Peoria - Diamond Ventures in Tucson (Donald Diamond, principal) paid $24.5 million to purchase a 5,263-acre parcel in Peoria known as Saddleback Heights. The sellers were a public pension fund and Bridge Financial Corp. in Phoenix, a wholly owned subsidiary of NZ Corp. in Phoenix (ASE:NZ, Randy Stolworthy, pres.). The deal was negotiated by Phil Aries of Aries Realty in Tucson, and Caesar Perez of Diversified Funding Group in Scottsdale. The acreage, just south of Lake Pleasant, is generally bounded on the north by Arizona Highway 74, on the south by the alignment of the Carefree Highway, on the east by the alignment of 123rd Avenue and on the west by the alignment of 163rd Avenue. BREW reported the sale in the works last month. Diamond eventually will develop the property as a master-planned community. The acreage has entitlement for roughly 5,000 single-family and multi-family homes, but look for Diamond's group to develop about 3,800 housing units on the land. In September, BREW reported the Bridge Financial venture paying $25.85 million to buy the Peoria tract. The seller was Group Three Properties in Scottsdale (Gary Torhjelm, et al., principals). The NZ Corp. venture had a loan on the property to Group Three Properties, and worked out a deal with Torhjelm to purchase the acreage. Torhjelm still owns roughly 1,800 acres east of the Saddleback Heights land. No word on his plans for that property. Over the years, BREW has reported Diamond involved in a number of real estate deals in Arizona. Ken Abrahams is contact for Diamond . . . call him at (520) 577-0200. Joe Josephs, treasurer of NZ Corp., is contact for the company . . . talk to him at (602) 952-8836. Reach Aries at (520) 219-2400. Perez is at (480) 556-8148.