Downtown Phoenix Retail

[combusean]

some reflections...

I do most of my shopping at chains and have noticed a "retail donut hole" around downtown.

Guitar Center and Fry's Electronics, are more or less equidistant from downtown. I can drive to North Phoenix or Tempe to go to these stores. I go to PetSmart or WalMart or Target or Costco on occasion...I prefer the Spectrum Mall locations for these stores but 40th-ish and Thomas is just as far from me.

When I was looking for a gym, I noticed Gold's has finally closed that for themselves. Same with Urban Outfitters. Instead of being "centrally located to nothing" as Central Phoenix sometimes feels like, something feels actually here for once. Of course, those are just two brands.

Somewhere I read, I think it was John that pointed out that another CityScape store, Urban Outfitters, indicates to other retailers that formerly sketchy areas like downtown are "ready" on some level for mass market appeal and gentrification, that it's safe for other chains to open a location here.

I was at a Roosevelt meeting, still on a Chicago high, and we were talking about Urban Form. I mentioned that one thing downtown Phoenix is lacking that are in other cities are "stumps" that are 5 or 6 stories but crammed to the brim with department stores on upper floors and pedestrian friendly shops on lower floors. Their comparatively lower height balances out the scale of large surrounding buildings. And I had been wanting a Macy's downtown for a while.

Needless to say, that did not go over well, and is part of the reason I don't go to Roosevelt meetings. A bitch at the table declared the Q&A was over, the lady with the accent leading the discussion schooled me on boutique retail like I didn't already know.

Some random questions:

Where do you guys do your shopping? I'm mostly looking at non-grocery items but those are apropos to: do you get most of your basic stuff at one place or do you go to lots of places? Especially for random things like hobbies (art, music, athletics, etc.) are you going to get it at a chain store or independent shop? How far do you have to drive?

In "looking forward" to the next cycle...whenever it comes...I'd like to say downtown Phoenix was a classic example of bad timing. The boom was mostly good to us, but it was too late and too little: most of the money was spent in California first, and we didn't have anything open yet that started to draw people in finally like ASU, light rail, or a major anchor like CityScape. I think the next cycles should finally give us a tower crane count of respectable cities.

What will that next boom offer in terms of construction? In terms of projects and judging what we've built so far, what's next? What does the retail look like in what you want built?

CityScape is the first complex since Arizona Center to offer stores that don't typically cater to the 9-5 office worker or tourist kitsch. The vast majority of the complex will still be this--the restaurant mall will be as busy during lunch as dinner. We all know how AZ Center turned out, however--it didn't survive as a destination and much of its retail was converted to office. (Yet somehow the BCBG New York store survives. I don't fucking understand that at all) CityScape will open with as much fanfare in similar bad times. What do you think will happen to CityScape over the long term?

What should downtown look like and offer to solve all your retail needs?

[Leo the Dog]

I see many problems with CS retail, I'll name two:
1) there isn't enough stuff there to even come close to a Phx strip mall. I agree with you: We need a Macy's like department store. What's the anchor there? An overpriced bowling alley? How many more restaurants do we need in an over saturated area? AZ Center already has numerous options. It just seems like they signed anybody willing to pay a lease there. Its a very strange mix, a gym, a bowling alley, urban to cater to all those hip kids in DT(?) and more restaurants than we know what to do with all with zero new residential units, which leads me to number 2.

2) it was built in an area with one of the lowest population density settlement patterns in Phx metro. Where are the people going to come from? Hyatt, Sheraton, sports fans and gov't workers?? Wow, this just sounds like a disaster, especially during these times. I hope its not another City North ghost town.

When I shop, I go to big chains (better deals, more sales, retail is struggling). I like Tempe Marketplace bc one can go to big box best buy/target, or your typical mall stores, like finish line, all in one place. And its nice and cool even in the summer months with the misters and open doors.

[PHX31]

I was trying to think of where I go to shop and I don't really buy anything. I probably do most of my shopping online. The last few things I've purchased have been a grill (from Lowe's in Peoria), basketball shoes and a pair of shorts (from Sport's Authority at 16th St and Camelback - I later found the same shoes for much less online so I took the shoes back), and a t-shirt (from Bunky Boutique, formerly next to The Roosevelt).

I really think the outskirts of downtown, surrounding and north of ASU, need to be constructed with 3 to 6 story buildings that have a mix of nice and more affordable residential units on top. I just doesn't seem possible given the superblocks and ridiculous land costs.

