Howard Hughes Communities has promoted Kate Kaminski to lead its Arizona region operations, according to HousingWire. This move represents a planned transition in leadership for the company's massive Teravalis project, a master-planned community in Buckeye that's being developed across about 37,000 acres with entitlements for up to 113,000 homes. Kaminski takes over from Charley Freericks, who built the foundation for this ambitious undertaking and will continue with the company in a senior advisory role.
Kaminski joined Howard Hughes in 2024 as the Arizona region's chief operating officer and has spent the past year working alongside Freericks to strengthen the local team and build relationships throughout the Phoenix business community. Her background is substantial. She spent nearly two decades at Walton Global, ultimately serving as global chief operating officer before coming to Howard Hughes. That kind of experience in large-scale real estate development and capital management is exactly what's needed for a project of this scope.
The timing of this leadership change is significant because Teravalis is moving out of its planning and early infrastructure phase into active residential development. The first residential village, called Floreo, opened to home sales in late 2025 and is now welcoming its first residents. Seven different homebuilders are currently active there, with plans for about 8,500 homes in this first village alone. The company is simultaneously working on infrastructure and planning for employment centers and commercial districts that will support future phases.
Teravalis is envisioned as a complete community with residential neighborhoods, job centers, commercial space, schools, and community amenities designed to support sustained growth on Phoenix's western edge. Kaminski's challenge now is managing the long-term lot supply and guiding development through all these phases so the community can deliver on its promise of providing the homes, jobs, and services families actually need.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area is that ambitious master-planned communities like Teravalis are becoming increasingly important as metro areas grow. While our region has built out differently over the decades, the strategic thinking behind projects like this one, with intentional planning for mixed-use development and long-term infrastructure, is something we could learn from. It shows how serious, experienced leadership matters when you're trying to build the right kind of community at scale.
