Opportunity with a VU
Frank Aazami’s Featured Listing
Here’s an opportunity to own a luxurious commercial property, with one of the Valley’s premier views, in upscale Fountain Hills 15 minutes east of Scottsdale. The possibilities are limitless.
Operating as the VU Bistro at the Eagle Mountain Village Marketplace, 14835 East Shea Boulevard, the 4,450-square-foot luxury space includes ample seating areas with high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows, a full-service kitchen, a wraparound bar, a large terrace with elevated 180-degree desert views toward the East Valley and the Superstition Mountains.
Patrons know the property from the brown 1947 Ford flatbed dually truck parked along the Eagle Mountain Parkway entrance, just south of Shea Boulevard. A few minutes west of the Beeline Highway between the city of Mesa and the high country town of Payson, the corner lot includes security cameras, smoke detectors, an alarm system, a loading facility and ample parking for guests including in the shopping center’s main parking lot, which is accessible by stairs from the VU.
A man cave for a car collection? Sports bar? High-end restaurant? Real estate office? Art gallery? Hiking/offroading store? Medical offices/facility? Cars and Coffee meeting area? Or a Real Estate and Coffee for a company showing homes in the community?
Opportunity.
With near and distant mountain views, overlooking the Eagle Mountain golf course and luxury community, the venue can become the favorite destination for locals and travelers. Because the roofline begins at 24 feet, you can add a second floor above the terrace for a view deck or additional al fresco restaurant seating, for example. For more atmosphere, perhaps add a waterfall or other water feature.
The current owners opened the VU Spa & Salon on March 1, 2003, about a year after the center anchor, a Fry’s Food Store, opened. Other stores and services followed. Today, these include doctors’ offices, a children’s learning academy, a barber shop, the Blossom restaurant, a Blue Bell ice-cream parlor and Bone Haus Brewing, where Cheezy’s, an innovative mobile pizza kiosk, makes regular stops.
The owner, Heidi, and her staff first offered a variety of services including facial waxing, nails, massage as well as a café menu. As more and more salon customers signed in, people started asking for food and drinks so she first offered breakfast, then lunch, then dinner with a full bar. The spa began treating the couple so well with customers that they discontinued lunch about five years ago.
Changing VUs
For car collectors, the building would be a classic location for a getaway; the bar is already in place, and some of the cars could be placed adjacent to the panoramic windows, combining natural with automotive beauty. On the north side of the building, a series of arches over the patio could become the entrances to the bays leading inside to the collection. Trackless garage-door openers would easily fit, providing clear ceilings. Add the cars, the neon signs and other automobilia, a finished floor and a large-screen TV. The extraordinary views won’t be changing for a million years or so.
The restaurant might continue in this form or another food and beverage location, such as another brewery for beer or mead. A wine-tasting boutique, offering bottles as well as curated sips and small bites, is another. We have many of these now in wine-emerging Arizona: in Cottonwood, Jerome and Sedona, the Cornville area and throughout the southern part of the state.
Staff can park at the higher lot and walk down. The lot fronting the arches could be used as an event venue; just erect the tents without disturbing traffic into the building or the remainder of the center. Food trucks could conveniently serve customers here, too.
Or the boutique shops can be expanded into separate areas for fashion, furnishings, high-end antiques, an art gallery, books, a design studio and a café with small-bites and wine. Various experts could be scheduled for talks and consults and book signings.
Another option for the VU: Create a hiking and off-roading venue, renting and selling vehicles, bikes and motorbikes, equipment and trailwear for adventures into the nearby Mazatzal and Four Peaks mountains, with hundreds of square miles of trails and extraordinary high desert. Perhaps individuals or groups could start out with a breakfast and end their day of adventure with chuckwagon-cooked grub on outside grills and smokers. This opportunity might include popular jeep tours into the backcountry.
Or a local golfing phenom could offer custom equipment and simulators to help other duffers with their games; the sunlit Valley of the Sun offers more than 200 private and public courses including those in Fountain Hills and nearby Scottsdale and the Wekopa Resort, a few minutes north of town.
Fountain Hills is set on rolling hills rare in the generally flat desert Valley. The potential clientele posts superb demographics with homes from $500,000 to many millions and owners with well-above-average disposable income. Nearby are the ADERO Scottsdale resort with superb mountaintop dining and upscale residences adjacent to the McDowell Mountain Regional Park, featuring more than 50 miles of trails. Sky Harbor International and Scottsdale airports are both 30 minutes away, and the property is close to burgeoning Mesa and the East Valley via the Beeline Highway.
The VU is opportunity, in all directions.
Beginning June 1, the property will be available to lease or sale, accepting reservations; vendors and chefs may have the opportunity to demonstrate their products or services. To arrange, please email or call Frank Aazami, with the Private Client group at Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty, He welcomes your comments and offers, frank@pcgAgents.com and 480.266.0240.
