Aug. 27—A biblical battle is brewing in North Scottsdale, where neighbors fear the expansion of a non-deadly weapon maker will kill their tranquility.
Companies around Scottsdale don't get much bigger than Axon, which expects sales of Taser stun guns and police body cameras of around $1.5 billion this year.
And neighborhoods don't get much smaller than Stonebrook, a modest 175 homes.
"It feels like David against Goliath," Susan McGarry, president of Scottsdale Stonebrook II HOA, said with a sigh.
With Axon planning a massive expansion of its Scottsdale footprint, McGarry and 50 of her neighbors attended a June 20 meeting with the company that left them shocked — but hopeful.
They were stunned to hear the Taser-maker now plans not only a previously-disclosed new office building, but also four apartment buildings and a hotel.
Yet McGarry and others left the meeting wobbling but upright, feeling their concerns were acknowledged by Axon representative and attorney Charles Huellmantel, who led the presentation.
"I'm glad they included us at the beginning," she said, days after the meeting.
Two months later, Axon quietly submitted plans to the city.
When McGarry got a look at the plans, she felt Stonebrook had been bulldozed.
"Their representative had implied to us that they were willing to alter some of the building heights and placement from the plan we saw at the open house, but what they submitted is what they originally intended to submit for this project," she said.
The soft-spoken Heullmantel used a microphone to address dozens of retirement-age Stonebrookers gathered in Axon's meeting area.
"We're trying to create a campus that will allow us to build our headquarters and also improve the lives of those folks who work here," he said in introducing the project.
He then added something that had several nodding heads in agreement: "We also want to be sensitive to what's happening in your neighborhood."
Huellmantel certainly sounded amiable — making the plan sound quite malleable — at the June 20 meeting.
For instance, several expressed concerns about where the plans put the apartment buildings on the 74-acre Axon site near Hayden Road and the Loop 101.
"We thought this might be the best location but it's certainly something we're willing to discuss," Huellmantel said.
"We could move that if that's what people want. So we're happy to move ... somewhere else on the site if that's important to people."
When another neighbor raised concerns about the hotel location, the Axon attorney shrugged.
"We thought this might be the best location but it's certainly something we're willing to discuss," he said.
"We could move that if that's what people want ... We're happy to move on somewhere else on the site if that's important to people."
When a Stonebrook resident asked for a large wall to separate the Axon campus from her neighborhood, Huellmantel nodded in acknowledgement.
"We'll take a look at that and talk ... but I don't know what the rules are for Scottsdale. But we can certainly look into that," the Axon representative said
'Bonus request'
On Aug. 2, Axon submitted its plans for "Axon World Headquarters Mixed-Use Campus." It includes a request for rezoning and major amendments to existing city documents — plus a "bonus request" for building heights.
Axon's plans outline "six proposed mixed-used structures and associated parking, landscape, hardscape and utilities. All six proposed structures are five-story buildings containing residential units and garage parking. Buildings A, B, C, D, and F also have proposed commercial space on the ground floor."
In other words, exactly as presented at the Stonebrook meeting six weeks previous.
Shortly after seeing the latest Axon plan, McGarry fired off an email to Scottsdale elected officials.
"This letter states the immediate concerns of homeowners in our community regarding the proposed Axon campus immediately north of us," McGarry wrote.
"It is important to note here that we are not opposing development of the land in question. Rather, we are proposing solutions that are more in keeping with the existing character of the area."
She said her neighbors were outraged over "an extremely high-density development adjacent to an established single-family home community."
Residents fear their peaceful community is about to be stampeded — in addition to impacting quality of life, potentially battering property values.
A Stonebrook home is selling for $739,900 "while having an average homeowners association fee around $33 per month," according to a real estate ad.
While the size and location of a fire station on the Axon property troubles them, the Stonebrookers now are most concerned about five-story buildings and "density, with 2,300 apartment units, would not meet the standard of a suburban community with a low profile."
They noted, "The Axon representative has said they are willing to reduce building height for those structures closest to our community."
McGarry's email warned Axon's proposed development "could bring as much as 23,000 vehicle trips per day, or more (based on 10 total car trips per day, one way each), to this small area with regular neighborhood roads."
A civil engineer report in the Aug. 2 Axon proposal puts that at slightly lower.
"As currently proposed, the Axon campus is anticipated to generate 16,282 trips on a typical weekday," according to CivTech, a Scottsdale company hired by Axon to study the traffic impact.
