Downtown & central Phoenix Archives - Page 12 of 13

How malls remade old Phoenix

Sing a city of malls. Actually, the first modern mall west of the Mississippi was built in Dallas and the first suburban mall was Northgate in Seattle (now closed and turning into a dense development around light rail). But it's easy to imagine Phoenix invented them. They were not good for those of us who loved shopping at the great stores downtown, and how they contributed to the central core's collapse. But most Phoenicians loved them.

When I write "mall," I don't mean the beautiful 19th century Arcade in downtown Dayton. I mean a shopping complex built around the automobile. Park Central was Phoenix's first, developed by the Burgbacher brothers on the site of the former Central Dairy and opening in 1957. It was anchored by Diamond's, Newberry's and Goldwater's, the latter closing its downtown store two miles south and beginning the end of downtown retail.

Even so, in the early- and mid-1960s, downtown held its own as the state's busiest shopping destination — but the die was cast. Most natives don't even remember when Phoenix was more than a city of malls.

I grew up within bicycle distance of Park Central (had my bike stolen there, too). It was open air (the city was not yet devastated by the heat island), convenient and wildly popular. It anchored Midtown, along with the twin towers across the street, the taller of which sported an outside glass elevator and the shorter being home to the Playboy Club. Old Park Central was semi-urban, contiguous to the city and human-scaled.

It was followed by Biltmore Fashion Square, which until Westcor turned it into another lookalike suburban soul-killer, was also open air, with plenty of shade and in a pleasing scale. Across the street was the open-air Town and Country shopping center (which was not an empty name, for the city around it was still meshed with citrus groves and horse properties). Chris-Town became the first enclosed, air-conditioned mall in 1961 — the property has been a farm owned by the Chris family.

Jon Talton June 16, 201178

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

The Deuce in old Phoenix

The block of shuttered buildings (right) just west of the Suns arena was, by the 2000s, almost all that was left of the storied Deuce, Phoenix's skid row. It has since been leveled, losing two historic hotels, so team owner Robert Sarver could make another holy surface parking lot.

In its heyday, from the 1920s through the 1970s, the Deuce extended over several blocks from the Southern Pacific tracks to Van Buren, centered along Second Street. It's open to debate as to whether Second Street was the origin of the name. Or if it was a shortened version of the Produce District, the warehouses and loading docks clustered along the railroad tracks, including middle-of-the-street spur lines that ran along Jackson and Madison. Yet another interpretation: The area was Beat 2 of the Phoenix Police and the cops nicknamed it.

However it came by its moniker, the Deuce was one of the city's most colorful and storied districts. During Prohibition, it was known for its speakeasies. For decades, brothels and gambling could be found along the infamous Paris Alley, off Second Street between Jefferson and Washington.

Old downtown Phoenix was remarkably compact and walkable. The main part of the central business district ran along Central and west to Seventh Avenue. East along Washington and Jefferson were a remarkable variety of stores, including Penney's and Korrick's department stores, as well as the Fox Theater, the barber college, Dr. Pease Dentist and Dr. Hugh Ilstrip's chiropractic practice.

The Greyhound and Continental Trailways bus depots faced each other at First Street and Van Buren. East of Greyhound was the Arizona Republic/Phoenix Gazatte building, St. Mary's church and the church schools, and Phoenix Union High School. South of this, the Deuce.

It was a dense mix of single-story business buildings and two- to five-story single-room occupancy hotels, many dating back to territorial days. One could walk into this "bad part of town" by taking a few steps east of the Fox or south of St. Mary's. The small businesses there ran the gamut from bars, cafes, package-liquor shops, gospel missions and pawn shops to second-hand furniture outlets and an Army-Navy surplus store. Franco's America Bakery was at Fourth Street and Washington. It was next to a Western wear store with a lifesize horse standing on the overhang. The Matador Mexican restaurant was in the Deuce before it was relocated to a location on Adams. A few houses survived in the district, as well.

The remains of the city's Chinatown were part of the Deuce (although the Chinese, not facing the discrimination they had suffered in California, followed the Anglos out as the city sprawled). Sing High Chop Suey House, now moved a few blocks west of the Deuce, is a survivor. And then, starting at Madison, the produce operations such as Central Wholesale Terminal and United Produce.

