Grady Gammage Jr.

Grady is one of the founders of Gammage & Burnham and has had a varied and diverse 40+ year career in law and public policy in Arizona.

His practice has focused on the political aspects of real estate, development and public policy. As a zoning lawyer, he has represented dozens of major commercial projects including high rise offices, major industrial and office parks, retail shopping centers of all sizes, and tens of thousands of acres of residential projects, including some of Arizona’s most iconic master planned communities. In the early 1980s, he was the primary private sector representative in working on the innovative Urban Lands Act, which made state trust land available for commercial and residential development. As a result, he has represented more transactions with the State Land Department than any other lawyer in Arizona. He has also been at the forefront of urban development in Maricopa County, including deals with such public private projects as the Tempe Town Lake and Arizona’s unique approach to redevelopment incentives. He has also represented cities and towns in revising their development and land use ordinances and has litigated land use and election issues related to development.

Grady served on the Central Arizona Project (CAP) Board of Directors for 12 years and was president during a period of turbulence when the CAP was suing the Federal Government over the multi-billion-dollar cost of the canal. The litigation was resolved successfully resolved through a dramatic restructuring of the federal/state relationship. This led to Grady becoming one of the best respected water experts in the state.

He teaches land use regulation in both the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. In addition, Grady has long served as a Senior Fellow at ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy and the Kyl Center for Water Policy where he works on projects related to urban growth, economic development, and quality of life.

At the turn of the century, he built an intense, transit oriented mixed-use development in the City of Tempe which won three architectural awards.

For more than 25 years, Grady has been one of the most sought-after speakers in Arizona, delivering dozens of presentations on an annual basis throughout the state. Topics include, urban growth, regulation, local politics, environmental and sustainability, transportation, tax policy and demographic changes.

He has been the author of numerous reports issued by the Morrison Institute, including “Watering the Sun Corridor: Managing Choices in Arizona’s Megapolitan Area,” and “Treasure of the Superstitions: Scenarios for the Future of Superstition Vistas.”

He is the author of two books on the Phoenix Metropolitan area which have been critically acclaimed and widely quoted. The most recent, “The Future of the Suburban City: Lessons from Sustaining Phoenix,” was published by Island Press in 2016 and is available on Amazon.

Mr. Gammage has been a frequent guest on NPR, the PBS “Horizon” show on Arizona politics and policy, and has been extensively quoted in The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, Urban Land, Newsweek and many other news media.

Court Admissions

• State Bar of Arizona
• United States Court of Claims

Speaking Engagements

• The Suburban City, Clean Air, and Transportation, Keynote Address for Valley Metro Clean Air Campaign Annual Event (2016)
• Sustaining the Suburban City, Utah National Public Radio (2016)
• Status of Commercial Development, Commercial Executive Magazine Panel Moderator (2016)
• Water Resources and Land Use Planning, American Planning Association National Conference (2016)
• The Sun Corridor, Create Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce (2016)
• Western Water Rights Status, Western Growers Annual Meeting (2015)

Publications

• The Future of the Suburban City: Lessons from Sustaining Phoenix (2016)
• Phoenix in Perspective: Reflections on Developing The Desert – Herberger Center for Design Excellence, Arizona State University (1999), Second Edition (2003)

Professional & Community Involvement

• Morrison Institute for Public Policy, School of Public Affairs, College of Public Programs, Arizona State University, Senior Fellow
• Kyl Institute for Water Policy, Advisory Board Member
• Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Arizona State University, Senior Sustainability Scholar
• Arizona State University Masters of Real Estate Development program, Adjunct Faculty
• Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University, Adjunct Faculty
• Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, Advisory Board
• Celebracion Artisticas de las Americas, Board of Directors
• Aquila Municipal Trust and Aquila Funds Trust, Board of Directors
• Maricopa County Bar Association, Member
• 2016 Arizona Business Leaders in Real Estate Law, AZ Big Media