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BUSINESS
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Business Briefcase
BY LAUREN SERRATO
West Valley View Staff Writer
Hello and welcome back to Business Briefcase. This week, we will look at two developments making their way to Buckeye.
Buckeye is offering 246 new homesites ranging from 1,282 to 2,406 square feet. Additionally, an industrial development site will soon open, offering 900,000 square feet of warehouse space.
New energy-efficient homes available in Buckeye
Location: 22474 W. Yavapai Street
Meritage Homes, the country’s sixth-largest public homebuilder, opened Coyote Ridge Classic and Estate Series models in Buckeye.
Between the Classic and Estate Series, Coyote Ridge offers 14 single-story floor plans to choose from, move-in timelines that fit swift deadlines and a streamlined buying process.
With in-person and virtual model tours, this new development features oversized homesites, RV and three-car garages on select lots.
In addition to the energy-efficient features that come standard in every Meritage home, the community’s amenities include a playground, greenbelt, walking trails and ramadas.
With demand for new homes increasing among first-time buyers who want to escape escalating rents, Meritage Homes has designed an entry-level line of homes that include kitchen islands, home automation features and granite counter tops, as well as upgraded cabinets, laundry rooms and appliances.
Every Meritage home is built with energy-saving features including spray-foam insulation, Energy Star certified appliances, vinyl Low-E windows, a high-performance air filtration system that improves the home’s air quality and reduces the number of allergens.
Every home also includes Meritage’s M. Connected Home Automation Suite, with smart door locks, door sensors and motion detectors, USB outlets and advanced thermostats, which are centrally managed through a smart home hub and app.
Coyote Ridge has enhanced safety measures in compliance with local, state and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. In addition, homebuyers can manage the purchase process online with Meritage Homes’ Virtual Homebuying process, which guides prospective buyers from research and discovery and, in some jurisdictions, all the way through closing.
Along the way, buyers can connect with representatives to learn more
Briefcase...continued on page 15
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WEST VALLEY VIEW NEWS | DECEMBER 29, 2021
New Avondale business hopes to improve human health
BY LAUREN SERRATO
West Valley View Staff Writer
OnePointOne has developed the most advanced indoor farming system in the world in San Jose, according to its owners. Combining proprietary robotics, analytics and plant-cultivation technology, OPO grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables using 99% less land and water, with zero soil, pesticides or heavy metals.
Now, leaving the market in California, brothers and co-owners Sam and John Bertram are relocating their business to Avondale with the mission to fundamentally rethink how plants are grown, utilized and optimized.
“OnePointOne develops automated indoor plant production technology, it’s a bit of a mouthful,” Sam Bertram joked.
“Vertical farming is another way to describe it. But essentially, we developed technology to produce plants indoors. We develop the ability to produce the plants at the highest quality, we develop the technology to automate the production of plants, both from a software perspective and a hardware perspective. We develop technology to grow the highest quality plants possible inside.”
By selling and licensing farms, OPO can become the platform upon which the world’s plants are grown. OPO’s mission is to build the world’s largest network of automated indoor farms to nourish and heal 1.1 billion people. OPO has a farm in San Jose, and another, an 80,000-square-foot warehouse under construction in Avondale.
The Bertram brothers said they recognized a major problem in the world and decided they wanted to be part of the solution.
“I’m a mere mortal, and my brother and myself have been keenly aware of our mortality, obviously for our whole lives, and we thought since we are so fortunate, we’ve been given many blessings and we’ve worked hard for many more, we want to direct our efforts toward making the greatest difference in the shortest period of time,” Sam Bertram said.
Once realizing one of the world’s greatest problems is poor nutrition, the brothers joined forces to help combat the statistics.
“About 821 million people don’t get enough food and 2.2 billion people get too much of the wrong stuff,” Sam said. “That’s the No. 1 problem and the No. 2 problem is poor access to medicine.