The most famous denizen of the Deuce was Ernesto Miranda, who worked off and on at United Produce. Miranda was arrested in 1963 for kidnapping and rape, and gave a confession without having a lawyer available during the interrogation. The conviction was thrown out by the Supreme Court and police agencies were forced to routinely "Mirandize" suspects. Still, Miranda himself was convicted in a second trial, where the tainted confession was not introduced, and served time. Released in 1972, he returned to the Deuce where he sold autographed Miranda warning cards. In 1976, he was fatally knifed at La Amapola bar, located at Second Street and Madison. By that time I was working on the ambulance, but was off-duty that night; a crew from B-Shift transported Miranda to Good Samaritan Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Jon Talton May 9, 201161

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix Politics: Arizona/Phoenix

Four for Phoenix

In the field for Phoenix mayor, Wes Gullett must show he is more than a Republican political operative with ties to Fife Symington and John McCain, two of the more odious statewide officeholders in Arizona history. Peggy Neely seems to be the candidate of the sprawl developers and considers "standing tall against billboards" an issue of supreme importance. That leaves only two candidates worthy of serious attention: Claude Mattox and Greg Stanton.

Mattox represents Maryvale and much of west Phoenix on City Council. He has shown himself to be a man of integrity, someone who grew in office, and has represented a largely Hispanic, largely poor district well, while also understanding the importance of the Convention Center, ASU Downtown, the biosciences campus, Sheraton and light rail. He's approachable, honest and plays a mean guitar. His rugged face, like something out of a Western, and (when I knew him) sometimes casual-to-sloppy dress causes people to underestimate his intelligence and tactical skill as a politician. He claims an interesting mix of supporters, including Peggy Bilsten (who should have been mayor); Jerry Colangelo (does he care anymore since he's become a west-side sprawl developer?); Matt Salmon (?!?) and former mayor Paul Johnson. The downside? As one person close to city politics put it: "Nice guy, but where's the vision?" Indeed, the issues he's pushing are hardly inspiring: Strong neighborhoods (what does that mean, especially in a city with few real neighborhoods?); safety, and "quality schools" (out of the mayor's control). His bio also lists him as a vice president of something called National Western Vistas Real Estate, whose Web site I can't find, and could Phoenix move beyond real estate, please? Still, Phoenix could do far worse than Mattox. (Update: A reader corrects me, with the Web site here and the BBB file).

Greg Stanton is another candidate who risks being underestimated. Too polished. Too smooth. Too Mister Perfect looks. More than a touch of ambition. Very unlike Mayor Phil Gordon but still another lawyer. But beneath this and the councilman-like talk about "neighborhoods" and "safety," Stanton has an incisive intellect and a sharp understanding that, as he puts it, Phoenix is "a city at a crossroads." More than his rivals, he understands the need to make the transition into quality growth and sustainability. After representing the mostly Republican district (he's a Democrat) that includes Ahwatukee, North Central, Arcadia and Biltmore for nine years on City Council, he went to work as a deputy attorney general for Terry Goddard. Stanton was on the right side in voting against zoning east Camelback for more skyscrapers and in opposing the disastrous sprawl monster, CityNorth. Stanton would be the best choice.

Jon Talton April 25, 201141

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

The city in mind

As a native Westerner, my problem with "wide open spaces" is how many we've lost in my lifetime and how difficult it is to really live in what's left in a nation of 308 million. The constant move outward in metro Phoenix obliterates anything but the illusion. Today's wide vista out the window will be a Super Wal-Mart tomorrow. People who bought in Fountain Hills years ago — a development that annihilated one of the state's most lush saguaro forests, and it takes a saguaro ten years to grow an inch-and-a-half — are now partly surrounded by schlock. Same with Verrado, where the idiot David Brooks saw "the future." Prescott, a town with history and wonderful bones, is a planning and congestion disaster outside the old town. The same is true with Flagstaff, as with most small towns in America.

If you're rich and lucky enough to buy land adjacent to a National Park, maybe your panorama will have the illusion of the pristine, although we know the pollution, fire, sleazy land swaps and other stresses facing our public lands — and just wait for the GOP to privatize it. Move to the staked plains and you can find real emptiness, but good luck finding work. And if I want wide open spaces, do I profane them further with a new house, which by its very nature can't be "green," and total dependence on the automobile? Good luck finding a real, scalable, sustainable small town on a passenger train route.

