Phoenix Development News

[urbanphx]

The allowance of high-rise development in Midtown, or in the Biltmore-area, was the last of Downtown's problems. It's a tired argument. We all know what really hurt Downtown Phoenix the most, and it definitely was not what we now see along northern Central Avenue, in Midtown. Obviously, we would see a more impressive skyline today, but, Downtown's overall life-less status would still be exactly the same as it is today.

Central Phoenix (Downtown + Midtown) is the largest employment center in the area, if not the entire state. If we can figure out how to parlay that into more 'permanent' numbers, it's an easy win ...

[weill]

i like phoenix, keep the good work

[Phoenix Ashes]

Originally Posted by urbanphx

We all know what really hurt Downtown Phoenix the most, and it definitely was not what we now see along northern Central Avenue, in Midtown. Obviously, we would see a more impressive skyline today, but, Downtown's overall life-less status would still be exactly the same as it is today.

We? You and.....?

I grew up in Phoenix in the 1950s, saw the leakage first hand. Phoenix had a wonderful downtown, vibrant and fully functional. What we didn't have was enough foresight to see the necessity of a stong central core. Like many utopians, we thought we could have it all. Memo to all opponents of zoning: you can't have it all. It's a good idea to have a core, and to have a core, you need zoning. Cities without strong zoning tend to have diffuse and fragmented cores. This is not just sentimental claptrap. The economic energy that a core galvanizes pays dividends by creating wealth, cultural assets, and civic identity.

It is not an accident that the same numskull propaganda used in the 1950s to kill downtown Phoenix is STILL being used to justify intense urbanization far outside the downtown core. It was wrong then and it's wrong now. The only difference is that we can see (if we bother to, say, open our eyes) the evidence of past debacles. Downtown Phoenix has less life than a corner convenience market. This is what happens when you choose NOT to nurture your core but simply escape it by creating new ones.

If you love cities, you ought to hate the city-killing policies that libertarian zoning has wreaked on Phoenix. It's doubtful Phoenix will ever get it right. We're too enthralled by vulgarians like Donald Trump. But this used to be a real city. It was wonderful in a way Scottsdale never will be. What a pity you never got to experience it.

[kaneui]

I think downtown Phoenix even had a little life left in it in the early 60s, as I remember making a special trip there with the family to get a special cap for my grandfather that was only sold in a certain downtown department store. (Any guess as to which one that might have been? All I can remember were the high ceilings and lots of dark, wood paneling.)

Also, as I have noted in other threads elsewhere, Phoenix is too young of a city to have built a substantial core of mid-rise buildings downtown, as was done in most larger American cities in the late 19th/early 20th centuries--even in Western cities such as Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, or Salt Lake City. All of those cities have since rehabbed and redeveloped those historic areas, which provided them with some good building stock to recreate the thriving, urban scene those districts enjoyed in earlier years.

If Phoenix wants a thriving downtown in its future, it will basically have to be created from scratch, integrating the few remaining historic buildings and later structures with new development, avoiding the design and planning mistakes of the late 20th century that made cities much less inviting and pedestrian-unfriendly.

Do local civic and business leaders in Phoenix have the vision and know-how to create such an urban city center? It's a rather tricky proposition that ultimately must be greater than the sum of its parts to be successful. If they can assemble the necessary density of downtown residents, establish a bustling ASU campus, and develop an attractive, vibrant street scene, they may just have a chance of pulling it off.

[Phoenix Ashes]

^Very good.

Downtown didn't actually die suddenly. The death was prolonged and agonizing but there was real-world retail as late as 1980: Hanny's, Newberry's, Switzer's, Woolworth's, Walgreen's. I believe JC Penney's was the last big department store, closing in the early 70s.

I think Phil Gordon gets it. I'm sure the City Planning Department gets it. And you're right, it will be very tricky amalgamating the various necessary parts into a vibrant whole. As you noted, Phoenix's paucity of dense urban fabric from the early 20th century makes this much harder. Phoenix, for better and likely much worse, is a car town. Reconfiguring the basic template, from cars to people, will be difficult. Probably the best we'll be able to do is something like Tempe, with garages on secondary streets, and pedestrian-scaled development in a few designated areas.

