^I agree. T&C is at least exploring the idea of transforming itself to remain relevant vs. dying a slow death.

On that note, the developer would want to use caution with the placement of tall buildings. It would be a shame to block the shops from view of the street.

An Ace Hardware would be a much better fit in the Westward Ho's eastern commercial space. We have an Ace in the South Lake Union area of downtown Seattle that is called City Hardware. They basically cater to the apartment and townhome dwellers. Lots of little stuff like paint, hand sanders, plumbing, small house plants. It's in a pretty small building and really does a good job serving the needs of the community. Just a place to get keys made and pick up paint downtown would be a nice change. They could stock that graffiti removal spray and make a killing

BTW, I still think Crispy is wrong. There's no way a 5 Guys is opening there. Smashburger still has Summer 2011 listed for a new Phoenix location.

The ACE at 19th/Grand/McDowell is not a regular consumer-oriented store. It is "associated with Ace Commercial Industrial Supply" per their website. It is oriented towards contractors, closes at 4pm m-f, noon on Saturday and is not open on Sunday. The closest consumer ACE to my house is at 19th Ave and Indian School.

The hours at that Ace admittedly suck, but they are just as helpful as any other location and, if anything, they seem to have a slightly better selection of items each time I visit. It requires a little more planning for a DYI project, but it beats driving to another Ace, or even worse, to a Home Depot or Lowe's, which are both about 7 miles away. :shrug:

I'd love to see something happen at that intersection, but the cynic in me doesn't believe you'll see any of that stuff happen. Why is Tom Horne suddenly all about developing his building? That thing has sat underutilized for several years. Seems odd that he would suddenly want to redevelop it now when the market for such things is at an all-time low.

I may be...I'm still pretty confident they're going in there. I heard Chipotle and a frozen yogurt place will be open by November. Should see permits coming across in the next couple weeks.

I doubt that it is Tom Horne's building. He just rented space for a campaign office there.

Thank you for saying it. Referring to it as the Tom Horne building made my blood pressure rise! :D

I called it that because Tom Horne did own that building up until 10/29/2010. I didn't realize he had sold it off last fall. Now that he has sold it, maybe the new owners will redevelop it.

And insofar as people like supporting links, here you go

http://recorder.maricopa.gov/recdocd...s&suf=&Pages=3

Good new for Town & Country...

Good news: the Oasis on Grand project is coming along and is apparently shooting for a September '11 opening!

http://vanishingphoenix.com/2011/05/...breaks-ground/

http://oasisongrand.com/

This is a terrific project and just what Lower Grand needs to become a bona fide, walkable, arts & culture district. I hope someday the Las Palmas Inn on Grand/9th/Polk can be rehabilitated in a similar way.

What's funny is about 8 years ago the guy who owned the place said he was going to do this and all the gallery owners (trunk space and whatever else was there at the time) laughed at him and called bullshit. We never heard anything about it until recently and bam. Shame that even the pioneers of the neighborhoods can't contribute to the area in any constructive capacity.

That's great news - I drive through that intersection every day to get to and from work but oddly enough I haven't noticed anything. I hope the area gets developed, right now it seems like a pretty sketchy area - the empty lots, car chop shops, boxing arena and buildings with no street facing windows.

There's a lot of going on along Lower Grand, although it has a sort of DIY quality to it and not as much visibility as high-profile projects in the Downtown Core (e.g. CityScape). Right across the street from the Oasis is the ever-popular Bikini Lounge and the recently-opened Indie Arthouse, where I bought my wife some gifts for our upcoming anniversary. (I think/hope she doesn't lurk on this forum.) A little bit down the street, there's the Bragg Pie Factory and a few other galleries.

There's even an annual Grand Avenue festival, I believe at some point in the fall. With all that going on, the major challenge is that Grand can be hard to get to. It's farther than most people will walk from light rail, and there's no local bus route along Grand. As a result, most visitors arrive by car or bike. There was talk a year or so ago of a sort of DIY trolley project along Grand to connect eventually with light rail at Central Station. I haven't heard much lately, though.

That would be sweet if they could resurrect a trolley line from central station across van buren up Grand all the way past 15th ave. That was basically already a historic streetcar line, just bring it back. Similar to how they brought back the 4th ave trolley in tucson.

EDIT: after doing a quick search on the historic tucson trolley (old pueblo trolley), it appears that was brought back from the dead for the 1985 100th anniversary of the university of arizona. Bringing back a trolley on grand avenue would have been a great way to celebrate the Arizona Centennial in 2012... maybe it's not too late.

EDIT2:
What if this was a streetcar line, and instead of just heading up Grand, it made a loop around NoDo (j/k - northern downtown). I know it would be impossible to cross the existing light rail line twice, but if there was a loop from central station, west on Van Buren, NW up Grand to 15th Ave, then east on Roosevelt all the way to 4th St, south on 4th St to Van Buren then west on Van Buren back to Central station... that would tie in all of the great parts of northern downtown. It would connect the Grand Ave art scene to the Roosevelt St art scene, connect the BioScience area to everything, connect the Sheraton to everything, and having a streetcar along Roosevelt from 4th St to 15th Ave (probably our most historic urban in-tact stretch of street) would be amazing. On First Fridays they could run the historic trolley cars and connect Grand with Roosevelt (two great areas, but relatively disconnected on First Fridays. The whole stretch would be just over 3 miles.

http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...g?t=1306428080

That is truly awesome. Projects like this are what is going to make Phoenix great. I'd trade three skycrapers (OK, two) for a project like this. Thanks for the heads up, Hoover.

Hello! :D This is cool...I love seeing positive shit going on in DT.

RCPM, I'm there!