Phoenix’s tallest building to break ground soon

The Astra Phoenix is scheduled to break ground at the end of this year. Once it’s completed, The Astra will be the tallest building in Arizona, surpassing Chase Tower, which has held the title since it was built in the 1970s.

According to Chris Mackay, Community and Economic Development Director at the City of Phoenix, it should take about 36 months to complete the project once it gets started. Mackay joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the project.

The Astra is actually two towers. The taller of the two will be 44 stories tall and 542 feet in height, which is about 60 feet taller than Chase Tower’s 483 feet. The Astra will have retail, office space, a hotel and up to 700 multi-family rental units.

“Downtown [Phoenix] has just turned into this new, really exciting, vibrant place that people want to live so they can walk to the pubs and walk to work,” Mackay said.

The new buildings are set to replace the parking lot adjacent to the YMCA and Sun Devil Fitness Center. Some renderings of Phoenix’s soon-to-be tallest skyscraper can be found below.

Photos courtesy of The City of Phoenix

Mackay explained The Astra is part of Phoenix’s plan to revitalize downtown.

“We have had a really strong focus since 2014 on bringing new people to live in Downtown Phoenix. We have gone from 10,000 people in 2014 to 24,500 today. We will be at 30,000 by 2030. And that doesn’t include our students,” Mackay said.

Alongside The Astra, the city is trying to renovate the current tallest building, Chase Tower, which has been vacant since Chase moved their operations to Tempe in 2021. There is no official timeline for the Chase Tower development yet, but the building was sold to Viola Lordsmeer L.P. in 2018, who paid $107.5 million for the property.

“The developer who owns [Chase Tower] is working on their redevelopment plans now. They’ve gutted the entire building and completed all the environmental work within the building, and we are working really closely with them on the different disciplines that will be inside of that building. My guess is that [Chase Tower] will start redevelopment in early 2026,” Mackay said.