As is so often the case with downtown, there’s good news and bad news.
Hansji Urban of Irvine, Calif., will apparently renovate the Luhrs Tower and the Luhrs Building in the block on Jefferson between Central and First Ave. These are among the few large buildings left from old Phoenix. The Luhrs Tower is a wonderful deco baby skyscraper. Phoenix might have had more if the Depression had not intervened. Afterward, the city was cursed with horrid international boxes.
The bad news? The developer apparently has the right to tear down the arcade that connects the two, and an adjoining building that faces Central.
Nobody would mourn the 1950s parking structure on First. But the
loss of the other buildings would be a setback. The arcade is
attractive, historic and connects the two main buildings. The entire
block provides just the kind of density downtown needs. Downtown is
cursed with too many buildings standing in solitude, the “gap-toothed”
look that discourages walkability and the energy of a pleasing
streetscape. I cringe to think of what a modern architect would do to
connect these two icons from the 1920s.
Another Sun Mercantile fight is the last thing downtown needs. That
battle helped kill the W Hotel (and there’s plenty of blame to go on
all sides). It failed to encourage the investment that in successful
cities renovates historic buildings for new uses, especially private
sector uses. Equally unfortunate was “saving” the old garage on Central
south of the Post Office. Only the front of that building has any
architectural value. And the building standing in isolation – a long,
boring tube – is stripped of the streetscape that gave it meaning, the
other buildings up and down Central.
This isn’t to dis’ preservation. Phoenix badly need it, especially in
what’s left of the warehouse district and Union Station. But
preservation divorced from private capital and current usefulness only
goes so far.
I daydream about what might have happened if Phoenix would have
preserved the old buildings near the Luhrs properties, which stood as
late as the 1960s. Some were gems of the 1890s and early 1900s.
Restored and filled with businesses, they would have provided the kind
of critical mass a successful downtown needs – and the street interest
that mega-projects often kill. Think of Larimer Square in Denver.
Power is oddly distributed in Phoenix. City Hall has huge say over
development. ASU is the new big dog. Then there are citizens’ groups,
and landowners happy to sit on property doing little or nothing. All
these groups operate essentially in the negative – they can say “no.”
Sometimes a veto needs to happen. But what has been missing is an
active, entrepreneurial class of developers skilled in downtown
projects – one that wants to develop, do business, not merely bank land.
The other strange vacuum is in businesses that might locate downtown.
Capital in metro Phoenix flows more to real estate. Cities with
successful downtowns have a vibrant cohort of downtown businesses
lacking in Phoenix. The exceptions there struggle to survive. They are
starved for capital. They lack affordable space, partly because city
leaders tore down so many viable older buildings and they make it very
difficult to inexpensively rehab what’s left.
It would help if City Hall hadn’t been so slow to get suburban
regulations out of the way of downtown redevelopment. But the lack of
powerful private-sector players, who understand urban and have the
means to redevelop and capitalize urban businesses, partly explains why
downtown Phoenix has been so slow to experience the boom that has
benefited so many other downtowns (and those cities have plenty of
suburbs, too).
If CityScape is successful – and the current credit meltdown raises
questions – this might change the dynamic. ASU will help, although
downtown Tempe hardly has the businesses one would expect to find near
a university with so many students. But CityScape and a rehabbed Luhrs
duo will be expensive space. The issue of less expensive space to lure
distinctive local businesses and retailers remains.
So good news, bad news, and I certainly don’t have all the answers.
Some things are clear: historic preservation needs to link up with
private sector uses. Downtown needs a dense streetscape of buildings
actually occupied. It also desperately needs more active urban
developers and businesspeople at the table, backed by capital.