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Originally Posted by Jjs5056
That is probably the best news I have read re: Phoenix in a LONG time; the rendering looks fantastic.
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Or consider the flipside of this statement, that there's so much disinterest in building anything in downtown Phoenix now (especially compared to Tempe) that the market has dictated creating more retail space on an already vacant and tattered stretch of Van Buren in an already vacant downtown is less of a gamble and ostensibly more profitable than attempting to redevelop a property that already has variances for a high-rise project. I'm not so inclined to believe that's good news.
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I have loved that building ever since it was supposed to be razed during the boom for the Calder Tower. I could never understand how such a beautiful building could sit abandoned and unnoticed. I never thought the day would come that it would get scooped up by a developer who actually had an interest in bringing it back to life as opposed to destroying it.
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I do like the Jane Jacobs approach to the meritorious of old buildings, I really do.
But today is about as far as you can get from the go-go 2005/6/7 days when practically any lot downtown had a highrise proposal from it. Without spewing false dichotomies, I'd rather have a downtown with that kind of promise rather than picking the meat off of old bones and trying to make a meal of it when nobody's hungry.
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This is directly northwest of the restored historic Church on Monroe. It's great to see that positive momentum spilling over to Van Buren...
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Am I missing something? The First Presbyterian Church has been in operation for decades. The First Baptist Church has been burned out for 30 years and there's been no news on it in 10 months--not even a mere proposal.
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which is zoned to become Phoenix's shopping boulevard one day. Projects like this help tremendously - imagine a condo tower adjacent to it one day? West Van Buren has so much potential - I would love to see the warehouses between 5th-6th redeveloped next. I wish the County wasn't so pathetic and would lease out the ground level of the Security Building to give it a proper entrance from Central.
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There's right now 300' of vacant retail on 8,400 feet of frontage between the 7s, most of which is gobbled up with messes like the Chase Tower and garage, the telco building, Arizona Center, the Mercado, the public transit building and adjacent Wells Fargo garage, the pending disaster of the Central Station redevelopment, three crummy hotels, and three auto service centers. The only vaguely luminescent (not going to use the word bright) spots to happen to it in decades are the side-ass of the District and a disused office lobby for Freeport McMoran.
All situated on a 35 MPH arterial with narrow sidewalks, no parallel parking, and no shade to speak of.
Take off the rose-colored glasses. We will be long dead in the ground before a shopping street gets rehabbed out of that.