Apple's upcoming 3D mapping has been updated to include Phoenix. Looks pretty cool.

http://9to5mac.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/img_0807.png

Hotel Monroe sale dead, but possible deal still remains

There was actually an article on this in Friday's Business Journal...

A $7 million deal between the prospective buyer of the long-empty, 81-year-old Hotel Monroe and the downtown Phoenix building’s receivership owner has been terminated.
But the buyer — Evergreen Development Co. Inc. — could come back and buy the Phoenix building later if it can secure financing and environmental damage to the 31-story building can be fixed.
Phoenix-based Evergreen has been looking to buy the empty Hotel Monroe building at Central Avenue and Monroe Street from ML Manager LLC, the receivership entity that took over for the bankrupt Mortgages Ltd. commercial real estate firm.
ML Manager COO Mark Winkleman said the current deal with Evergreen is off but a new deal could be crafted.
“There has been a technical termination of the escrow in order for the buyer to avoid forfeiting its earnest money. We are still analyzing a couple of issues and it is uncertain as of this moment whether or not the escrow will be reinstated,” Winkleman said.
Evergreen representatives said the company needs more time to move forward with the possible sale.
“Evergreen continues to work toward the acquisition of the Hotel Monroe property,” said spokeswoman Lauren Charpio.
Evergreen and ML Manager are working through the complicated deal details. Charpio refused to say when a new deal might be brought forth or what was causing delays.
Evergreen and Westroc Hotels and Resorts CEO Scott Lyon could redevelop the weather-beaten Monroe building into a 150-room boutique hotel. The 13-story, 157,000-square-foot property sits on a prime parcel in downtown Phoenix just south of the Chase Tower.
It is one of the remaining projects caught up in the demise of Mortgages Ltd., which resulted in a spate of commercial foreclosures and bankruptcies throughout the Valley. It’s also an undeveloped eyesore in the middle of downtown Phoenix.
The building has been vacant for several years and exposed to the elements. Several potential buyers have come and gone without buying the commercial building.
Now-defunct Scottsdale developer Grace Communities bought the building in 2007 for $27 million via Mortgage Ltd. financing. Grace went under and the property reverted to Mortgages Ltd. and subsequently ML Manager.
Evergreen develops real estate projects including shopping centers, most anchored by Walgreens stores. Westroc owns the Hotel Valley Ho in Scottsdale and the Sanctuary Resort in Paradise Valley.

http://www.phoenix.gov/news/080612usairways.html
Well thats good news, even if I would never fly US Airways I'm glad it looks like jobs will be staying in the Valley.

Hmm, I don't know how I missed that. Thanks for the update. I really hope the building gets restored. It would be a shame for such a great building to sit vacant much longer, and it would be a terrible loss if the building were torn down entirely.

Wow! Very cool! Thanks!

Perhaps, if you want to download the Google Earth. Please go to www.google.com and type it down the search box and say "Google Earth".

I seriously doubt Phoenix will actually remain as a significant hub unless there's some overarching reason for the combined US Airways/American to have hubs so close to each other. Honestly I give it two years before PHX is left holding the bag if the merger is approved. Would love to be corrected wrong on the matter...

I agree. In the last 5 years alone take a look at how mergers fared for Milwaukee (Midwest/Frontier), Las Vegas (America West/US Airways), Memphis (Northwest/Delta), or Cincinatti (Delta). Cleveland (Continental/United) will be the next and if this merger goes through, Phoenix won't be far behind. I'm not saying PHX will decimated to such a large extent as any of those cities, but it will have less flying overall by a merged US Airways and American.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...&v=wK_BlCWOg24

Interesting video regarding downtown Phoenix

Awesome video. So many misconceptions of AZ, and Downtown is only getting better.

Interesting video, it seems more geared at locals who have conceptions/misconceptions about Downtown PHX. Most visitors don't really have any preconceived notions about what Downtown PHX is, though most do complain that there's "nothing to do" and "where's the shopping?" and such, so we still have a long way to go.

It is funny that the character mentions how PHX has great Mexican food though in reality Downtown PHX (the CBD that is) doesn't really have any Mexican places.

The very fact that such a video needs to be made, or that someone felt it needs to be made, shows that Downtown still has a very long way to go.

EDIT: Also, it seems weird that they promoted taking a taxi to downtown and not LRT.

VVV You're probably right, I didn't think of that! Though if thats the case it certainly didn't address the lack of hotel rooms in Downtown PHX, probably because there's no way to sugarcoat the lack of rooms.

Actually I thought it was at least partially geared towards convention planners, who may have a lot of the misconceptions about downtown Phoenix that the video attempts to address.

This is also who I assume the video was targeted towards. Downtown still needs a grocery store, a shopping mall, and some more hotel/office and residential towers. It will happen :)

A shopping mall...no. That is a suburban construct, but a retail street or district with shops facing the street and entrances off the sidewalks...yes. Something like Mill Ave but bigger with more offerings and some department stores. A real downtown experience. That won't happen anytime soon. I am, however, warming up to the idea of a City Target in downtown Phoenix...