For these reasons, as well as growing up in central Phoenix and for the eye-opening years I spent living in real cities, I choose to make my stand in the city. And it's a major focus of this blog. Most Americans don't "get" cities; they don't have urban values. Most want their imitation English country estates crowded together as lookalike tract houses in suburbia. The problems with this are manifold. First, the nation's population has doubled since Levittowns were first laid down. Thus, most suburbs suffer from urban problems without urban solutions. Second, they are artifacts of a moment in history defined by cheap gasoline, now passing away. Third, sprawl destroys vast tracts of valuable agricultural land, rural areas and wilderness, with numerous environmental strains. Fourth, for all the heavy subsidies to make suburbia work (freeways, flood control, etc.), it's a highly inefficient spatial arrangement. Suburbia is not merely boring and filled with anomie (American Beauty, etc.), it is now the epicenter of the housing crash, with attendant debt, poverty and very high carrying costs.

Jon Talton March 31, 201124

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

The Corner

In this city of loss called Phoenix, where do we even begin to mourn? The closure of the Borders store at the Biltmore gives a new generation something to miss, and a chain bookstore at that. Once the Biltmore Fashion Park was a unique shopping center of outdoor courts, shady trees, grass and low-rise, mid-century architecture. A few years ago, the odious Westcor/Macerich redid it to look like every other crapola shopping mall in suburban Phoenix. Ruined. Who cares if they decide to build a mega-mall in Goodyear — it will just be another lookalike ruin for the near future of this unsustainable place, a ruin no archeo-tourists will ever care to visit. The few who do will wonder how such a wealthy society could have squandered so many resources on such grotesquery (as they will wonder about the sprawl outside Denver, Seattle, Atlanta, etc.).

When I was growing up, the corner of McDowell and Seventh Avenue was but one of the many business districts that flourished in the area (Central was crowded with businesses from downtown to Camelback; McDowell along its length, the same with Thomas; the Gold Spot building on Roosevelt and Third Avenue was aging but busy). On the southwest corner was Val DeSpain's Chevron station and a Circle K, along with a forbidden tavern. Northwest was a gas station. The northeast corner held a distinctive, solid brick business building full of local retailers, including a barber and liquor store, then My Florist — a real flower shop — with its magical neon sign. The southeast corner was a treat: A Ryan-Evans Drug Store anchored a building with several shops, including the Best Cleaners and a Sprouse-Reitz five-and-ten store. The latter had a smashing red-tile front, while the drug store had its name proclaimed in neon. Each store in this strip had its own distinct front.

When I got back to Phoenix in 2000, most of the corner was in disrepair, the remaining buildings holding junk shops and a massively ugly Circle K box holding down the northwest side. But there seemed to be hope with David Lacy rehabbing My Florist as a restaurant. It was a huge success, a forerunner of midtown and downtown eateries to come (and go). The inside was beautifully appointed and at night the grand piano accompanied diners. It was never my florist: I found the menu unappealing, rather attuned to people who didn't really like to eat, and the servers were surly. Portland's and Cheuvront were more my style. But lots of people loved My Florist, many of whom had never even realized that the gems of the nearby historic districts existed. Is is safe to go down there?, some asked at first, living in the soulless suburbs where most of the lurid violence really takes place.

Jon Talton February 16, 201168

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Downtown, again II

The smart folks in the comments section of Rogue Columnist did not disappoint. So in the spirit of Abe Lincoln ("It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt"), I should probably just send you to their thoughts and end the post right here.

Still, a few observations.

Let me join Soleri and others on my own SimCity dreams. Oh, to have the Westward Ho restored to its glory, as has happened in other cities around the country (such as the Netherland Plaza in Cincinnati, the Skirvin in Oklahoma City or the Book Cadillac in Detroit)! To have the old Valley Bank building bustling again, with its magnificent lobby as I recall it. I'll see that and up you: A restored Union Station as an intercity and commuter train station, with intercity and city buses and a trolley to light rail. A real Symphony Hall worthy of a world-class city at Van Buren and Third, or any of the many vacant lots. Rebuilding some of the lost treasures, such as the red sandstone building that was located, as I recall, where the awful Wells Fargo (First National Bank of Arizona) tower now squats, on other empty land. Rebuild the Fox Theater, too. Somewhere architects must exist who would do something so subversive as to design pleasing, classical buildings.

