Anita Verma Lallian
Anita Verma-Lallian is getting a lot of telephone calls these days because of the second-richest person in the world.
Verma-Lallian is an executive with Vermaland LLC, her family’s real estate business. Kuldip Verma, Anita’s father, heads the Arizona land company.
Vermaland owns 25,000 acres in metropolitan Phoenix, which includes a signicant amount of land in Tonopah. That land happens to be next to a 25,000-acre swath of desert that Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) founder Bill Gates recently bought a majority stake in for $80 million. Gates is the world’s second-wealthiest man.
That area, called Belmont, is being touted as a next-generation “smart city.” It eventually could be home to 80,000 homes — roughly the size of Tempe — powered by solar energy and geared towards autonomous cars.
Bill Gates
Belmont and Tonopah are off Interstate 10 about 50 miles west of Phoenix. They both lay along the potential route of the proposed Interstate 11 freeway between Phoenix and Las Vegas, a route that could serve as a big trucking and distribution reliever for Southern California.
But right now Tonopah and its environs are long way from being a futuristic city. The area’s biggest employer is the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. There also is a truck stop and a smattering of restaurants off I-10 on the busy link between Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Verma-Lallian said the Gates purchase is drawing new real estate investment interest in the Belmont and Tonopah areas.
“Everybody wants to be right next to Belmont,” she said.
That dynamic is leading some existing landowners in the mostly rural and desert area of far western Maricopa County to jack up land prices near the proposed Belmont development. Others are more inclined to hold onto their properties and benefit when Gates’ Belmont and I-11 are closer to reality.
Verma-Lallian said her family’s business is getting a significant bump in interest about its holdings near Belmont but also other parts of the far West Valley.
“It’s kind of everybody,” she said of the investor interest and whether that interest is coming from local and regional investors or more national and international ones.
El Dorado Hot Springs
That’s a stark contrast from the last recession and real estate crash in 2007 and 2008 when prices for land in a place such as Tonopah hit rock bottom.
The land that encompasses Belmont and Tonopah are in unincorporated areas of Maricopa County. Some land already is in the pipeline to be developed.
Interstate 11 could bring plenty of growth to what is now remote county land. And, like with other freeways, there are landowners and developers counting on it and banking land.
El Dorado Holdings and Jerry Colangelo’s JDM Partners are investors in the 37,000-acre Douglas Ranch development also along a potential I-11 alignment.
Anita Verma-Lallian
While the area is far removed from what is now the Valley, as the West Valley grows with population and jobs — with Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), Macy’s (NYSE: M), United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS) and Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) all having big logistics centers in Goodyear and Buckeye — a commute from Belmont might not be so crazy.
Vermaland also has holdings in Gila Bend, Harquahala Valley west of Tonopah as well as in other parts of the state including Pinal County.
