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View Poll Results: How many years until downtown Phoenix becomes a destination spot for people in the valley?
5 years 26 34.67%
10 years 15 20.00%
over 10 years 10 13.33%
Won't happen... 24 32.00%
Voters: 75. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 12-17-2015, 04:24 PM
 
14 posts, read 24,689 times
Reputation: 19

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Needs actual grocery stores that aren't homeless infested Safeways that aren't actually close to downtown (i.e. if you aren't south of the 10 you don't . count).

Last edited by yellowbelle; 12-21-2015 at 08:33 AM.. Reason: language
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Old 12-17-2015, 04:28 PM
 
1,567 posts, read 1,945,796 times
Reputation: 2374
Quote:
Originally Posted by Java Jolt View Post
Arizona Center and maybe Cityscape but not a true pedestrian-oriented mall devoted to an entire city block.
That was CityScapes original vision but it got scaled down because of the recession.

I also just saw today that Arizona Center was sold for big bucks and they are planning a $50 million renovation!
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Old 12-18-2015, 08:16 AM
 
4,222 posts, read 3,703,335 times
Reputation: 4583
Quote:
Originally Posted by unwillingphoenician View Post
locolife

You're awesome. Keep at it.

I don't know what born in the 80s makes you--a millenial? I'm a little older than that, born in the early 1960s. I think I am one of the last years that could be considered a baby boomer. Back then, white flight was not only to suburbs, but also a lot of back to nature, back to the land kind of thing, where people moved out of cities to very small towns, or ranches, communes, whatever. I was born in a city, but spent a lot of my youth in a (very! <500) small town. I didn't really get interested in urban living until later on in life.

I think the current movement and desire to reshape urban areas, with millenials carrying the banner, is incredibly important to the future of the country, and the world even. It will mean improved quality of life for everybody. I'm on board. Best.
Thanks U.P.! I completely agree and I'm always pretty surprised to see how few people recognize it should be a part of the growth strategy mix, especially for a high growth city like Phoenix.
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Old 12-18-2015, 08:21 AM
 
4,222 posts, read 3,703,335 times
Reputation: 4583
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajonesaz View Post
That was CityScapes original vision but it got scaled down because of the recession.

I also just saw today that Arizona Center was sold for big bucks and they are planning a $50 million renovation!
It's seems like there's rarely a day that goes by now where you don't see another announcement of something happening downtown. Great stuff to see!
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Old 12-18-2015, 09:33 AM
 
Location: Willo Historic District, Phoenix, AZ
3,187 posts, read 5,720,598 times
Reputation: 3658
Quote:
Originally Posted by ajonesaz View Post
That was CityScapes original vision but it got scaled down because of the recession.

I also just saw today that Arizona Center was sold for big bucks and they are planning a $50 million renovation!
$25 million, actually.
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Old 12-18-2015, 10:48 AM
 
Location: La Jolla, CA
7,284 posts, read 16,624,314 times
Reputation: 11675
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona View Post
They tried a big mall downtown... Arizona Center, anyone? It was a really good try, which I enjoyed while it lasted; however, it (mostly) failed. Now it's mostly businesses, the Kino Institute, a couple of restaurants, and a few shops hanging in there.
Arizona Center is what it is. An 80s Rouse special built on the same model as the rest, pastel colors, brass-tube railings, food court, and all. Fortunately they undid most of that garbage an made it into a place that keeps the lights on, rather than falling into decay full of mobile phone stores and aimless urban youth. The property value is going up, so the owners are just going to sit on it until it's worth redeveloping into something else. It's right in the middle of ASU's downtown campus.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona View Post
Downtown had its heyday in the 60s and 70s, when there was still real shopping, livelihoods made, and that was when influential people still lived in those condo towers off Central, and that once-lovely but now dying area north of downtown with all those lovely properties.
Which dying area is that? There are some tacky remainders here and there, but not many. The area is pretty good all along the Central Corridor practically all the way to Dunlap. It's not for everyone, but dying? Come on.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona View Post
Downtown, like Hollywood, is dead.
Have you been there since the 80s? Come on. Many downtown areas across the US have gone through major transformations since the 70s.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona View Post
Yes, it has some museums, and the symphony, and the convention center. All major downtowns have those. But is it world class? Not really. It's not LA, much as I despise that city, but Phoenix tries... and fails miserably.
It's not world class at all. Who even thinks that it tries to be L.A.? Who compares it to Southern California? Why does anywhere in Arizona have to be compared to California, as if California sets the bar for Arizona? It's almost like there is some chronic inferiority complex that Phoenicians have about not BEING Californians, and I've never understood that. Maybe it's the ones who can't afford California and move to the closest thing? I used to hear people say that they moved to the "Beverly Hills" of the desert (Scottsdale). Scottsdale stands on its own. Phoenix is the same. It's not L.A., it's not Manhattan, it's not Dallas, it's not Atlanta.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Leaving Arizona View Post
Part of it, too, is that the light rail has chased a lot of the major offices (such as the law firm Bonnett Fairbourne, which moved to 24th/Camelback) and other major headquarters out of the corridor because nobody can get to them - all the entrances are screwed up because they put the rail right in the middle of the damn road. Fools!
Wait a minute. You might be on to something here. If light rail chases out lawyers...

