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.
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