The temptation, as always, is to do anything out of desperation instead of the right thing. Downtown is an acute embarrassment, and we can't help but think if we fill in that vacant lot with something/anything, we'll get some relief. As you can see in this forum, the prejudice is for some lollapalooza skyscraper. But this misses the real point, which is street-level life. Right now, downtown really does not function like an organism. One part does not support the other. It's more like an elephant boneyard with huge carcasses piled up here and there. Superblock development is like this, and the last thing downtown needs.

There is really no way to revive the deep downtown core. It's simply embalmed. But there are ways to tinker with adjacent areas like Roosevelt. I'm holding my breath about ASU, hoping on the one hand it prospers, but fearing on the other a huge lifeless institution exactly where some flickering signs of life are visible.

Ironically, there are not that many holes left in downtown. Yes, most of the blocks are inert, but they are filled. This makes it even more imperative that future development be life-friendly. Above all, we have to be disciplined about what we want to achieve. No more cheap fixes - a dying patient doesn't need a face-lift even though it can elevate one's mood.

As a partial aside, we'll know downtown has turned around the day we read that the hyper-brutalist Bank One parking garage, occupying a full city block, is being torn down for a mxed-use project. I probably will be long gone, but I will pray nonetheless for this eventuality.

[kaneui]

^Well said. It's always refreshing to see some thoughtful, holistic thinking around urban development amongst all the clamoring for taller and bigger structures that tends to dominate this and similar websites.

Maybe it comes with age...I'm much more concerned these days with the true sustainability of our communities; continuing to preserve our historical and cultural heritage while simultaneously integrating new ideas and concepts with what's already in place.

The two main skyscraper sites I frequent are full of young enthusiasts looking for a bold new skyline wherever they can get it, but with apparently little concern for or understanding of how those edifices will affect their immediate communities, and what contribution, if any, they might make to a richer and more interesting urban fabric. What also seems missing is a discussion of good urban planning principles, foregone in the search of the next "world-class" tower by another name-brand architect.

Granted, the complexity and breadth of such a discussion can be rather daunting for the uninitiated. But if we aren't pursuing such discourse on sites such as these, how will that awareness ever filter down to the general public, and become part and parcel of our planning processes on every level, wherever we are?

Burgeoning metropolises such as Phoenix and Las Vegas present some unique challenges as some of the fastest-growing cities the world has ever seen. It's almost impossible to fathom what these cities may look like a hundred years from now, but we are undoubtedly setting the pace and format now for their future development (at least for the next several decades.)

Needless to say, the obvious constraints to such unbridled growth may prevent the best- (or worst-) case scenarios from ever materializing. With a vast number of variables in play--from emerging climate changes and their effects on our shrinking water supply, to the unpredictable swings of economic forces whose effects now ripple quickly through the global marketplace--we can only predict with less and less certainty what the future may hold for sprawling cities who seem hell-bent on gobbling up every square mile within their grasp.

There are many obvious lessons to be learned from older cities with centuries of hard-won experience to draw from. Whether or not we have the wisdom and foresight to learn the lessons of the past may determine if we have much of an urban future at all to look forward to.

[Phoenix Ashes]

We're in pretty much complete agreement. Not that disagreement is bad! I love great debates, even with the youthful enthusiasts of priapic architecture. They misjudge, I think, the concept of the "skyline", assuming that it's virtually a conscious creation when in fact it's simply the unintended barometer of a city's economic and civic energies.

Desert cities always face huge challenges, as the writer Marc Reisner noted in Cadillac Desert. Hydraulic civilization creates huge deferred costs which must eventually be repaid. Couple that with climate change and the long-term prognosis for our desert cities is not good. In a sense, everything we OUGHT to be doing comes down to sustainability and good growth. Growth for its own sake (as Edward Abbey noted) is the ideology of the cancer cell.

We cannot predict with certainty what the future will bring, but we can make educated guesses. We know that the current growth models cannot be sustained, that water is a finite resource, and probably a diminishing one. Overconsumption is a bad lifestyle, and an even worse economic model. For the health of our cities, future generations, and the planet, we need to internalize a much more responsible stewardship ethic.

Cheap growth is an intoxicant probably second only to crack cocaine. It will probably take a catastrophe of some sort before we "touch bottom" and acknowledge the scope of our excesses. Even then, it will be grudging and probably self-defeating. We are a very stubborn species, for better and worse.

