Hawes Crossing Village, the 1,131 acre residential community in Mesa, Arizona, received approval by Mesa City Council in early 2021. When the opportunity to work on Village One (80.66 acres of the 1,131 acre total community), myself, along with RVi team members Konner Pendland and Kevin Wilke-Nadler welcomed it, recognizing that as landscape architects and designers, this project would present as one with unique challenges.
Lennar Homes and Rose Law Group have been integral in helping Hawes Crossing become “the hottest new master planned community in East Valley.” As the planning and landscape architecture team for Village One, we agreed that Hawes Crossing would be the appropriate project to invite outside-the-box thinking to create a community that would set a precedence for future communities. When we evaluated our clients’ requests, the RVi team was determined to share our innovative thinking and shape a community that welcomes diversity and density that includes a range of products attainable to a spectrum of future home buyers. We also wanted to create a community that invites social interaction within the community members and visitors while preserving a quiet and peaceful setting.
Hawes Crossing is situated in an area of Mesa that is growing rapidly. Residents who live in the area will have access to employment opportunities and can enjoy all that the City of Mesa and nearby Town of Gilbert has to offer. “This area of Mesa is tremendously desirable for the accessibility to jobs, good schools and nearby recreational,” explains Jordan Rose, whose law office represents the developers. To distinguish Hawes Crossing as a highly sought-after master planned community in the East Valley, the RVi team was able to develop a street network design that integrated the City of Mesa standards while enhancing the livability of the community. At the entry of the community, the RVi team reimagined the standard collector roadway by adding parallel parking and facing the fronts of the homes towards the street to create a more traditional small-town characteristic to the community. Transitioning from the main entry drive, the community is planned and designed to be a well-balanced mix of low, medium and high-density districts. The goal was to plan a pedestrian-friendly, residential neighborhood to augment the existing neighborhood to the north and celebrate the area’s agricultural heritage, as described in the project’s vision statement. Hawes Crossing will be “a true village experience with similar, yet varied homes in a unifying architectural style.” With the well-balanced mix, the community will be interconnected with amenities dispersed throughout, inviting interaction among residents and visitors.
Hawes Crossing Village One is close to finalizing the construction documents leading to breaking ground, and the RVi team anticipates that the design of this community will generate innovative ways of viewing communities through the integration of municipal requirements, homebuilding practices and standards, and livability. Our team appreciates considering new communities as opportunities to create a space for residents and visitors to enjoy, where diversity is naturally built into the community’s framework and where an interplay of the elements of the community create a sense of place that is needed, welcomed and sought after. Continued rapid growth in Arizona is spawning the necessity for a focus on long term livability while still providing the increased demand for housing. The RVi team hopes to continue to be integral in the design progression of places we live in Arizona and throughout the country.