“Plants are a solution to both. Once we discovered that and we discovered the issues that surround traditional farming the way we currently grow plants, we started to realize that there’s got to be a better way or that we must develop a better way to cultivate plants.”
Using robots and artifi cial intelligence, OnePointOne grows plants indoors away from nature’s unpredictability. Its plants grow without soil or sunlight, replaced with high-precision irrigation and illumination systems.
Inside an 80,000-square-foot warehouse, cleanrooms, each the size of a house, cultivate millions of plants tended by a fl eet of autonomous robots responsible for inspecting and moving the plants. Humans monitor the farms from 750 miles away and ensure only the highest yields and qualities the plants can possibly express.
“The concept of growing plants inside of warehouses has been around
Sam and John Bertram are the co-founders of OnePointOne, a company that grows a wide variety of fruits and vegetables using 99% less land and water, with zero soil, pesticides or
heavy metals. (Photo courtesy of Sam Bertram)
about communities, arrange virtual tours, speak to a mortgage professional and more. Meritage Homes’ goal is to ensure customers feel comfortable in their interactions, whether in-person or online.
For more information, visit meritagehomes.com.
SVN Desert Commercial Advisors completed the sale of an approximately 54-acre industrial development site in Buckeye at the southeast corner of Southern Avenue and Rainbow Road within the Buckeye Rail Corridor.
The property was acquired from KWC Motorsports LLC, for $6.525 million by Buckeye 54 LLC, a joint venture formed by Contour Real Estate and Shopoff Realty Investments, both California-based real estate investment and development firms.
The joint venture plans to build a logistics park encompassing two warehouses totaling 900,000 square feet. The deal had been in escrow for seven months as Contour worked through infrastructure issues with the city of Buckeye.
Additionally, Contour RealEstate has 77 acres in Buckeye closing this year for another large warehouse and manufacturing project totaling 1.2 million square feet.
“The area will experience explosive growth over the next decade as more and more development continues,” said Chief Executive Officer David Daneshforooz.
Paul Borgesen and Dylan Sproul of SVN Desert Commercial Advisors negotiated the transaction on behalf of the buyer. “It was a pleasure to work with both buyer and seller in this successful transaction. It’s exciting to work on projects that will add large employment bases and accelerate economic growth in our Phoenix Metro area,” Borgesen said.
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Please email your business news and tips to Lauren Serrato at lserrato@timespublications.com for a while and only with the advent of LED lighting technology, has it become economically feasible to do so, but that’s the point, economically feasible,” Sam said.
“In order to proliferate vertical farming technology, we have to develop the automation systems and the cultivation systems to the point where they are cost competitive with the outdoor farm. Once we develop this technology, we can start to proliferate the technology around the world. Our goal is to provide 1.1 billion people with the foods and medicines that will nourish and heal them.”
Since the start of OPO in 2017, the brothers said they’ve focused on developing the technology to drop the price production.
Sam refers to the Avondale location as the company’s “model home,” adding that it will show people what they’re capable of. Following the opening of the Avondale facility, eventually OPO will sell those farms around the world for a wide variety of purposes.
“We did a nationwide search and went city by city and had a look at all of the parameters that mattered to us, cost of labor of construction, cost of living, cost of electricity,” Sam said.
“One of the most important things we found was working with the government. We really see the power of government, we see the power of our technology, we want to combine those powers and after having many conversations with the state of Arizona and more particularly the city of Avondale, we knew that we could work very closely with that organization to grow this business as quickly as possible.”
Looking forward to the growth of his business, Sam said he’s most excited about helping people and improving their lives.
“We have a genuine built-in opportunity to make a huge difference to people’s lives, not just a minor difference, and that’s what I’m excited about,” he said. “That’s what gets me up every day… we can facilitate businesses with their plant production needs, and in the end, make the lives of human beings better, meaningfully without harming the environment. That’s what has me pumped.”
OPO will host an exclusive event at the Arizona farm in April to unveil its technology to the community.
