Business

The Valley's most expensive apartments, Grigio Contemporary Apartment Living, on the north shore of Tempe Town Lake opened this month, with monthly rents ranging from $2,200 to $6,000.

Panoramic views of the lake fill the floor-to-ceiling windows in the Lofts Tower Suites at Grigio. Hayden Daughters, 26, recently moved into one of the tower's 54 suites.

Daughters took one of the $2,200 models.

"My girlfriend and I each work seven days a week at our jobs, and after a long day working, we really enjoy sitting and just looking at the view, relaxing, being by the water . . . we love it," he said.

Daughters is typical of many of Grigio's residents, general manager Liz Schloss said.

"We have a lot of entrepreneurs like Hayden, lots of very, very busy people doing their own thing, and who find that what we offer is perfect for their life," she said.

What Grigio has to offer isn't as much costly luxury - there are also $899 studio apartments - as it is "our desire to meet your every need," Schloss said.

"Our motto is, 'Your wish, our pleasure,' and we mean it; we offer, in an apartment setting, almost any service a resort has. We have people who are so busy they depend on us to do their dry cleaning, send them up a cup of coffee, go into their apartment and chill a bottle of wine before they get home, provide maid service, cook them a hamburger and send it up, turn down their bed . . . you name it, we do it."

Schloss says many Grigio residents say they must live in an environment where they can walk out the door at a moment's notice and be on their way to the airport.

"They don't want to have to do anything to maintain their living environment," she said. "They want someone to do it for them. If they need someone to feed their fish for them while they're gone, we'll do it."

Prices at Grigio range from $899 a month for a studio, $929 for a one-bedroom, $1,374 for two bedrooms, $2,274 for three bedrooms and $2,500 for four bedrooms. Then there are the Tower Suites, which are just being completed.

Grigio opened its first units last year and when the final coat of paint is dry on the last apartment in a few weeks, it will have a total of 523 units. Schloss said there are 487 apartments completed and 460 of those are rented, for a 94 percent occupancy rate.

Daughters said that while he and his girlfriend enjoy the amenities at Grigio, there are other benefits that are more important to them.

"This place is right by the 202 and 101 freeways, and it's easy to get to. They have a big, really nice lounge where I can entertain clients, and they have a conference room where I can have meetings," he said.

"And there is a prestige about it here that works well for me. I tell people I live in Grigio and they say, 'Really?!' And I say I live in a Tower Suite and they say, 'Oh! You live in the tower!' I have clients - and friends - who would really like to live here."

Because of the housing economy, other developers are investigating the luxury rental market as well. Related Urban Development officials said recently they plan to turn the larger of the two residential buildings along High Street, the first phase of the CityNorth development opening in November, into luxury rentals. The price of those northeast Phoenix rentals could hit more than $2 a square foot. Originally these units were planned to sell as condominiums, at prices ranging from $456,000 to more than $1 million.