San Diego County is something like 67% government owned. That doesn’t make commercial land in Boulevard (45 miles outside of El Cajon) a great investment opportunity over the next 5 years. I can practically guarantee that El Cajon will not expand out to include Boulevard any time in the next couple decades and I’d be pretty surprised if Yuma exploded to become a 45-mile wide community.
Commercial development is not like residential development. If you build it they may not ever come. Commercial use parcels are limited to certain uses, most of which require an established residential or traffic base to economically justfy development. Without the economic base in place, the commercial use won’t be able to generate sufficient revenues to pay the mortgage or rents, let alone the investor’s required returns. Boulevard will not be supporting a supermarket anchored retail center any time soon. It probably wouldn’t even suport another 7-11 right now, and its been a community for years.
The situation you’re describing might be a winner if the parcels they’re talking about cover all the major intersections and adjacent parcels at the highway access, ’cause then they might be able to justify a gas station and a Burger King (together) there. Every other parcel is going to be SOL until a community grows up there, though; and that might not ever happen in our lifetimes.
I’m not saying this is a stupid deal for an investor (’cause I don’t know), but I do think I’d want a whole lot more information than what these guys are dispensing before I invested. I also don’t think I’d be getting too excited about an argument that starts off with “they’re not making any more land”, because I happen to think AZ is one of the places that is manufacturing more dirt as time goes on.
