Tempe, Arizona

Services Provided:  Civil Engineering, Storm Water Management, Land Planning, Landscape Architecture

Project Description: The Arizona Mills is a retail outlet mall located on 115 acres at the intersection of I-10 and I-60 in Tempe. This $200 million project contains 1.5 million square feet of leasable space with 13 anchor stores, including JC Penney, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, an IMAX theater and a Harkins 25-screen movie theater.

The site required an integrated drainage/ retention system consisting of a centralized retention basin and numerous detention basins on the parking lot.

One of the site’s most challenging issues was that of developing a single-level mall structure on a site that sloped approximately 30 feet from north to south. This grade differential was engineered with a minimal amount of retaining walls by utilizing parking lot/street grades and landscaped slopes in setback areas.

In conjunction with the Arizona Mills, CVL provided plans for an improvement district, administered by the City of Tempe, which included the outer loop road of the mall, three entrance roads and an exit road with a bridge.

CVL’s landscape plan for the parking lot created the effect of a field of trees instead of islands of trees. This plan not only increased the number of trees, but it also increased the number of parking spaces on the site.of trees, but it also increased the number of parking spaces on the site.