For those wishing something to feel good about: Light rail, ASU Downtown, CityScape, the Phoenix Convention Center, Herberger Theater Center, Sheraton, Phoenix Biosciences Campus, Dodge Theater, Children's Museum, park of the Floating Diaphragm, USAirways Arena, Chase Field and the shady, grassy oasis of Arizona Center. These are all real accomplishments, major assets upon which other civic goods can grow.

Jon Talton February 3, 201139

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Downtown, again

Susan Copeland, chair of the Downtown Voices Coalition, recently wrote an op-ed in the Arizona Republic, entitled, "A realistic downtown assessment." It was mostly a clear-eyed look at the reality of downtown Phoenix's challenges: Expecting too much from sports teams, failure to integrate ASU into the city fabric, too many surface parking lots and chimerical hopes from an "entertainment district." Copeland rightly adds that CityScape is "suburban mall stylistically dating to the 20th century," although I have a hard time mourning the brutalist "park" of Patriot's Square. She adds:

With all the damage done, there are still hopeful signs, if only our city officials and civic leaders follow their own community vetted and charetted ideals. The Urban Form Project; Arts, Culture, and Small Business District Overlay; and Adaptive Reuse Program are smarter moves for aspiring urban infill than another stab at a faux urban Entertainment District. When the city actually listens to its citizens rather than check-marking the input box, great things happen, like the improved ASU Nursing School exterior or the forthcoming Washington Street Centennial Project.

Well, fine (Her piece was written in response to this one). And good on her for searching for realism. But regular readers will have to forgive me if I cover some familiar ground as well as discuss the deep problems and real opportunities facing downtown Phoenix. I'm still not sure people fully get it.

Jon Talton January 31, 201143

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

The sweet season

I am back from several days in Arizona for book signings. I'd be a liar if I didn't admit that certain things still pull on me: A spectacular sunset over the Estrellas, a scent of blooms in the air, riding light rail (we built it, you bastards), friends who remained so even after I was kicked out of my columnist gig, and the comforting embrace of the old neighborhood. It's high season for the resorts and I suppose Scottsdale is full of golfers, but that's not the side of the street where I work. Phoenix will always be a home of my heart, but so much of that exists in what's gone. Most of the 4 million people living there have no inkling of this irretrievable loss. Yes, every city changes. But Phoenix threw away so much of what made it unique in all the world, gaining nothing but more people and a questionable future.

Economic depression hangs on the place even during the diminishing number of pleasant months. I read that Don Cardon, head of the governor's new "commerce authority," wants to put together a fund amounting to $500 million to $1 billion to provide loans to companies that will grow in Arizona. This, according to the new story, "at no risk to the state." Good luck with that. The state fumbled its best opportunity to leapfrog by failing to implement the "meds-and-eds" strategy during the 2000s. Now the Legislature plans to further gut funding to universities, the engines of an advanced economy — this has been going on for decades. The state's inward-looking, hostile-to-the-world intolerance and political extremism are kryptonite to attracting talented people. Plainly, Arizona doesn't intend to compete in a knowledge-driven global economy. If there's a strategy, it seems to be the same old routine of economic-development organizations appearing to be busy.

At one book signing, a man asked why people move to Phoenix, given all its downsides. Not in a hostile way, but out of sincere curiosity. A longtime resident, he noted all the ways the metro area's quality of life has declined, not least the hotter and longer summers. How Phoenix has its own version of horrible weather, only in reverse from Minneapolis. My no-doubt inadequate answer: Sunshine, which for many people is enough; a huge supply of relatively cheap housing; the jobs that for decades went along with rapidly rising population, especially in construction and real estate, and massive federal subsidies. This goes well beyond the Salt River Project, CAP, flood control that made it possible to build tract houses on otherwise marginal desert land, etc. Social Security and Medicare, for example, underwrite a huge retiree population along with thousands of jobs in health care. At least somebody is wondering.

