Work record / Development / The Triangle Grand Avenue

The Triangle, Grand Avenue: I put capital last on purpose

A group of Phoenix brokers wanted the right redevelopment to arrive on Grand Avenue before the wrong one did. I built the plan so the rules come first and the money comes last.

The seat

I was development lead on the Common Ground team from March to June 2026. On March 5, 2026, a framework for the district reached me from the client of record, speaking for a group of Phoenix brokers. That was Natasha Lawrence, who owns LOVE PHX Real Estate Co. and is its designated broker. They asked me to lead development. We worked through LÏEF Development alongside the Common Ground team.

What I was brought in to decide

The Triangle covers 14.9 acres of downtown Phoenix, a wedge sliced out of the street grid by Grand Avenue's diagonal. Artists moved in first, drawn by cheap space, and independent businesses came after. The corridor made its identity from the bottom up, and a developer cannot manufacture that.

Ownership under it is fragmented and old. The parcels are small and irregular. A few landbanks have sat vacant for more than a decade. Estates and family trusts hold some, and some owners have been there since 1992. All the layers of the city's planning now point development toward this district, and an Opportunity Zone buyer was already putting parcels together inside it. Owners there had also watched big projects push out the arts community on Roosevelt Row, just a few blocks to the east.

The aim was for the right redevelopment to arrive before someone brought the wrong one.

What we did

• Before I added to the brokers' vision, I tested whether it would work. I laid out what was real, what was missing and what was risky. The gaps were pro formas, governance, adaptive-reuse engineering and a plan for displacement.
• I went through the city's plans line by line: the General Plan that voters approved in November 2024, and the 2025 move that folded eight downtown redevelopment areas into one, which includes the Triangle. Then there was the overlay for the arts and small business, which dates to 2008 and grew in 2010, and the rules on middle housing and adaptive reuse. In January 2026 the light-rail extension was canceled. I took that as good news. Walkability and the Grand Canal trail could carry the corridor's value without any transit premium.
• From Maricopa County Assessor data, we pulled every parcel fronting Grand Avenue with a spatial query and sorted the acquisition candidates into tiers. Detail at the owner level stays behind the consortium's gated portal.
• We brought on a community design architect and applied that architect's framework, Connection, Discovery, Movement and Rest, across the whole district. Guidelines call for buildings of two to three stories, lively ground floors, natural materials, reuse of existing buildings first, and art in every project. LÏEF handled construction, pricing, design and financial modeling.
• We drafted the consortium and a pledge of six pillars. Anyone contributing land, design or approvals is bound by its rules before a dollar exists. We added an engagement plan covering the city and both village planning committees.
• I kept capital last, deliberately. I had been through a fund raise and learned from inside that early money needs scale to reach its target. Scale is precisely what breaks a district whose worth lies in its character.
• I set out five gates in order, each with an owner and a test that could show it wrong. They are the consortium, site control, a single anchor project, a community mandate from day one, and capital last.
• We converted the brokers' presentation into a public district website with a gated research portal. It first went live in April 2026 at triangle.liefdev.com, and in September 2026 it was also live at thetriangle.commonground.ventures.

Results

• Within a month we delivered a strategic analysis and business plan, ten sections long, running from the vision through next steps.
• A parcel base covering the whole corridor from the county assessor's March 2026 data, showing 77 parcels, 32 of them vacant.
• A development team and a consortium structure with its pledge, plus a path of five gates that leaves capital deliberately for the end. Rules get set before any money can write them.
• Gate one had passed as of September 2026, with thirty signatures on the pledge against sixteen at delivery. Gate two, site control, is in progress, and several owners are each negotiating a position of their own. By design, no capital is committed.
• The district website is live and open to the public.

The lesson

Capital goes last. Money raised behind a concept decides what gets built before the people who live with it get a say.

Public record

• The Triangle, Grand Avenue (district site)
• The Triangle, Grand Avenue (LÏEF address)

Firm record

Common Ground keeps its own account of this engagement: The Triangle Grand Avenue on the Common Ground wiki.

Back to all projects