This would be "10,272 trips more on a typical weekday" than a 2011 proposal for the parcel, CivTech noted.
Whatever the actual number, McGarry, complained, Axon traffic "would overwhelm our local streets, which were not meant to support such developments."
She hopes the city will require Axon to "eliminate the proposed roundabout at 82nd Street and Axon Way, pushing traffic to the roundabout at Perimeter Road, which is capable of handling larger traffic volumes."
The current proposal, McGarry said, "threatens the property values of the homes immediately adjacent to" the roundabouts.
'Tap down the density'?
The plan demands rezoning for residences on an area zoned for industrial/commercial use. That means more public meetings at which Stonebrookers can share their concerns with the Planning Commission and/or City Council.
Three City Council members — Betty Janik, Tammy Caputi and Solange Whitehead — attended Axon's Stonebrook meeting.
Janik responded to McGarry's email and met with the HOA president and a half-dozen of her neighbors.
"We had a really good meeting," Janik said, adding that she understands Stonebrook's concerns about traffic, density and building heights.
"I'm very confident those issues can be resolved in meetings with Axon," Janik said.
She added the giant may need to be checked.
"The community needs to work with Axon to tap down the density. I think Axon is asking for too much, personally," Janik said.
"Axon needs to be a good neighbor. It's not fair to have buildings so tall you have workers peering into your yard."
Huellmantel did not return a phone call from the Progress.
Hometown hero
Hometown hero Rick Smith, a Chaparral High School graduate, founded Axon in the 1990s. After steady growth behind its Taser guns, the company made shocking money in recent years.
Axon anticipates sales of $1.5 billion this year. And, after closing 2015 at less than $20 per share, Axon stock hit an all time high of just under $230 per share in April before pulling back to around $200 per share.
In a December letter to shareholders, Axon reported $353 million in cash and $2.8 billion in total assets.
The stunning growth encouraged Smith to expand his Scottsdale footprint.
On Aug. 25, 2020, a $9.4-million infrastructure reimbursement deal designed to keep Axon from leaving Scottsdale won unanimous approval from City Council.
In order to receive its full reimbursement, Axon must build at least 250,000 square feet of commercial or manufacturing space and have a payroll of $130 million over any continuous 12-month period within five years of the state land auction.
In the fall of 2020, just a few weeks after City Council approved the deal, Axon won a state Trust Land auction last week, paying $49.1 million for 74 acres near Loop 101
So the clock is ticking, with the key timeline of the deal coming up in the fall of 2025.
If Axon does not meet those benchmarks, it would still be eligible to receive up to 50% of the infrastructure reimbursement, or about $3.6 million.
Three years ago, the city estimated it will give Axon $12 million, including the land sale, over the course of the deal but will receive $16.5 million in value, including the infrastructure improvements, land and existing and new taxes associated with construction and Axon's operations.
According to the development deal, Axon currently employs 850 employees at their Scottsdale facility and is anticipating adding an additional 650 Jobs over the next five years.
Axon's office is about 100,000 square feet, with plans in the development deal to expand by triple that space.
But there was nothing in the development deal about a hotel and a few thousand apartment units — which is why Stonebrookers were so stunned at the June 20 meeting.
The apartments represent a commitment to employees, the Axon representative explained at the neighborhood meeting.
"We have housing needs for our employees. We also have entertainment needs for our employees and we're trying to create a campus — you're probably seeing other companies do similar things," Huellmantel said.
Axon is hardly alone, as the development of former desert land just south of the Loop 101 has accelerated in the last two years.
With Mark-Taylor apartment complexes going up across Hayden Road from Stonebrook and plans for the $400 million Banner Scottsdale Medical Center at Hayden and the Loop 101 recently announced, Stonebrook residents fear their former tranquility is doomed.
While the major plans Axon unveiled must be approved at various levels, minor change is already happening. At the intersection of North Hayden Road, the former Mayo Boulevard has a new sign: "Axon Way."
Water guzzler
According to an Aug. 2 cover letter to the city, prepared by civil engineering firm Wood, Pattel and Associates, the Axon expansion will consume millions of gallons of water — every day:
"The average day water demand for the Site is projected to be approximately 688 gallons per minute (gpm). Maximum
day demands and peak hour demands are projected to be 1,372 gpm and 2,403 gpm, respectively ..."
Based on those figures, an average day at the expanded Axon campus would use just under 1 million gallons of water. On the busiest day, 3.4 million gallons of water would be used there.
Annually, the range would be between 365 million and 1 billion gallons of water used by the Taser maker.
