Developer to start work on 27-story residential tower near Arizona State University

New market data shows fewer apartment units to be built across Phoenix metro in 2025

By Angela Gonzales

An Indiana company plans to build a 27-story residential tower across the street from Arizona State University in downtown Tempe.

Trinitas Ventures paid $6 million to buy a 0.61-acre vacant parcel at 211 E. 7th St. from College Enterprises Inc., which traces to Therese Stohlgren, according to Tempe-based real estate database Vizzda LLC.

Construction on the 380-unit apartment tower is expected to begin within the next month and be open by summer 2027, said Matt Klinzing, director of development operations for Trinitas. He did not disclose total development costs of the project.

"We do have partners on this project and we are not at liberty to discuss those details," Klinzing said.

Layton Construction Co. is general contractor, while the design architect is Gensler and the architect of record is Niles Bolton Associates.

To be called Astria Tempe, the new apartment tower will include a pool, spa, fitness center, dog exercise areas, co-working space and a 3,000-square-foot ground-level retail space, Klinzing said.

Trinitas has developed 30 projects that total more than 7,000 apartments throughout the country, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times. The company made its Arizona debut when it developed the 254-unit Atmosphere in 2021 next door to where it will build Astria Tempe.

"It's a great market, growing and in need of additional rental units," Klinzing said. "We are always looking for the right opportunity."

While the project is near ASU, it is not student housing.

"This is multifamily housing for anyone as required by the city of Tempe's Non-Discrimination Ordinance," Klinzing said.

Stohlgren, the seller of the land, said her father purchased the lot when she was a child. Her family also leased a building near the vacant land from the Saba brothers to operate the ASU Student Book Center for 49 years.

She remembers helping out at the bookstore as a child and eventually became manager of the store until it closed in May 2016.

Astria Tempe project will include ground-level retail

The vacant parcel currently serves as a parking lot that Stohlgren had been leasing to All Saints Catholic Newman Center, which is across the street from the ASU campus.

That parking agreement ended on March 30 and a new agreement was put in place with Trinitas for 35 parking spaces in the garage within the new residential tower, said Trevor Barger, chairman of the parish council for Newman Center.

For now, parishioners are parking across the street in ASU Foundation's parking garage, he said.

"For many decades it was free on Sundays and it was easy for us," Barger said. "They recently stopped doing that so we came to a financial agreement that allows several hundred of us parishioners to continue using the building there."

Tempe City Council approved a PAD overlay on Oct. 12, 2023, for a 27-story mixed use development, said Kris Baxter-Ging, communication and marketing director for city of Tempe.

"Our city's general plan and other planning documents value density throughout the downtown area," she said. "This provides people easy access to light rail, streetcar and other modes of transit and helps keep the downtown thriving. It keeps people close to work and close to recreational amenities."

As to why it's taken this long to get started on construction, Klinzing said, "Simply put, the market."

This project comes at a time when multifamily permits have slowed in metro Phoenix.

Multifamily permitting sees slowdown

Multifamily permitting peaked in the Valley in 2022 and 2023, with apartment developers pulling permits for about 18,600 units in 2022 and about 19,000 units in 2023, said Peter O'Neil, national director of research for Northmarq.

"Permitting volumes in 2024 were down about 28% from those levels, totaling about 13,600 units," O'Neil said. "We only have data for the first two months of 2025 right now, but all signs point to our slowest start to a year since 2019."

Through February, permits for only about 550 units were pulled, down nearly 80% year-over-year, said O'Neil. He added that the current 7.1% vacancy rate, compared to a 5.7% average over the past decade, shows that the metro isn't overbuilt. In fact, he said, vacancy has remained between 7% and 7.5% since the second half of 2023.

This is good news for renters, who have many options, but tougher for an owner or operator because there is more competition from other communities.

While there are certain submarkets in metro Phoenix that are on the verge of being overbuilt — Glendale, Goodyear and Avondale — the Tempe area near ASU needs more student housing as enrollment continues to climb at the university, O'Neil said.

"North Tempe is performing pretty similarly to the market as a whole," O'Neil said. "ASU is always a demand driver in north Tempe."

Empire Group: 'Look at where market is heading'

Overall, developers built 23,349 multifamily units in metro Phoenix in 2024, O'Neil said. He expects another 21,000 units to be built in 2025 across the metro.

During the first quarter of 2025, there were 3,288 units built, compared with 4,912 during the first quarter of 2024 and 2,548 during the first quarter of 2023, O'Neil said.

As permits slow in metro Phoenix, there are a few developers who are still bullish.

Scottsdale-based Empire Group of Cos., for example, is moving forward on projects as it anticipates future needs, said Randy Grudzinski, partner and head of capital markets for Empire Group.

"You can't look at where the market is today," Grudzinski previously told Phoenix Business Journal. "You have to look at where it's going to be three or four years from now when you're leasing up and what the financing environment is. You have to have the fortitude to say I'm planting seeds now not based on conditions now but four years from now."

Those projects will be ready to go when units are absorbed, O'Neil said.

"There are a lot of opinions on the next phase of development in the Valley," O'Neil said. "We are entering into our sixth consecutive year of some pretty elevated construction totals, so there is definitely an argument to be made that a pause is in order. At the same time, absorption of units has been so strong for the past several years and vacancy has been pretty steady, that there are some concerns that we might find ourselves in a bit of an undersupply condition when deliveries slow in 2026 and 2027. Personally, I think we couldn’t sustain the pace we’ve been on in recent years, so a return to the years when we delivered about 8,000 units per year across the Valley would be about right for our long-term growth."

Final Thoughts

The upcoming Astria Tempe tower signals confidence in Tempe’s long-term growth, despite current slowdowns in multifamily development across metro Phoenix. With its prime location near ASU and robust amenities, it’s poised to meet future housing demand in a high-foot-traffic, high-transit area. For out-of-state movers or investors eyeing Tempe, this project represents a modern, urban lifestyle with both convenience and future value baked in.