views, incredible location, large balconies and outdoor space which is really a premium for residential units here in Arizona.” Having all of the parking below grade also helps create a pedestrian-focused landscape plan, designed by Dig Studio.
“One of the main differentiators for us here is the large amenity space we have between the three towers.”
—Lindsay Bruckal, Project Executive, Clayco
“One of the biggest differentiators for us here is the wide amenity space we have between the three towers,” says Lindsay Bruckal, Clayco’s project executive. Tower 1 houses a pool, fitness area, clubhouse and workspaces that emphasize the indoor-outdoor connection. Towers 2 and 3 share an even larger amenity podium. Outdoor spaces and parks emphasize the connection with the lakeshore.
The project’s owners have consistently focused on “making it a truly unique and desirable place to live,” which has resulted in additional improvements to amenity spaces and interior design “to make them more marketable and more wanted for future tenants,” he says. .
One of those changes recently moved the fitness area from a double-height space next to the service deck in Tower 2 to the ground floor, so a clubhouse could be added. Even though the floors have already been poured, Davis quickly turned to new drawings and found ways to configure the space to provide power to the exercise machines, Yee says.
Lot 6 and its separately developed neighbor, Lot 5, will join numerous future mixed-use phases of the estimated $1.8 billion South Pier development.
Courtesy of Davis
Davis continues to work with developers on other phases, including a conceptual design for an office building and another multifamily tower directly south of Pier 202 on Lot 1, which is a separate residential project under construction for several years by another promoter/builder. Davis also provided a concept plan for the future South Pier entertainment district, which includes a pier, pedestrian bridge and Ferris wheel.
Drinkwater hopes the design will create a “wonderful environment where people say, ‘Oh, I want to live there!’