Chicago:
http://chicago.racked.com/uploads/Ci...pening0912.JPG

Minneapolis:
http://www.phototour.minneapolis.mn.us/pics/7472.jpg

But not like the one in Seattle...another big, blank gray wall despite the fact that it has plenty of windows:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/insidebell...3/IMG_0286.jpg

every major city's shopping district I've ever been to has at least one mall, the largest of which is the Water Tower Center in Chicago. Yup, that's definitely as suburban as it gets. /sarcasm

I think some type of mall would be fine in downtown phx. Even better if it was a mix outdoor/indoor mall, in my mind what Cityscape should have been. Manhattan, San Francisco, Chicago etc all have malls in their downtown city core. Phoenix ultimately needs a combination of a lot of different things in order to make the downtown and midtown areas more appealing.

We are starting to argue semantics here (along with VL John) but when I think of a mall I think of Metro Center, or Chandler Fashion and not an urban retail plaza like in Manhattan or Chicago. Generally those centers are built inside highrises or multiple buildings on multiple floors because retail space along streets are nearly nonexistent...which creates a need for building up.

Phoenix is basically a wasteland of street level retail and that will need to be addressed first. Some type of indoor/outdoor retail center with all sides having ground level retail facing the street and having sidewalk access would make sense in Phoenix LONG AFTER the city develops a "shopping boulevard" in downtown. And after enough residential density is built to support that level of retail activity.

Thats also a trend thats very 30 years ago. Most malls, suburban and urban, across the country are dying in some form or fashion. Look at PV, Christown, Los Arcos, MetroCenter, Desert Sky, Park Central, etc. locally. Many have been retrofitted to become New Urbanist town centers, others have been converted into things more closely resembling Desert Ridge or Tempe Marketplace. Fashion Square (and malls like it, i.e. Copley Place in Boston), because of its long standing cache in the community, is able to buck the trend.

Arizona Center was supposed to be our 'downtown mall' and that fell flat for a variety of a reasons. Even though its brutally hot here 4 months out of the year, I think the development of more and more outdoor shopping centers over the past 15 years has shown that in this market, thats probably the smart way to go.

Plus where would you even put a traditional "mall" in downtown PHX? There's really not the contiguous land area for it unless you wanted to do 1. mass 'urban renewal' or 2. Elevated said mall above the street in various buildings, connected by street deadening skywalks. Either way, both bad ideas.

Our best hope is to hope for an interconnected series of pedestrian/shopping/nightlife type, ie URBAN type of streets.

*Roosevelt between the 7's as the artsy, bohemian, boutique district (its already getting really close to being this). Eventually this could expand from 15th Ave to 16th St, though at much lower density beyond the 7's.

*Jackson St evolving into the nightlife area, something akin to Mill Ave or 5th Ave in Scottsdale.

*Washington from 1st Ave to 2nd St being sort of the hub of the whole system, combining retail & nightlife (it already has the beginnings of this).

*Central from Jackson to Roosevelt being something akin to Boston's Newbury street, that is made up of smaller middle to higher end stores, nightlife, hotels, etc. We see the beginnings of this already with the Westin, Michaels Jewlers, Urban Outfitters, the Public Market & nightclubs on North Central.

* Van Buren between the 7's being home to the more major department type stores and chains. AZ Center is the start of that, and the Urban Form code calls for similar uses along the Van Buren corridor. So if we ever get a Downtown department store again, thats likely where it would go (with the exception of a City Target @ CityScape)

* Lower Grand from the I-10 to Van Buren as a secondary artsty, bohemian, boutique shopping street. This will likely take the longest to develop because its the furthest off the beaten path, furthest from LRT and being able to support multiple boutique type streets within the City core might be tough.

Or since a picture is worth a thousand words:
http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg17/...ng&res=landing

Downtown PHX currently lacks any place to stroll, shop, and simply enjoy all things urban. We have lots of pockets of good stuff, but its hard to stumble upon because you'd have to pass too many parking lots, blank walls and dirt lots. Until we have at least one fully connected street (I think Roosevelt gets there 1st), Downtown will be far from complete. Working on a complete network like I've outlined is likely a 50 year mission, depressingly.

When I said "Shopping Mall" I wasn't insisting they move Metro Center to Downtown PHX. I'm talking about something similar to a Scottsdale Quarter type mall. A Horton Plaza, like San Diego has, would probably be overdoing it.

Yes, PHX does need to become more walkable, but once developers start building like crazy again and all the dirt lots are suddenly gone, your "50 year mission to stroll, shop and simply enjoy all things urban", will be accomplished in 20 years. I imagine that in 10 years most of the PHX naysayers will be gone.

New Urbanism in a traditional downtown! NOOOOO...LOL! I know some of you disagree but I'm still thinking of traditional street life and shopping along a corridor or corridors first. I'm not sure 10 years is enough to transform downtown Phoenix. Can we attract an additional 30,000 residents into the footprint of downtown like has been pointed to as necessary for real retail development (recent Republic article)? Highly doubtful...

That would be an ADDITIONAL 30,000 in less than 1.5 square miles on top of the 10,000-12,000 residents here already. I'm thinking in 10 years an additional 10,000-15,000 is reasonable but not more...

Just gonna say, Spokane has a mall in it's downtown, Phoenix has much more people and stuff going on downtown than Spokane. I've lived in both cities. Spokane's downtown, however, is much more a focal point of the city than Phoenix's downtown and most of it has to do with the fact that it has a giant park along the river front downtown that happened to host a worlds fair. So I guess my conclusion is Phoenix could support a downtown mall (adapted to it's surroundings and not a giant enclosed arena type place) because it has more people downtown than a place like Spokane.