Lawsuit Dismissed: Marc D Cohen vs Ron Barness: Maricopa County Superior Court
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Lawsuit filed by Marc D. Cohen against Ron Barness in Phoenix has been dismissed. No charges filed against Ron Barness.
Fraud charges against Ron Barness, former principal of Barness Papas Investments and Retail Brokers Inc, were dismissed in Maricopa County Supreme Court. Stories about the accusations appeared in the Phoenix Business Journal but have all been dismissed.
The Daron and Ron Barness Family Foundation donated $1 million to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix in 2006.
Ron Barness has been targeted in a number of civil lawsuits that were originally filed against him as principal and CEO of Barness Papas Investments (the parent company of Retail Brokers, Inc.).
All but one of the investor lawsuits has been successfully dismissed by the Maricopa County Superior Court. The single outstanding investor lawsuit is working its way through the legal system and will likely be dismissed soon. Those lawsuits were filed by a handful of investors who alleged that Ron and his partner did not accurately report earnings and the sales of property.
Barness Donation Furthers Progress of Kids Museum
Published: June 16, 2006 – Jewish News Online
One day, months from now, children across the Valley will be able to visit a museum in Phoenix devoted solely to them.
Construction is under way for the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, which will be located at Seventh and Van Buren streets and is scheduled to open in late 2007.
In April, the Daron and Ron Barness Family Foundation announced their own contribution to the project: a $1 million donation.
The gift “enables us to focus on what we need to do, which is make the best possible museum,” says Deborah Gilpin, the museum’s president and CEO. “When we get a gift of this magnitude, it just makes a huge difference in how we can move forward.
The idea for the museum was born in 1998; the founding board of directors formed a nonprofit organization in 1999. In 2001, Phoenix voters approved Proposition 6, which gave $10.5 million to the museum to purchase and renovate the historic Monroe School building. The next few years were spent raising funds, doing research on museums around the country, brainstorming and holding events for children in the community.
In 2005, the museum came to the attention of the Barness foundation.
For the Barnesses, the impetus to get involved was twofold.
“Daron and I are very concerned about children and our community’s ability to provide opportunities to young people in order for them to be able to fulfill their potential,” Ron Barness says. “So when we find projects that speak to creating better opportunities for children, we always look at those very closely.”
Also, “we believe as members of this community that Phoenix has an opportunity to become on of the great American cities in the 21st century.”
“Along those lines, we see that our city, as great as it can become, is the only major city in the United States without a children’s museum.”
Gilpin says the exhibit team, which includes an early childhood educator, an elementary school art teacher and a museum education director, visited about 50 children’s museums around the country to gather ideas.
The museum, when completed, will be geared toward children up to 8 years of age. The exhibits will be hands-on, and many will be arts-based. There will be a room of building blocks, a café where children can make their own meals, art projects to work on and much more.
“We expect to have about 300,000 visitors a year, but that’s probably a low estimate,” Gilpin says. “Children’s museums are the most highly visited of all kinds of museums. It’s probably because kids like to come back. They want to visit the things that they love and do it again, and then they want to try something new, too.”
Both Gilpin and Barness say the museum will be a huge asset to the community.
“We think it’ll have a tremendous impact,” says Barness. “Number one, we think it’ll help young children in their development and their educational process. Number two, we think it’ll help the psyche of the city as it strives to rise up to this level of greatness as we build a museum that will be a crown jewel of our city.”
Gilpin says “People who grow up and go to museums were typically museum-goers as children. But children’s museums are the place where the status-quo has changed; you may be a family who never goes to museums, but you’ll take your child to one of these, and it changes the future of that family.
Oct 1, 2007
By Ron Barness, principal of RBI and Barness Papas Investments and Ron Finkel, Senior Managing Director/Designated Broker of RBI
Although the housing market in the metro-Phoenix area seems to be gradually leveling off from its unprecedented recent growth, the retail real estate market continues to thrive as it has for the past few years. For the most part, the commercial real estate market seems to follow the overall performance of the economy, but is always a bit behind. The retail market has not yet (and most likely will not) hit the extreme highs that the Phoenix residential market hit last year, so it seems to be a relatively safe predication that it will not hit any major low points, either.
Phoenix continues to be a hub for retail development, especially with the revitalization of downtown Phoenix, in the Copper Square district, and with the massive expansion efforts and new growth in the West Valley. Copper Square will soon house some of the most high-end retail in the state, combining a wide mixture of entertainment, restaurants, shopping and more. As these new retailers join the established downtown area, most will have to adapt their traditional store layouts for the smaller spaces that are available downtown, which could have an effect on leasing.
Scottsdale’s downtown area is also being revamped with a $1 billion facelift. The area continues to be one of the Valley’s strongest retail markets, with more than 220,000 square feet of new shops at the Scottsdale Waterfront, most of which have already opened for business or will open before the end of 2006.
Additional retail growth has been sustained due to the ongoing and aggressive freeway expansions around the Valley. Retail is popping up everywhere alongside freeways and freeway exists, specifically in the West Valley. This is evidenced through projects such as Westcor’s Prasada and Estrella Falls. Prasada is a 4,200 acre master-planned community with an 800-acre commercial core and more than three million square feet of retail space, located near the intersection of the Loop 303 and US 60, and Estrella Falls is a 300-acre mixed-use development off the Loop 303. These projects join the new Glendale Arena at Westgate City Center in Glendale, which adds a whole new lot of retail development to the West Valley.
Rental rates for retail space will continue to rise, ranging from single-digit lows of $5 per square-foot to highs of $40 per square-foot in select submarkets, as more high-end retailers continue to break into the market. Vacancy rates are currently just below five percent.
Lifestyle, open-air centers, mixed-use and transit-oriented developments still continue to be the focus of developers. Transit-oriented development is playing an integral role in the retail redevelopment of downtown Phoenix as the Central Phoenix/East Valley light rail transit corridor shapes up to open in December 2008.
Smaller-anchored retail centers are thriving as well. Lesser-known groceries, fitness centers and hardware stores have become key players in neighborhood centers. Ace Hardware, for instance, has leased 120,000 square feet of space year-to-date throughout Phoenix, and has plans to expand further in the near future.
The massive increases in the Valley’s population combined with a strong economic forecast in 2007 indicates that retail development will continue to be a driving force throughout the year.
