A new 55+ active adult community is coming to Surprise, Arizona. Ground was broken on Heritage at Asante in May 2019, and the Lennar Homes community is scheduled to open in early 2020. Pre-selling is now available, and visits can be scheduled.
Prices and Models
The 55+ community will have 1,500 homes in four models, and prices range from the mid $200s to the high $300s. The smallest models offer 1,935 square feet, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a two-car garage. The largest homes are 2,559 square feet with two bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage.
These designs include a gourmet kitchen, an outdoor patio, and a separate private owner’s suite. These suites have their own kitchen, bathroom, and outdoor area to enable privacy if needed. An in-between model has 2,187 square feet but offers three bedrooms, three bathrooms, and a two-car garage.
Amenities
Amenities in Heritage at Asante will include a recreation center, a library, a pool and spa, two dog parks, a 50-acre park, lakes, hiking trails, lighted courts for pickleball and bocce, and a landscaped 9-hole putting course. A number of golf courses are within a ten- to fifteen-minute drive, including several public courses at the neighboring Sun City West community.
Right outside Heritage at Asante is the Asante Community Park whose amenities include two lighted soccer fields, two lighted softball/baseball fields, four lighted hoop-basketball courts, and various walking paths with exercise stations.
Location
The new gated community will be at the junction of N. 163rd Avenue and W. Asante Boulevard, two minutes off Highway 60 and a 15-minute drive from downtown Surprise. The 30,000-acre White Tank Mountain Regional Park, which offers a range of outdoor recreational activities and peaks rising to 4,000 feet, is a 20-minute drive away. Downtown Phoenix is a 40-minute drive to the southeast.
If you enjoy the outdoor lifestyle, then Heritage at Asante offers many advantages. You can drive to the Grand Canyon in three to four hours, to the Sonoran Desert National Monument in less than an hour, and in an hour, you could also be in the Tonto National Forest, which is the fifth largest national forest in the United States and covers almost three million acres. Though most people see Arizona as just desert, it actually has six national forests, Tonto being the biggest.
Surprise
Surprise is a city of about 135,000 people to the northwest of Phoenix. It was founded in 1938 and owes its unusual name to the fact that the founder, the wife of a real estate developer, said that she would be surprised if it ever amounted to much. On the contrary, it’s one of the fastest-growing cities in the Phoenix Metropolitan Area.
Surprise is a 15-minute drive from Sun City, the very first 55+ active adult community in the U.S., and this area northwest of Phoenix was chosen because it offered so many advantages. Not least of these is the climate. It does get extremely hot in the summer, with average temperatures from June through August hitting well over 90 degrees. To counteract that, spring and fall are both ideal, and winters are very mild with rare snowfall.
Phoenix Area
Phoenix is the fifth largest city in the country, but the larger metropolitan area also includes separate cities such as Mesa, Scottsdale, and Gilbert. Heritage at Asante is less than an hour’s drive, for example, from Downtown Mesa with its museums and historic district. The community is also only an hour from the desert, forests, and lakes. As a total contrast, residents can take a four-hour road trip from Heritage at Asante and be in Las Vegas.
Arizona
People tend to associate Arizona with desert, but it has a much more varied landscape than that. Surprise is in Central Arizona, so in two hours, you can be in Tucson, and in less than two hours in the other direction, you can be in Prescott. Prescott is now an artsy place and a popular holiday and weekend getaway, especially in summer when its 5,368-foot elevation offers a respite from the intense heat in Phoenix.
Arizona Advantages
Apart from the climate, Arizona offers other advantages to the 55+ active adult looking to retire. State taxes are generally friendly to retirees. There’s a low sales tax, no inheritance tax, low gas prices, and retirement income and Social Security are exempt from tax unless coming from an out-of-state government pension.