Jon Talton January 17, 201133

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Encanto Park in old Phoenix

A city such as Cincinnati built great parks, from the showpiece Eden Park, home to the Cincinnati Playhouse, Cincinnati Art Museum, Kron Conservatory and Mirror Lake Fountain, to the exquisitely designed Ault Park near the tony Mount Lookout and Hyde Park neighborhoods. Eastsiders who won't venture beyond the "Sauerkraut Curtain" may not even know about Mt. Echo Park, one of my favorites with its awesome views of downtown and the Ohio River.

The Queen City of the West had the good fortune to come of age in the golden age of park design and have the wealth to pull it off. Phoenix, a modest farm town at this time, built only one: Encanto. That makes it all the more a civic treasure. This Saturday Encanto Park will celebrate its 75th anniversary.

I write this not to take away from the city's achievement with desert parks, especially South Mountain Park and Papago Park. But they are what they are, often stunning preserves of the Sonoran Desert for hardy hikers and, more often, drivers.

Encanto was different, built as an oasis of shade and grass and City Beautiful Movement design, meant for people, picnics and strolling. Now more than ever, you can feel the instant cooling of the park and golf courses when you drive south of Thomas on 15th Avenue on a summer night. It's not like the Midwest — for that kind of lush greenery, look to Cincinnati. It lacks the size and resources that Los Angeles could put into Griffith Park. Encanto, inspired by San Diego's grand Balboa Park, is its own enchanted feat. It is a capsule of old Phoenix, a magical refutation of those who say "Phoenix has no soul."

Jon Talton November 25, 201015

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Tom and Mike

When Michael Ratner passed away this week, Phoenix lost one of its true heroes. He bought the revived Tom's Tavern downtown in 1992 and never stopped fighting to keep this landmark going. Tom's played a big part in my personal history: It's a setting in many of the David Mapstone books, and Mike played host to the launch party of my first mystery, Concrete Desert. For years, he had my books for sale at the tavern. On our columnist lunches, E. J. Montini, Richard Ruelas and I sometimes went to Tom's. Tippling happened.

Tom's was one of my hangouts, and Mike always wanted to know how I was doing, even when I paid visits after being thrown out of Phoenix. He was that kind of man, caring about others, not one to dwell on his battle with cancer. He'd sit me at the "governor's table" or the "mayor's table," then join me to talk. Mike was a worrier. Tom's always seemed on the edge, even with its history and location at the foot of the Renaissance Towers close to city and county government. He hung on through light rail construction, creating events for symphony and other event-goers. The Great Recession was another storm to weather. He lovingly preserved history, from the portraits of past and current leaders to mementos of the tavern's rich past, in a town that has no use for it.

He transcended the era of John Teets, Jerry Colangelo and other bigs who had the vision and means to work for a great city. In his modest way, he was one of the last stewards standing. A great restaurant operator, he could have made big money in Scottsdale or the other 'burbs. He chose to make his stand in the heart of the city.

Jon Talton November 18, 201012

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Kenilworth at 90

I was asked to speak at the 90th birthday of Kenilworth School, my alma mater, on Oct. 23rd. Obligations keep me from attending, but this is what I would say:

Ten years ago I had the great fortune of speaking at the 80th birthday of Kenilworth School. I had come a long way from a child for whom this school held so many good memories, but also one for whom it held anxieties and fears, an average student except in reading, one who was poor in athletics, a target of bullies, who watched the clock on the wall in every classroom waiting for each school day to end, who quailed in terror when we were herded into the auditorium and made to lean against the walls and cover our heads as protection against Soviet missiles.

Ten years ago I had returned to a Phoenix spread across 1,500 square miles. A huge freeway cut its way beside Kenilworth. “Master planned communities” were where many people chose to live, even as they complained that Phoenix had no soul and no history. Natives were hard to find among the huge Midwestern influx. The temperature had risen 10 degrees and the summers were hotter and longer. Downtown and north Central had been denuded of retail and jobs. And yet Kenilworth School still stood. My message then was how Kenilworth and everyone who loved it — lawyer Fred Rosenfeld and other alums maintained an association to help the school — had kept faith. Here was Phoenix’s soul and history.

Jon Talton October 18, 20107

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

Growing up in old Phoenix

I grew up in a small town. Its name was Phoenix, and even though it had 439,170 people by the time I was four years old, in 1960, it still seemed like a place I could wrap my arms around and carry with me, just like the little towns in the movies. We lived near Cypress Street and Third Avenue, about a mile from the border of downtown. The houses faced the street, many had porches, the lawns were lush, the shade inviting.

