Inside East Valley Business

An estate once belonging to presidential hopeful John McCain is up for auction.

The 13-bedroom home was the childhood home of McCain’s wife, Cindy, according to a press release from The Larsen Co., which is handling the sale.

(Click here for an aerial view of the home.)

“Her (Cindy’s) parents built the home in 1951,” said Stewart Larsen, president of Larsen Co. “When she and John got married, they moved in and raised the kids there for 20 years until two years ago.”

Some of the more lavish amenities at the 2.7-acre estate include a full bar and playhouse, theater room, 4-bedroom guest casita, wine-tasting room, and 7-car garage. The house has 14.5 bathrooms, a pool, three ramadas and “resort style grounds.”

The 15,000-square-foot home, which will be auctioned at 1 p.m. on Oct. 25, is at 7110 N. Central Avenue, which is just north of Glendale Avenue in north Phoenix.

Larsen said there’s no minimum bid, but the house is appraised at $12 million and it’s up to the the current owner whether or not to accept the highest bid.

Wal-Mart Stores revealed some details on its newest chain store concept Marketside, which opens only in the Valley on Saturday.

The Bentonville, Ark.-based company launched a beefed-up version of the neighbhorhood-centric grocery stores’ Web site that features floor plans, some product selection and prices.
Marketside is divided up into 11 sections with names like The Corner Deli, The Bakery, The Butcher Shop and The Garden, or the produce section.

The four stores, which will be in Gilbert, Chandler, Mesa and Tempe, will offer an array of prepared meals like chicken tamales with Spanish rice or steak fajitas with grilled onions and red rice, which range in price from $6 for single-sized entrees to $8 for a family-sized entrees. They also offer $4 appetizers and $2 side dishes like salads.

Marketside will sell about 200 wines for under $10, as well as domestic and import beers and spirits. Unlike Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market, which sells an extensive selection of low-priced store-brand products, Marketside’s Web site makes no mention of private label products.

Marketside opens on Sunday at Elliot and Cooper roads in Gilbert, Ray and McQueen roads in Chandler, Sossaman and Baseline roads in Mesa and Rural and Elliot roads in Tempe.

Move over Gatorade.

Shamrock Farms wants some of the sports drink market and they think they’re going to get it with chocolate milk.

The Tempe-based company started marketing Rockin’ Refuel, a “sports recovery beverage.”

The new beverage is available at Albertson’s, Bashas’, Safeway, Fry’s, Super Wal-Mart, Circle K and Quik Trip.

If lines are too long at the East Valley’s sole Krispy Kreme in Mesa, you can drive to Phoenix starting Oct. 9 to get your doughnuts.

New stores will open at the corner of 7th and Roosevelt streets, Indian School Road and 28th Street, and at Paradise Valley Mall at the intersection of Paradise Village Parkway and Cactus Road.

Arizona’s only other Krispy Kreme is south of Superstition Springs Center on Superstition Springs Boulevard, west of Power Road in Mesa.

Don’t you hate it when your beer gives away your position just before you take down a 12-point buck?

Miller High Life, the self-fancying “Champagne of Beers,” hears you and wants to help by selling limited edition camouflaged cans of their beer.

“We received a lot of positive feedback from the launch of last year’s limited-edition, blaze-orange High Life cans, so this year’s outdoor-themed packaging is a way to continue that tradition, and include an even broader array of outdoors activities,” said the company’s senior brand manager Kevin Oglesby in a press release.

The incognito cans of High Life and High Life Light will be available in 24 and 30-packs from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.

The company said the promotion is a nod to outdoor enthusiasts who make up a large part of their customer base.

Marketside grocery stores open for business Oct. 4, making them the most recent player to the Valley - one of the nation’s most crowded markets in the grocery industry.

The four Marketside stores opening in Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert and Chandler, will serve as test subjects for their Bentonville Ark.-based parent company, Wal-Mart Stores.

The neighborhood-centric grocery store, roughly the size of two Circle K stores, aims to provide fresh, low-priced groceries with fast in-and-out service.

The four Marketplaces are at Elliot and Cooper roads in Gilbert, Baseline and Sossaman roads in Mesa, Ray and McQueen roads in Chandler, and Elliot and Rural roads in Tempe.

Tribune file Photo This Marketside grocery store at Ray and McQeen roads in Chandler is one of four locations being tested by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

At 6.percent, U.S. unemployment stands at a five-year high and the nation has lost more than 600,000 jobs since December, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Researcher Emily Garr shows that even in the states that gained jobs this year there has been plenty of pain to go around. In Texas, which gained more jobs than any other state, unemployment rose from 4.2 percent to 5 percent since December. Out of 22 states that gained jobs, unemployment rose in all but two.

Since December, Arizona has lost 35,200 jobs, including 3,000 manufacturing jobs, according to the institute. Unemployment stood at 5.6 percent last month.

The slumping economy doesn’t seem to be holding back progress on Tempe Gateway, an 8-story building underway near the light rail in downtown Tempe.

The developer said it’s negotiating leases on 76 percent of the project’s ground-floor retail space.

The project is due to open early next year. When finished, it will bring 25,000 square-feet of stores and restaurants, 235,000 square-feet of office space and 1,000 sorely-needed parking spaces in an above-ground parking garage.

Courtesy of Opus West Corp.

General Motors Corp. will give away five new Saturn Astras.

All you have to do is kiss one for possibly several hours. Maybe even several days.

The last person to undo his or her lip lock with one of the Saturn Astras on display around the Valley will get to drive it away.

The Kiss My Astra Contest is on Saturday and Sunday at the following locations:

Chandler Fashion Center
Chandler Boulevard and Loop 101
Chandler
Saturday, 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.

Gilbert Summer Fest
Guadalupe and Lindsay Roads
Gilbert
Saturday, 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Arrowhead Mall
Bell Road and Loop 101
Glendale
Saturday, 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.

Scottsdale Fashion Square
Camelback and Scottsdale roads
Scottsdale
Sunday, 2 p.m. until 5 p.m.

Desert Ridge Marketplace
Tatum Boulevard and Loop 101
Phoenix
Sunday, 10 a.m. until 1 p.m.

A microbrewery is planned on Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe, a city official said.

Chris Salomone, the city’s community development manager, said the brewery is planned for a vacant pad inside the half-empty Centerpoint On Mill development, which city officials have been pressuring Scottsdale-based DMB to fill.

He didn’t know the size.

“It looked like a … good-size facility,” he said.

Salomone said the lease could be up to 10 years, with buy-out provisions in case DMB wants to redevelop the land.

Chris Wilson, former vice president of the Downtown Tempe Community, said he’s about 15 days away from finalizing a lease agreement for the microbrewery and hopes to open by year’s end, but he wouldn’t disclose details including the location.

Dave’s Electric Brewery is microbrewery in Bisbee. Wilson said he’s partnered with the owner, but wouldn’t discuss the specifics of the arrangements.

A message left with Dave’s Electric Brewery wasn’t returned.

Wilson said he’s not afraid of the competition with nearby Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, which is at Mill and 5th Street.

“Our concept is totally unique,” he said.