After years of planning, the Chandler airport area is finally coming alive with major commercial projects rising out of the ground. Phoenix-based developer The Hewson Co. recently broke ground on a $23 million industrial complex.The firm is building three industrial buildings — totaling 184,000 square feet — on 14 acres of land within the roughly 225-acre Chandler Airport Center business park, which will sit between the Loop 202’s Santan Freeway and the airport. City officials have long-hoped to make the area surrounding the airport into an employment center. Many projects are in development, but Hewson is one of the first to begin construction. Phoenix-based Opus West Corp. also began work last year on a 90,000-square-foot office building in the area.Hewson’s project is scheduled for completion this summer.

The Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service is out with the latest Valley home sales statistics — looking at average prices, days on market and other data from the fourth quarter of last year.Maricopa County’s average home price was $342,300 with 14,867 houses sold in the last three months of 2006.Read the full report and find out the latest information for your ZIP code here.

Valley home prices rose less than 1 percent from the third quarter to the fourth quarter of last year, the latest federal government numbers show. Meanwhile, values were up 9 percent in the last three months of 2006, compared with the same period the year prior. That puts the Valley at No. 60 in a ranking of 282 metropolitan areas nationwide.The report released Thursday by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight also shows that Valley prices have risen 99.8 percent in the past five years. Here are a few other interesting facts from the quarterly findings:* Nationally, prices were up 5.9 percent for the fourth quarter 2006, compared with the same period in 2005.* Bend, Ore. took the top spot on the list with a year-over-year appreciation rate of 21.4 percent.* Flagstaff was the only Arizona city to make the top 20, coming in at No. 7 with a one-year price jump of 16.2 percent.* The states that experienced the greatest year-over-year appreciation were Utah (17.6 percent), Wyoming (14.3 percent), Idaho (14 percent), Washington (13.7 percent) and Oregon (13.5 percent).* Some 21 of the 26 Califoria cities on the list saw drops in quarterly appreciation rates.