CHANDLER, AZ — Phoenix Rising Investments (PRI) and Willmeng recently completed work on their AMPlify development in Chandler, Arizona. The project transformed a vacant, back-office building into a high-tech manufacturing facility that has a dedicated 50 megawatt (MW) SRP substation for a Fortune 500 corporation.
“On behalf of the City of Chandler, I want to thank Phoenix Rising Investments for their vision and efforts in redeveloping the site,” said Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke, who took part in the ceremonial ribbon cutting event at the facility. “When this site was originally acquired in 2019, this building was vacant and underutilized. Amplify had vision. You saw the potential in the building, and you brought it back to life.”
The story began in 2018 when PRI Founder and majority owner Michael Hsiung and Willmeng CEO James Murphy toured a vacant back-office building and saw opportunity. As they made their way to the roof, they looked out over an empty parking lot and an overgrown water retention basin and envisioned what was to become the first of currently five AMPlify developments. Over the ensuing six years, the AMPlify team executed this vision by converting the old 157,400-square-foot back-office building with a dilapidated parking field into a 200,000-square-foot high tech manufacturing facility that includes a dedicated 50 MW substation with N-1 redundancy on site.
With the full redesign of the site and the dedicated substation, PRI was able to sign a Fortune 500 corporation to occupy the entire site, ensuring a key tenant remains in the West Chandler market. With the opening of the 40,000-square-foot high tech manufacturing expansion, the original vision has been fully executed.
“I distinctly remember, six years ago, standing on the rooftop overlooking a vacant parking lot, imagining its potential beyond an empty, back-office building,” Hsiung said. “Now, seeing that same space transformed into a high-tech manufacturing facility, complete with a new substation and this 40,000-square-foot extension, is absolutely remarkable. It’s wild to see how a simple conversation between friends can evolve into a tangible, transformative reality, even with all the twists and turns of a development of this kind.”
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The new 40,000-square-foot expansion includes 32-foot clear heights, office suites, lab space, meeting spaces, secured yards, a complete transformation of the air handling systems throughout, the addition of 10 MW of backup generation, and break rooms. The new addition at the facility was tied into the existing building to allow for 200,000 square feet of contiguous high-tech manufacturing space with a 50 MW dedicated substation. The team also updated the landscaping of the surrounding property.
“The vision here began with a power strategy. The dedicated substation didn't exist in the previous facility,” Murphy said. “So, kudos to SRP for believing in the vision of this site and deploying the infrastructure on the confidence that Mike and PRI would do what they said they would do and that Chandler would support it. SRP being a patient partner on this is another key source of confidence that helped make this project a success.”
