Small Town News

Superior Highlands, recent happenings at a historic subdivision

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Where and when did the Superior Highlands originate?

Nine Superior residents originally acquired the 21-acre Superior Highlands site half a century ago. The site is located about a half mile from Superior Junior/Senior High School. The owners, some of them teachers from the local school district, later sold the entire site to Barry Halla of Life Rebuilders.

Halla, from Fountain Hills, purchased Highlands in the late 1990s and developed Phases I and II. Copper Core Builders LLC bought what is now Phase HI in 2007.

Four houses were built for Phase HI by builder Highland Estates Properties LLC. Three are model homes. Pete Maguire, owner and broker of Maguire Realty of Scott-sdale and contact agent for both Copper Core Builders and Highland Estates Properties, said that the last house is a spec house.

A spec house is an almost finished house awaiting a buyer before final interior options are installed.

Future development at Highlands is planned when the market improves. "We really need Resolution Copper to come on board," Maguire said. "We're ready to build but there's no market right now."

A water certificate issued by the Arizona Department of Water Resources in 1998 indicated that 110 lots were planned. Including all three phases, roughly half that many have been developed so far.

No newly constructed houses are currently listed for sale but those listed this summer were in the low $200,000's. These were model houses that are currently being leased. Maguire said that both of the houses were a deal because they were built as models with all the upgrades.

Newly constructed houses in the Escalante at Entrada Del Oro subdivision located between Gold Canyon and Queen Valley have similar square footages to those found in Highlands. These houses are listed for approximately $156,000.

The market downturn isn't the only issue being dealt with. A num-ber of legal matters have been or are being resolved by Highlands' owner and builder.

Action Excavating, Beaver Creek Construction LLC, Quality Underground of Arizona Inc., and Schwab Sales LLC all placed liens on the property.

Maguire said that subcontractors who hadn't been paid placed two "of the liens. "It was nothing on our end," he said. "We paid contractors but they didn't pay subcontractors." The subcontractors then placed the liens.

The Action Excavation lien was released in 2008. "With Schwab Sales we wound up settling for 50 cents on the dollar," Maguire said, "because we paid the contractors we hired but they didn't pay Schwab."

Also in 2008, Copper Core Builders executed a discharge of lien bond for over $100,000. Quality Underground of Arizona had submitted the lien in 2007 for around $69,000 in utility trenching and related work at Highlands. Copper Core Builders disputed the validity of the lien and posted the bond to release Highlands from any effect of the lien or attempt to foreclose on it.

In January 2008, Beaver Creek Construction also brought a civil case against Copper Core Builders, Highland Estates Properties, and Action Excavating. According to case documents, Beaver Creek Construction seeks to recover damages of at least $226,000 for a breach of contract. The case is still active.

"We tried to settle with them even though we don't owe them any money," Maguire said. "They walked out of the settlement hearing and made false statements to the judge." He says that Beaver Creek Construction's lien is essentially fraudulent and that the case may be resolved by the first of next year.

An area realtor filed a complaint with the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service regarding two Highlands houses listed as sold this fall. The realtor, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the houses weren't sales - they were leases. As a; result, the houses are now listed as pending instead of closed sales.

Maguire said that the houses were listed as sales because the only other option was to list them as rentals. "They aren't really rentals. They're purchases," Maguire said. "The buyers put up non-refundable option money to apply to their down payment."

The realtor who filed the complaint said that listing the houses as sold was problematic because appraisers researching sales in the area would find incorrect sale prices. Maguire said that the buyers signed a purchase agreement to buy the homes after leasing them for two years. The buyers' option money and rent payments apply to the down payment on the homes.

"They are contracted to purchase those homes. If they didn't execute that agreement they would lose all the money they put up," said Maguire.

Maguire's focused now on Resolution Copper coming in and the market picking up. "We have a viable subdivision," he said. "It will get finished." Editor Cindy Tracy contributed to this article.



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