I hope one city carries the mantel of sustainability. I wish it were Tucson, but their demographics increasingly mirror that of Phoenix. Albuquerque? Their water situation is even more dire, so necessity may midwife invention. We'll see. In the meantime, we Cassandras and Jeremiahs need to pick our battles carefully. Not even the melting of Earth's glaciers appears to tweak a curious nerve among the blissfully ignorant. What we can do, whenever possible, is connect the dots (only connect, as EM Forster used to advise). Longer life experience is invaluable, in this regard, and probably justifies the occasional bit of arrogance we manifest in counseling the young.

[kaneui]

Inasmuch as this thread is supposedly devoted to Phoenix development news, we have obviously gone far beyond those parameters in touching on some of the broader issues of urban planning, design and sustainability. And I suppose if we continued down this road, it would be vastly more interesting and satisfying than more hand-wringing about Phoenix's erratic attempts to convert its sprawling grid to something more dense and urban.

As frustrating and slow-moving as those efforts may be, for some morbid reason I keep returning to the site of the train wreck, hoping to find some small glimmer of hope. But those glimmers are seemingly few and far between. As I drove up Loop 101 through Scottsdale this past spring, it was seriously depressing to observe that endless sea of red-tile roofs, strip malls, and gas stations continuing to advance across the desert floor and beyond. Perhaps due to some strange, deep inferiority complex, Phoenix just can't seem to grow fast enough, desperately craving attention and recognition as the next Los Angeles-style megalopolis.

So I ask myself, why spend time worrying about a place that apparently has no collective interest in a sustainable long-term future, and continues to disregard the increasing warning signs of danger ahead? If cheap growth is indeed a terrible addiction, I shudder to think what the rehab phase will look like.

I must say though, that participating in these forums over the past several weeks has spurred me to revisit a plan of sustainability for Hawai'i I have been tinkering with for several years, but never finished. Although initially a shock, the growth machine powers-that-be here are as entrenched as in Arizona, and promoting true sustainability for these islands is often met with surprising resistance.

But I know in my heart of hearts that I'd rather be out on the front line rather than preaching to the choir in some hip place like Boulder or Santa Cruz. Perhaps it's that very resistance that keeps me focused and energized, as well as realizing that, as much as I complain about the problems here, there are a multitude of places on the planet that have it far worse.

[Phoenix Ashes]

The Japanese are famous their passionate efficiency. They seemingly live to make things run smoother and cheaper. You can understand why. They have few natural resources, have close to 130 million citizens in an archipelago the size of California, and were chastened by the only nuclear war inflicted on a nation.

In America, the difference is stark. Our mythology is still of the endless frontier, large horizons, freedom AND comfort, escape and redemption. The tendency is to dream big, but only for oneself, not society as a whole. The American Dream is alive and well, but it's for the solitary dreamer, not the community.

The consequences of our mythology are bloated, characterless suburbs, huge big box stores, anonymous housing pods, endless freeways, and overconsumption as a lifestyle. Not only is this not sustainable, it's hardly worth preserving. Just think: we've spent our American Moment not creating the artifacts of a great civilization but squandering our wealth on stuccoed McMansions with big screen TVs.

The sense of entitlement which feeds this insanity is everywhere. And I include myself and all my earnest, progressive friends in this nuttiness. We demand cheap gas, cheap wars fought by somebody else, narcotizing entertainment, and infotainment pretending to be "news". Our culture, such as it is, cannot help but exact a price, and the clarity of national purpose is what we had to sacrifice in order to achieve this Dream.

When I look at cities, I'm really looking for the ghosts of purpose and dignity. In a place like Chicago, you can still find them: Daniel Burnham's great civic amenities, Louis Sullivan's bold new skyscrapers, even the new Millenium Park which enfolds the surprising hopes and aspirations of Chicago's citizenry. When I look at Phoenix, I'm humbled to find our modest bounty still evoking the pride and purpose of their creators:the museums, the City Beautiful parks like Encanto, desert preserves, the historic neighborhoods. Yet I know Phoenix's soul is emaciated by its own fraudulent success. Cheap growth has cheapened us, made us crass and thoughtless. It shows almost everywhere in the deterioration of public spaces and whole neighborhoods.

