Market shifting?
Famed car auction on
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An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEWS................................ 8 Movie houses caught up in financial, legal turmoil.
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF GILBERT) | GilbertSunNews.com
Sunday, March 21, 2021
Morrison apartment plan enrages homeowners BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
T
he Morrison Family wants to increase the size of a planned two-story apartment complex to 320 units on farmland at the northeast corner of Higley and Warner roads. Residents of Morrison Ranch’s Lakeview Trails neighborhood say no way. They’re preparing to fight the request for a minor amendment to the General Plan and rezone that would see 15 acres set
aside for a shopping center dropped to 10 and the adjoining land for the apartments increased from 15 to 20 acres. “This is the very first of what’s likely a six-month process,” Scott Morrison, a partner in the family business, said at a virtual neighborhood meeting last Monday. “The primary motive for this (request) is we’ve come to the conclusion we probably will never be able to fill 15 acres of retail.” Morrison said he has worked for three years trying to lure in a commercial developer but has been told repeatedly that
demand for brick-and-mortar retail space is dropping as shoppers continue to flock to online, which grew even more last year with the pandemic. The original multifamily zoning is vested since 1998 at 16 units per acres, which the family would keep with the increased acreage, according to Morrison. He added the number of apartments would increase by 80 units. “We’re not adding multi-family next to
see MORRISON page 3
2 men help make Gilbert safer for bicyclists
COMMUNITY......... 14 GPS teacher’s nonprofit helping families.
BUSINESS................ 26 Nurse’s Gilbert gym a punchy way to fitness.
COMMUNITY....................................... 14 BUSINESS.............................................26 SPORTS.......................................28 GETOUT......................................29 PUZZLE.......................................30 CLASSIFIED...........................................31
BY CECILIA CHAN GSN Managing Editor
E
ndurance athlete Evan Stubbart and a friend were cycling along Greenfield Road, south of Discovery Park, on a sunny Saturday, just as he had on countless occasions. Stubbart was in front, pedaling 24 mph when a driver came up besides him and, without warning, made a right turn, hitting him. “The front edge of the car hit me, scooped my bike up,” the Gilbert man recalled. “I went up on the hood and hit the windshield. She slammed on her brakes half way through her turn and it threw me off the windshield
Adam Baugh, left, and Evan Stubbard are putting up signs to remind motorists in Gilbert that the law requires them to watch out for bicyclists (Pablo Robles/ GSN Staff Photographer)
see BIKES page 6
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