Mesa Proving Grounds

Mesa, Azizona, one of the nation’s largest suburbs, with a population greater than Miami, Florida, is switching to a new urban strategy for a five-square-mile site that the city annexed for development. The Mesa Proving Grounds were used by General Motors for nearly five decades to test automobile systems in a harsh environment, and now a developer called DMB envisions a massive project with a street grid and two vibrant urban cores. Villages, neighborhoods, and an urban park system are planned elsewhere on the site, which is in southeast Mesa, near the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. Trevor Barger of Espiritu Loci, a Phoenix design firm, did the plan. The entitlements will include elements of form-based regulation, according to the city’s plan.