The upward arc of the Dream was beautiful and inclusive. It made all of us participants in something noble and dignifying. The downward arc is really just the inevitable rude awakening from a nightmare. We cannot will ourselves to be different than we are, or better than we are. History is not persuadable. It is, in the end, dispositive. Our legacy will probably be just a warning - etched in stone, buried in the dust, awaiting discovery - to all persons, beware the vanity of this world.

[bloodsaric]

woot phoenix, and thats why we rock your world!

[NaptownBoy]

sprawl crazy

[kaneui]

As a follow-up to recent posts, Arizona Republic columnist Jon Talton once again looks under the thin veneer of Phoenix's real estate/sprawl machine sales pitch:


The Big Lie we've sold on Phoenix's self-image

Jon Talton
Arizona Republic columnist
Nov. 27, 2005 12:00 AM

It is our most cherished totem: this blank slate that is Phoenix and Arizona, that anyone can come here to the open, untouched West and write a new future, unhindered by the barriers and prejudices and history of the East.

It's a lie, of course.

The West is all about the burdens of history, the boundaries of nature and human nature. It's nowhere more pronounced than in my hometown. I can't tell if it's getting worse or if the years have opened my eyes to the realities that have always existed.

Old Phoenix certainly had its barriers, especially if you were Mexican-American, African-American or Native American. But there was considerable innovation, starting with the Salt River Project, and independence, exemplified by Barry Goldwater. John F. Long and Del Webb were pioneers in their fields who did write on the blank slate, but it was a landscape hardly limited to real estate. Old Arizona was full of stories of young people who arrived with a few dollars and made huge contributions.

Today, the real rules are banal. You can come here and run free, if you want to do something connected with the growth machine, right-wing Republican causes, or the status quo. Anything else, and you will hit barriers every bit as formidable as the wall to the Queen City Club in Cincinnati or the centuries of traditions bolstering the old guard in Richmond.

Ask the high-tech entrepreneurs who move here on a lark. They soon find out that Phoenix only resembles a contemporary American big city on the surface. They learn about the rank deficiencies in venture capital, talent and research infrastructure. The local debates rage over public-private partnerships as "socialism" or how fast we can draw down taxpayer support for universities. Some leave. Others become real estate agents. I wish I were making that up.

Ask the developers and architects who would love to do cutting-edge urban projects in our central cities. That they are fools who are missing the easy money out on the fringes is about the nicest response they get.

Ask the idealists in the non-profits, business, government, the arts or the environmental movement. Visionaries and realists, especially the ones who lack the powerful pulpit of ASU President Michael Crow, get a smash-mouth lesson soon enough. They may know the competitive and social challenges that lurk beneath this, our big sunny veneer. They may chafe at the opportunities we keep throwing away.

But soon enough a gray beard will take them aside and let them know: People here want a quiet, comfortable, average place. They don't want your liberal Eastern ideas (and these can include policies that are givens even in Republican strongholds elsewhere). They wanted away from all that back East: the bad certainly, but inevitably the good. They don't want to compete, or seize the future. It's up to you to decide if you can live with it.

I don't know if that attitude is true of a majority. I do think we risk becoming a self-selecting place. People who want sprawl, hot weather, minimal civic ties and an economy based on real estate choose to come here. Those who want more, look elsewhere. That's not a good foundation for surviving in a world where prosperity will be dependent on talent, creativity and productive diversity.

Even an attempt to honestly discuss our challenges is met with denial and resistance. The booster mentality here is a natural consequence of our improbable location. There would be no city here without an almost irrational belief in our future. Gradually, however, that's become unmoored from the willingness to do the mighty collective acts that make a continuing civilization possible. We're drunk on growth, with all the limitations of drunkenness.

Our self-imposed barriers have consequences. In addition to the difficulty of acknowledging our challenges, the first step to mobilizing solutions, we're resistant to new ideas, even if they've been well proven elsewhere or big thinking where we could set the breakthroughs.

I expect a big push back from this column. That will prove my point. In the meantime, I take comfort from the ones who are questioning the status quo and fighting for a better future. The odds are against them, but I've always been a sucker for the underdogs.


Ashes, Talton is almost as eloquent as you are.