My friends and I stashed fallen oranges and rolled them out into the rush-hour traffic on Third and Fifth — back then, before the Willo Soviet tried to wall off this neighborhood, these streets had three lanes each and carried substantial traffic twice a day, people going to and from work downtown. The oranges were also useful in friendly alley fights; more serious conflict escalated from dirt clods to rocks. Oh, we also ate them, because everyone had citrus trees in their yards and it was a quick drive out to the groves, where boxes of oranges could be purchased at roadside stands surrounded by the lavish bounty of the Salt River Valley. Some days we lay under the trees at Paperboys' Island, a pocket park at Third and Holly, and just stared into the cobalt sky, dreaming the dreams of young boys.

By the time I was eight, I was mobile and free, within limits. Specifically, I could ride my bike from Thomas to Roosevelt and Third Street to Fifteenth Avenue. It was an amazing landscape for a child. The library, art museum and Heard Museum were there. Soda fountains proliferated at drug stores, from the Rexall on Roosevelt and Third Avenue to Ryan-Evans at Seventh and McDowell to shops on Central. Every gas station had a drinking fountain with cold water, an essential for young desert rats. The firefighters at the old Station 4 on First Street and Moreland, as well as the Encanto/Seventh Ave. station indulged us. We bugged the people at Channel 12 and Channel 5 (Wallace & Ladmo's home!) for old reels of commercials — the apex of our ubiquitous trash picking. Encanto Park was a favorite hangout; it was where I decided I wasn't cut out to be a fisherman, but that didn't stop me from endless fishing journeys to the lagoons. The lovely moderne Palms Theater at Central and Virginia offered movies if we didn't want to hitch a ride downtown.

This part of the city was dense then with businesses. This was long before entire blocks were bulldozed or turned into dead space by parking garages. The buildings on the northeast and southeast corners of Seventh Avenue and McDowell, for example, were chock-full of small businesses. So was today's mostly empty Gold Spot — I got my hair cut there by Otis Kenilworth. Downtown was still the busiest shopping district in the state, followed by Park Central mall — both bracketing our neighborhood. I wasn't as fortunate as someone born a few years younger to sample the old city, but it was still pretty intact in the early and mid-1960s.

The big Valley Bank sign turned atop the art deco tower and other neon signaled downtown. Among the downtown landmarks was the Hotel Westward Ho, with its famed Thunderbird Room, where presidents stayed well into the 1960s. The skyscrapers going up along Central seemed signs of progress, not incoherent planning. I watched so many of them being built. My grandmother and I took the bus to shop downtown or at Park Central. This daughter of the frontier "traded," as she put it, at the small A.J. Bayless store at Central and Moreland. Just west were the shady median parks along Moreland and Portland, two of the few City Beautiful Movement touches Phoenix received. The parkways were lined by lushly landscaped apartment buildings. Every day, we drove downtown at 5 p.m. to pick up my mother at the Greater Arizona Savings Building, where the Interstate Stream Commission had its offices. It was amazing to see the crowds on the streets, just like a big city.

Jon Talton August 9, 201023

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

The CityScape Gamble

CityScape. For most cities of its size, this downtown development would be considered modest, especially with its first phase, which will apparently comprise a 27-story office tower and a retail arcade. For Phoenix, it's a big deal, especially for downtown and the central city. It could provide some answers as to "what next?" in the nation's fifth (for now) most populous city. Unfortunately the odds are long.

When the project was first hyped in the mid-2000s, it was supposed to be a game-changer, with iconic, soaring towers that included offices, hotel and 1,000 condo units. It took over the dismal Patriot's Square, which had been created by tearing down a block of historic, irreplaceable buildings, as well as adjoining vacant lots, which also once held viable commercial structures. Yet when the real renderings came out, the buildings looked very conventional and short (yeah, yeah, FAA…ask San Diego, Boston, etc.). The retail was inward-facing, risking another Arizona Center mistake. When the economy collapsed, even these modest plans were heavily cut back. An anchor tenant, Wachovia, died in the merger with Wells Fargo. The lack of inspiring architecture, a lively streetscape and pleasing spaces is no small thing.