Seriously thought, anyone who has enough mental activity to operate a car, ride a bike, or take a bus can figure out how to get to a building along the light rail corridor. What on earth is complicated about it? I get that a lot of people in and around Phoenix came from the sticks or small towns, and get befuddled or overwhelmed by any sign of urban activity, but there is nothing complex about getting to any of the buildings on Central Avenue.

Last edited by 43north87west; 12-18-2015 at 10:57 AM..
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Old 12-18-2015, 11:19 AM
 
Location: La Jolla, CA
7,284 posts, read 16,624,314 times
Reputation: 11675
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hschlick84 View Post
Does having Sky Harbor Airport close to downtown affect Phoenix from growing into a more dense city? What would happen if the airport was demolished and moved to expand on open land slightly north of Maricopa?
The only thing it really affects is building height downtown and development around the areas surrounding the airport and its runway departure (and reciprocal approach) paths. Much of the approach/departure is the Salt River and wouldn't have been developed in the first place. There is nothing but room for downtown to grow outward, so that the height "limitation" will not affect it even if it has an explosive growth spurt.

As it stands today, the airport is centrally located for the area, it works very well, and it can handle more capacity. There are places surrounding the airport that would probably be development targets if expansion became necessary. Plus there is another airport in the East Valley that could pick up additional load. And that airport hasn't really taken off, despite its convenient location to the East Valley.
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Old 12-18-2015, 11:36 AM
 
Location: Arizona, The American Southwest
54,482 posts, read 33,796,391 times
Reputation: 91677
Quote:
Originally Posted by Valley Native View Post
It used to be a very bustling area at one time when there was major retail, theatres, and things to bring people downtown. If you ever watch the movie "Psycho" from 1960, the beginning scenes were filmed in Phoenix, and there are actually some downtown street shots showing lots of people walking along the streets. Of course, that was when Phoenix was barely a mid sized city, and downtown was less vertical, but still pretty active. In the 1970s, downtown became taller, but by then most of the stores closed & moved to more suburban locations, and even the iconic Orpheum Theatre was left abandoned.

The downtown revival began slowly in the 1990s ... and we now have more entertainment/sports type of things to make it more active. What's missing is retail and better choices in dining. If & when there is a population boom in the central core, there will be more demand for these things. I also wish Phoenix could attract more high paying corporate jobs. If that should ever happen, there would be a need for a financial district, and you'd likely see a skyscraper boom.

The Sky Harbor reason is a tired out excuse. I've mentioned before that other cities with airports close to downtown still manage to have tall skylines. San Diego is one good example. They have height limits of 500 feet for their buildings, but their downtown has still become more vertical and impressive even with the limits. Phoenix doesn't really have any height limits, but any kind of downtown highrise still needs to get FAA approval. The Central Corridor area north of downtown doesn't have any kind of restrictions as far as I know, and that would also be a good location for taller buildings.
Hi Valley Native - If we're going to see more high rises, they'll be geared towards the residential rather than the commercial markets. With high-speed internet, employees can work from home and I think that's becoming a trend. Large companies can save a lot on real-estate by allowing a lot of their employees to work from home, so that is an advantage to companies and employees, and of course a disadvantage to the commercial real estate market. We are, however, also seeing a lot of development north of downtown and in mid-town, probably because of the easy access to the light rail.

