In New York City, real estate titan Harry Macklowe is facing the same tough road that many investors, small and large, are facing because of banks’ inability or unwillingness to lend money in the current marketplace. His situation demonstrates that the credit crunch is affecting the real estate markets from coast to coast and across all types of markets: residential, industrial, and in Mr. Macklowe’s case, even premium top dollar commercial real estate. Mr. Macklowe owns billions of dollars worth of real estate in New York City, especially Manhattan. This week, Mr. Macklowe set up a tentative agreement with his lender to turn over effective control of seven Manhattan office buildings he acquired less then a year ago for $7 billion, according to the Wall Street Journal.

At least 12 more stores, restaurants, and health care clinics are being constructed at The Marketplace at Rancho Sahuarita the commercial complex is located in the northern side of Sahuarita road and East of I-19.  All the commercial buildings will be completed by June of 2008 and the businesses themselves should all be opened by September of 2008. Already 2 businesses are opened in the Marketplace at Rancho Sahuarita those businesses are JP Morgan Chase Bank Branch, and a 108,000s.f. Fry’s Marketplace which I have personally be inside of and is well stocked with many higher end foods and brands then a Fry’s would normally carry. Construction on the Marketplace at Rancho Sahuarita is being further developed on the L shaped, 18,360s.f. building at the north end of the 25 acre commercial complex where the next businesses are scheduled to open.  Carondelet Medical Group office, a dental clinic and a real estate office will be opened in this building of the Marketplace at Rancho Sahuarita. Another building is being developed on the south side of the Chase Bank this building is to be 5,600 s.f. and will house a dry cleaner, sandwich shop, and a coffee shop. In addition another building is being constructed south of the Fry’s Marketplace this building will house several more shops these will include a nail salon, hair salon, and a sit down restaurant.

Marana’s largest neighborhood and community of Continental Ranch had a recall vote that happened on Jan 30^th, 2008. Continental Ranch Community Association President Nicole Glasner and first Vice president Tom Licht retained their seats even though the majority of the votes were against them. The association has claimed that there were not enough valid ballots to officially oust the two members. Only 747 out of the total 1444 could be counted as official votes either for or against the members of Continental Ranch neighborhood most all the votes were against but the catch is that since only 747 official votes could be counted and the minimum of 1000 valid votes were necessary to oust the board members. As a resident of the area I can say that this seems to be a fine print measure for these board members to keep their spots, in my opinion they should both just resign and put an end to the unrest of residents vs. the HOA boards. This whole mess began because the board decided that Continental Ranch members did not need their trash picked up twice a week but once a week after they made that decision they failed to mention it to the homeowners (or made a very weak attempt to anyway) and this outraged the Continental Ranch residents shortly after this you could see petitions and drives to organize and get the board member off the board. The garbage issue in my opinion was just the tipping point the HOA for years has been very hard (again my opinion) on home owners and enforcing the rules even the smallest of them. Now having said that Continental Ranch does look very attractive and most of the credit could be placed with the HOA for running such a tight ship, BUT don’t get me wrong there is not very many residents that were ever happy with the HOA and all the rules and fines that were handed out regularly to the point of it being almost beyond reasonable. The next agenda for the board is to replace the former property management company Platinum Management INC after they said they would be ending the contract with Continental Ranch over all the unrest in the community. My guess is after a month or two things will settle down and life will go on in Continental Ranch neighborhood.