Harvard Investments Seeks Approval for Goodyear Community

A master-planned community with nearly 6,000 residences is poised to rise across almost 2,000 acres in Goodyear.

Harvard Investments requested to rezone approximately 1,940 acres for the Rio 1900 planned development near Estrella Mountain Region Park, the Phoenix Business Journal reported. The vacant site along the Gila River, known as King Ranch, would eventually have up to 5,762 residential units in a variety of single-family and multifamily formats.

Most of the King Ranch site is owned by Harvard Investments after the Scottsdale-based firm purchased the property from longtime landowner Steve Ellman in 2023 for $22 million.

About 80 acres within the site is state trust land, which Harvard Investments is already moving toward purchasing from the Arizona State Land Department through an auction.

Rio 1900 would consist of a combination of large-lot residential properties for expansive estates, single-family parcels, and multifamily. The community is slated to have seven land-use districts.

The village neighborhood would be the largest at about 1,300 acres, followed by the urban neighborhood with 570 acres and estate residential portion with about 400. About 300 acres would be set aside for commercial use, with the same amount of space designated for potential resort uses.

Rio 1900 would serve as an expansion of Harvard Investments’ work in the area.

In 2021, the firm acquired the 20,000-acre Estrella mixed-use master-planned community next to the planned Rio 1900 site in a joint venture with Toll Brothers and Varde Partners for $212.5 million.

Rio 1900’s development will be led by Craig Krumwiede of Harvard Investments. He has plans to build up Goodyear with his brother, fellow developer David Krumwiede of Lincoln Property Company. Through Harvard and Lincoln, the brothers plan to develop more than $3 billion in residential and commercial properties around the future State Route 30 in Goodyear.

— Chris Malone Méndez