The FAA tends to be far behind the times and their rules regarding high-rises near aiports were most likely adopted in the 1950s, when aviation and instrument technology wasn't anything like it is today. They are in effect because there are still aircraft with 1960s/1970s technology that are still flying in and out of Sky Harbor. Runways 8/26 (the north runway) are also much further away from downtown in comparison to San Diego's Lindbergh Field, which is literally a short hop away from downtown. I agree with you, San Diego has seen major improvements in their downtown in recent years, despite the close proximity of Lindbergh.
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Old 12-20-2015, 04:48 PM
 
Location: East Central Phoenix
8,028 posts, read 12,200,691 times
Reputation: 9803
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnum Mike View Post
Hi Valley Native - If we're going to see more high rises, they'll be geared towards the residential rather than the commercial markets. With high-speed internet, employees can work from home and I think that's becoming a trend. Large companies can save a lot on real-estate by allowing a lot of their employees to work from home, so that is an advantage to companies and employees, and of course a disadvantage to the commercial real estate market. We are, however, also seeing a lot of development north of downtown and in mid-town, probably because of the easy access to the light rail.
Hi Mike. Yes, I would like to see a much taller downtown, whether it's in the form of office towers, residential towers, or even more hotels. You might recall that there were many plans to build more highrises downtown about 10 years ago during the real estate bubble. And we all know what happened shortly thereafter. The bubble burst, the economy went south, and many of the proposed highrises were never built. A few of the projects did come to fruition, and a few that were looking rather promising were protested by NIMBY activists, and never got built primarily for that reason.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnum Mike View Post
The FAA tends to be far behind the times and their rules regarding high-rises near aiports were most likely adopted in the 1950s, when aviation and instrument technology wasn't anything like it is today. They are in effect because there are still aircraft with 1960s/1970s technology that are still flying in and out of Sky Harbor. Runways 8/26 (the north runway) are also much further away from downtown in comparison to San Diego's Lindbergh Field, which is literally a short hop away from downtown. I agree with you, San Diego has seen major improvements in their downtown in recent years, despite the close proximity of Lindbergh.
I completely agree about the FAA, and I think it's a shame that developers have to go through all the bureaucracy & obtain FAA approval if they want to build a 30+ story building downtown. It's funny that when the Chase Tower and a few other similarly tall buildings downtown were built decades ago, there didn't seem to be all the red tape to cut through ... so I can't help but wonder if part of the reason is the remaining paranoia from the 9/11 WTC attacks. Too bad we can't seem to get a handle on these Middle Eastern terrorists, but we put so many rules, regulations, and restrictions on American citizens' freedoms!
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Old 12-20-2015, 05:02 PM
 
Location: Prescott Valley, AZ
3,401 posts, read 4,587,134 times
Reputation: 3909
Quote:
Originally Posted by Magnum Mike View Post
Hi Valley Native - If we're going to see more high rises, they'll be geared towards the residential rather than the commercial markets. With high-speed internet, employees can work from home and I think that's becoming a trend. Large companies can save a lot on real-estate by allowing a lot of their employees to work from home, so that is an advantage to companies and employees, and of course a disadvantage to the commercial real estate market. We are, however, also seeing a lot of development north of downtown and in mid-town, probably because of the easy access to the light rail.

The FAA tends to be far behind the times and their rules regarding high-rises near aiports were most likely adopted in the 1950s, when aviation and instrument technology wasn't anything like it is today. They are in effect because there are still aircraft with 1960s/1970s technology that are still flying in and out of Sky Harbor. Runways 8/26 (the north runway) are also much further away from downtown in comparison to San Diego's Lindbergh Field, which is literally a short hop away from downtown. I agree with you, San Diego has seen major improvements in their downtown in recent years, despite the close proximity of Lindbergh.
We never had that problem when the Stapleton Airport in Denver was demolished and moved, and look at our skyline it boomed. The infill at Stapleton turned it into another subdivision. Can you imagine what kind of infill Sky Harbor would be if the airport moved?
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