[mohammed wong]

nice article,
ive been harsh on phoenix, but I support you in helping redevelop downtown and older areas, my time there wasnt all a nightmare
but the summers are tough on a kid.
i agree with the columnist above, phoenix is definitely a haven for republicans,
phoenix wouldnt be such a bad city if it werent for the rampant destruction of the sonoran desert, i like the old west, its just the new west that is the problem.

[i.q.ninja]

Originally Posted by mohammed wong

nice article,
ive been harsh on phoenix, but I support you in helping redevelop downtown and older areas, my time there wasnt all a nightmare
but the summers are tough on a kid.
i agree with the columnist above, phoenix is definitely a haven for republicans,
phoenix wouldnt be such a bad city if it werent for the rampant destruction of the sonoran desert, i like the old west, its just the new west that is the problem.

before post war boom phoenix was a cool little urban desesrt town. http://img315.imageshack.us/img315/3230/scan00139qb.jpg

[Don B.]

2-28-06: Here's the latest new projects list for Phoenix, as of 1-10-06. It needs to be revised yet again, as there's been several new projects announced since then.

Other than that, it's still a decent list:



--don

[nobleman]

hopefully those proposed projects will be approved and finally make phoenix look more urban.

[612bv3]

Originally Posted by Don B.

Here's the latest new projects list for Phoenix. I created this a month ago and already there are several changes. Trump's 15-story Biltmore project is cancelled and Z Lofts is now 23 stories. Other than that, it's still a decent list:



--don

Any rendering for any of these?

[Krasna Sreča]

bah, phoenix has no life anymore, you go to downtown and all you see is cars and maybe 5 people walking around.

Scottsdale is the same, stuck up rich people live there and the city is virtually empty, only place you will see people is in malls and stores.

Only city that can be considered alive would be mesa, since it has many college kids.

[atariboy15]

Originally Posted by arêteixion

Only city that can be considered alive would be mesa, since it has many college kids.

how seriously can anyone take your opinion when you dont even know what you are talking about?

you mean TEMPE, mesa is a bedroom community of half a million!

[hkskyline]

Developers propose ambitious project for downtown Phoenix
13 February 2006

PHOENIX (AP) - A development team is proposing a project for downtown Phoenix that would spread open-air shopping, housing and office space across a two-block area.

If successful, the proposed four-skyscraper project could approach the $600 million expansion of the Civic Plaza as one of the largest projects downtown.

However, the plan faces plenty of hurdles, including City Hall, which has not thrown its support behind the development. And downtown Phoenix historically has been a tough sell to retailers, who have avoided the area while building numerous malls and shopping centers in the suburbs.

Developers acknowledge the project will be challenging, but they say it comes at a time of huge momentum for downtown, with the Civic Plaza expansion, Arizona State University's growth and light-rail construction.

"We will know we are successful when we build this and people will live here and travel to the suburbs to work," said Donald Cardon, a developer and former city of Phoenix deputy housing director.

The project is the brainchild of Cardon; Scottsdale-based RED Development, which has done high-end retail projects in the Midwest and Southwest; and Barron Collier Cos., a Naples, Fla.-based developer that owns the Collier Center in downtown Phoenix.

Eventually, the plan could include Patriots Square Park if the partners win a bid the city is expected to put out this week to develop the property.

The partnership also is expected to ask the city for a subsidy, which members have not disclosed, to construct what they are calling CityScape.

Michael Ebert, managing partner of RED, said his venture would learn from those who went before.

Those projects have included Arizona Center, a downtown open-air mall, which has struggled since it opened in 1990, and Park Central Mall, once one of the top malls in the Southwest before major tenants began to flee to the suburbs in the early 1990s.

"Arizona Center was too early and not ready for Phoenix, and Park Central was another world," he said. "We will have ASU, two sports venues, light rail and the convention center all on line in 2008, and we will have more hotels."

The developers hope to have at least 200,000 square feet of retail, including restaurants, apparel stores and a specialty grocer. They declined to say whether any tenants have committed to the project.

If all goes as planned, groundbreaking could occur by year's end. The developers believe it could take up to five years before the project is completed. Other major developers have been leery about downtown.

"Retailers haven't told us they wanted to be down there," said Scott Nelson, senior manager of development for Macerich's Westcor, which has 10 regional malls and four specialty centers in Arizona.

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Information from: The Arizona Republic, http://www.azcentral.com