This is a bad time to be bringing new office and retail space on the market, whether you're in thriving downtown Seattle or in a Phoenix which has faced special, self-inflicted wounds to its old core. The commercial real-estate bubble remains a danger. Still, RED Development has stuck with the more modest first phase and continues to roll out announcements of new restaurants, a comedy club and, importantly, a pharmacy. On the other hand, Eddie Basha, in bankruptcy reorganization, couldn't fulfill his desire to locate a grocery there,

Jon Talton April 5, 201013

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix Phoenix 101: History

How freeways remade Phoenix

The Black Canyon Freeway, Phoenix's first, in the 1960s.

Motoring around metro Phoenix today, it's difficult to comprehend that this was not always a huge agglomeration of real-estate ventures connected by freeways. In fact, Phoenix didn't want them, would have been better off without many of them, yet couldn't avoid their eventual triumph.

In 1950, when Phoenix came in as America's 100th most populous city, it occupied a mere 17 square miles, with a population density of more than 6,200 per square mile, around what you'd find in today's Seattle or Portland. In other words, a real small city: cohesive, walkable, sustainable and scalable. Remnants of the old city exist, but much has been annihilated, not least by the freeways.

By 1960, the city of Phoenix had 439,170 people and nearly 188 square miles. It was a big city of the automobile age, the old streetcars long gone, and federally subsidized sprawl under way. Around this time, the state Highway Department adopted an ambitious freeway plan prepared by Wilbur Smith & Associates, one of the nation's leading highway transportation planning firms. It envisioned much of the system eventually built. The engineers had wanted to build freeways in Phoenix since the late 1940s. One route would have gone directly in front of the Hotel Westward Ho.

But most Phoenicians were horrified. They weren't enamored with the small Black Canyon Freeway, Phoenix's first (it wound around at Durango Street to become the Maricopa Freeway, rammed through powerless barrios).

An urban legend persists that Eugene C. Pulliam single-handedly defeated the freeway plan in the early 1970s. Although the Arizona Republic and Phoenix Gazette were indeed powerful in those days and not afraid to crusade (sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes not), freeways were widely resisted.

Phoenicians then didn't want to become another Los Angeles in this bad way, and they had a chance to avoid the fate. LA had shown (and Robert Moses' New York before it) that freeways didn't solve traffic congestion — they generated it through the phenomenon called induced demand. We didn't want worse smog. We didn't want to lose our views to concrete and the citrus groves to further sprawl. Of particular alarm was the 100-foot-high Papago Freeway Inner Loop planned across central Phoenix, with monstrous "helicoils" discharging traffic onto Third Avenue and Third Street.

Jon Talton March 29, 201010

Downtown & central Phoenix Phoenix

Downtown Phoenix 2.0?

It's surprising that some appear so sanguine about the likely foreclosure of most units at the 44 Monroe condo tower. This, along with a similar fate for the Summit at Copper Square and 44's developer Grace Communities failing to rehab the historic Valley National Bank building because of the Mortgages Ltd. fiasco, represents a devastating setback for luring private investment into downtown Phoenix. Maybe people are too shell shocked to take it all in. Maybe they're willing to settle for things being better than they were 20 years ago, which is undeniably true. Neither option is wise for those who wish the central city well.

Make no mistake: the Phoenix depression is metro-wide. I saw rotting framing and miles of distressed subdivisions out in the exurbs. Tempe foolishly threw away its opportunity to build a mid-rise boutique downtown of national quality — now it has an empty condo high-rise and Mill Avenue is swooning again. But my conviction remains that there is no healthy major city without a strong urban downtown, and center city problems left unchecked have a habit of spreading. (And don't be taken in by the propaganda: Phoenix did have a vibrant downtown — it was killed by civic malpractice).

In Phoenix, the past few years have seen some notable triumphs: the beginnings of a downtown ASU campus, light rail, a convention center worthy of such a tourist-dependent city, a new convention hotel, and a blossoming of independently owned restaurants. The biosciences campus has been planted (although it has been allowed to stall and, I fear, its future is uncertain). Yet major private investment has not followed; 44 Monroe and the Summit represented the strongest chance for that within the existing local business model of "real estate first." The many towers proposed for the entire Central Corridor are now blighted empty lots. CityScape? I'll believe it when I see it. What I see is a homely suburban design, not the soaring "game changer" sold to the public on the front page of the newspaper.

Jon Talton January 25, 201015