17600 West Peak View Road, Surprise, Arizona 85387, United States

This is a 133.66-acre parcel in Maricopa County, Arizona, owned by [owner name withheld], whose mailing address is in Tucson. The parcel sits in the northwestern Maricopa County desert, at roughly 1,530 ft elevation, bordered by W Dixileta Dr and N 177th Ave with over 3,100 ft of combined public road frontage. The land is flat Sonoran Desert scrubland — virtually level, open, and sandy — and the county assessor's records show an improvement value of $1,675,379, indicating a building or substantial infrastructure is on the property.

The most important unresolved question about this parcel is the nature of that improvement. Aerial imagery analyzed from 2010 through 2023 shows no roofed structure at any point — only desert scrubland, informal vehicle tracks, and, from 2017 onward, two to three circular disturbed or compacted ground pads in the eastern portion whose purpose cannot be determined from imagery alone. This is a genuine conflict between the assessor's record, which is the authoritative source on what has been built and permitted, and what overhead imagery can see. The improvement could be below-grade infrastructure, a well, a water system, agricultural equipment, or a structure not visible to aerial cameras — but it cannot be confirmed from this analysis. Any buyer should verify with the county assessor and inspect the site in person to understand exactly what the $1,675,379 improvement represents.

Flood risk is the other material finding. While 88% of the parcel falls in a moderate-risk flood zone (the kind FEMA designates as outside the high-risk Special Flood Hazard Area), the eastern 12% — including the area where the disturbed pads and a seasonal drainage channel appear — falls within the high-risk flood zone (FEMA Zone AE), with a narrow floodway strip (Zone AE floodway) where new construction is essentially prohibited. Because the parcel is partly within a Special Flood Hazard Area, federal law requires flood insurance for any structure in that area that carries a federally backed mortgage. Whether the existing improvement falls in the high-risk zone or the moderate-risk zone depends on its precise location — something an elevation certificate or survey can establish. Stacking onto this, the eastern portion also carries a mapped seasonal dry channel subject to Army Corps of Engineers jurisdiction; any future work like adding an outbuilding, filling, or clearing in that area could require a federal permit, though the mapped wetland coverage is small at under 1% of the parcel.

The soils across the parcel are Sonoran Desert alluvial soils — predominantly Gilman and Momoli series — which are well-drained and present no drainage problems around an existing building under normal conditions. The parcel contains prime farmland soils, which can trigger agricultural preservation regulations in some Arizona jurisdictions, though the applicable rules here depend on zoning that could not be retrieved. The terrain is as flat as land gets: a mean slope under 1°, just 32 ft of total relief across 133 acres, with no steep pockets anywhere. Water drains slowly south across the parcel. An unnamed reservoir lies about 1,029 ft to the northeast.

Public utility service is mapped for Arizona Public Service Company, the large investor-owned electric utility serving the Phoenix metro, and multiple water district territories also map the area, though confirming which district actually serves the property requires a direct call. A 69-kilovolt transmission line sits 1.7 miles to the southwest — relevant as a right-of-way and siting consideration, not as a power source.

The only recorded sale is from February 2006 at $10,800,000 — more than four times the current assessor's market value estimate of $2,646,700. That gap almost certainly reflects the collapse of the Phoenix-area land market after 2008, when speculative desert land purchases saw dramatic price declines. Whether the parcel has recovered meaningful value since depends on factors — zoning, development potential, water rights — that this analysis cannot fully assess because zoning data was not available for Maricopa County parcel 50351008J. The assessor's records instruct anyone inquiring about zoning to contact the local jurisdiction directly.

The parcel carries no federally listed critical habitat for endangered or threatened species, no active EPA cleanup sites within five miles, low wildfire risk, low seismic exposure (Seismic Design Category B), no mapped landslide history, and low geologic radon potential. The Surprise Fire-Medical Department maps this parcel inside its response area, with a Surprise Fire station about 3.2 miles away by straight line; the fire protection class that insurers use to set premiums is not published for individual addresses and must be obtained from the department or an insurance agent.

The key strengths of this parcel are its size, its flat and fully usable terrain, its direct public road access on two streets, its clean environmental record, and its low exposure to wildfire, seismic, and other natural hazards. The notable concerns are the unresolved question of what the improvement actually is, the eastern edge's high-risk flood zone and floodway designation that constrains future work in that area, the absence of zoning information, and a sale history that shows this land once traded at a price far above today's assessed value — a reminder that the Phoenix exurban land market has been volatile.