[HooverDam]

I wrote a nice long response earlier this morning and it appears the forum Gods ate it.

When I lived Downtown I too did most of my shopping at Christown. At the time there was a Target nearer on 7th Ave and Camelback, and I went there a fair bit. It still baffles me that even with the low population downtown that we don't see more large scale retail Downtown, Im sure the residents of Coronado, Willo, etc. would likely prefer to go Downtown instead of out to Christown (its slightly closer as well as being more interesting). At the very least Id think Park Central would be more of a retail hub than it is, there are very expensive (and occupied) residences all around it.

Retail of course follows rooftops though and until downtown has more people living in it, it'll continue to be a problem. I'd assume we won't see more people living downtown until we have more people working downtown. Our CBD is very small compared to most cities our size and this is a huge problem. The more people who work downtown, the more 9-5 businesses will exist. The more people who work downtown the more people will come to like downtown and see that its safe and clean and an OK place to live. If we vastly increase downtown workers it seems to me by the very nature housing will have to follow eventually.

Its disappointing that some dolts like you ran into at the Roosevelt meeting want a boutique only strategy. That'll never happen and if it did, it would be doomed to fail. Look at the Galleria or CityNorth, boutiques are fine, without anchors though they can't usually survive.

To me what the City of Phoenix desperately needs to do is try to get more large firms to move Downtown. The first order of business should be to try to attract firms like PetsMart, CSK Auto and Cold Stone to move downtown, specifically to the West Van Buren corridor.

Like I've said West Van Buren between Central and 7th Ave is Phoenix's best hope for a retail street downtown due to being zoned for large buildings that will have large floor plates and thus could house large anchor retail like Pennys, Macys, Khols, etc.

With the potential Heritage Trolley line running up and down Lower Grand, if it was extended down Van Buren to connect to a (totally revamped) Central Station it could really make West VB something special and unique. And being unique and different is what any downtown retail area is going to need to draw people from the 'burbs.

Here's a quick Google map I mocked up of how Id hope W. VB would develop:


Red= New retail
Yellow= Adaptive reuse of warehouses, boutique retail
Blue= Office
Grey line= Trolley

*Note the office could be over the retail, there's just no way to denote that 3 dimensionality on Google Maps.

Hotel and some housing could be there as well, but I was trying to mostly show the office and retail. Then Lower Grand could continue to develop as the funky boutique shopping street that so many Downtown hipsters want and would likely see spill over from West VB and people riding the trolley.

[combusean]

A Kohls downtown would be awesome. They are the SHINING example of the donut hole: the closet stores are in Mesa, Deer Valley, and Avondale.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=u...ed=0CCEQtgMwAA

I've had long fantasies of what Downtown would look like with the 1,500,000 square feet of Amex's Deer Valley facility moved south--that's 3 Central Park Easts.

I'd also really like to see PetSmart moved as well as an anchor tenant in a high-rise downtown with a flagship PetSmart store at the base. I like them very much as a company (I got my cat from their partnership with Halo).

They would be perfect fits on West Van Buren.

Downtown attracting established tenants from deep outside the central core would be a significant turning point in its history.

PHX31 ... I hear you on the lower rise stuff on the outside. I was thinking about the long lost aloft hotel project and how good a 6 story version of something like that would look north of O'Neill Printing on 3rd Ave.

You can take care of West Van Buren Hoover, I have way high hopes for West Fillmore in the future. One thing that annoys me about its present state is all the stop signs downtown, especially the lack of them on Fillmore. It's annoying during the day when there's traffic. While I generally enjoy the convenience, everytime I drive through those it makes downtown feel more like a dusty western outpost than a major city.

It's endlessly frustrating that Fillmore 555, the Jet, and Copper Pointe never got built. Copper Pointe would have been in bankruptcy but the Jet would have definitely done well as a highrise apartment complex.

Another question: what do you guys think about any possible idea to place the new County Hospital on the Pappas grounds?

[combusean]

Just was on the phone with a very friendly contact at County. Evidently, I didn't know there wasn't a funding source to build a new one. They were looking at 400-550 rooms with a construction cost of $600 million - $1 billion, all of which has to be bonded out.

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by combusean

Another question: what do you guys think about any possible idea to place the new County Hospital on the Pappas grounds?

Wasn't the new County Hospital going to go on the Bio Science campus somewhere, just North of VB? Or am I confused...?