Westin, Freeport to fill new downtown high-rise
By Jahna Berry

A Westin hotel with up to 278 rooms could open in downtown Phoenix as early as 2011.

The hotel is expected to occupy eight stories of One Central Park East, a recently competed 26-story high-rise near Central Avenue and Van Buren Street, according to the National Electrical Benefit Fund, the building's owner.

The fund plans to invest an additional $30 million to $40 million into the $175 million office building to build hotel rooms, to construct a hotel entrance and to create a pool deck, said Ryan Whitaker, an equity investment officer for the fund.
The hotel entrance will face Central Avenue, across the street from the Van Buren/Central light rail stop and Central Station.

All of the hotel rooms will be suites, and the hotel operator plans to target business travelers. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. has signed a letter of intent to operate the Westin hotel for the fund, Whitaker said.

The rest of the building - the top six floors and possibly a seventh floor - will be the new home of Freeport McMoRan-Copper & Gold.

The international mining company's headquarters is currently located at One North Central Ave. Freeport plans to move to One Central Park East by the second quarter of 2010.

Freeport has agreed to lease 185,000 square feet, and its name will appear at the top of the building.

The complex will be called Freeport-McMoRan Center, said Eric Kinneberg a company spokesman.

The Thursday announcement means that the 26-story building will be almost completely occupied.

The first floor of the complex is the lobby level and the second through first 10th floors are parking levels.

Construction began in 2007 and the building was completed in November.

thanks, chief.

Deleted.

lookin good!

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...a/DSC_0786.jpg

Stupid Cityscape...imagine how good that would have looked between the Sheraton and Colliers.

I was actually thinking stupid Sheraton. There are three buildings you cannot see because of that monstrosity.

Move to the left when you take the picture. The view of DT from the east on the 202 is awesome!!!!!! Cityscape fills in the DT view perfectly!

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but GoDaddy.com had it's annual Christmas party downtown at Chase field again this weekend. $3 million dollars this time. They flew employees in from different parts of the country to attend, and they stayed downtown in the hotels. According to the article, GoDaddy is still growing and is adding data centers around the world.

So... when will we be seeing the GoDaddy.com tower downtown... the new tallest building in the state? They need to consolidate and he needs to build a signature tower. What is their lease or office situation in scottsdale like?

http://www.azcentral.com/community/s...gbash1216.html

GoDaddy seems pretty high profile with how they present themselves...I think they want to have a Scottsdale HQ just because it sounds a lot richer, I don't know if they would move to Phoenix.

The owner is here in Phoenix!!!!

Ive often wondered this myself, sadly it seems like the few big local firms we do have don't have much civic pride or they dont see the benefit of putting an iconic tower with their name on it (see: theyre short sighted). CSK Auto group has a small office complex in Uptown, with them being one of Arizonas few Fortune 500 companies youd think theyd be able or interested in more of a downtown presence, but nope.

Cold Stone Creamery is another big local firm thats just sitting in a nondescript office complex along the 101. I worked on a Food Network show at their complex and got to go inside "Ice Cream University" and meet their taste master guy who invents all the new flavors and stuff, it was cool (I got to taste an experimental BBQ ice cream- yuck!). But it seems like if they were smart they'd have their offices downtown, with a Cold Stone on the bottom floor and the big ice cream university place downstairs and available for tours and taste tests and such. But again that would take some thinking beyond "where can I put our offices so that I have the shortest commute" from the CEO.

/\ :yes:

(and that cold stone idea is fucking awesome.... i mean really, the tower complex you described would be a destination. They'd probably even have field trips there for schools.)

And the great thing about a Cold Stone Tower would be the ground floor surrounding the building would be chilled marble and that would cool downtown temps by 10 degrees. :ohyeah

cold stone is actually already in design phase of a new tower downtown and I have the sneak preview rendering...

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d6...untitled-4.jpg

Vicelord, sure that isn't a view of a woman in blue shorts bending over?

Regents OK $187M expansion for medical school
Phoenix Business Journal - by Angela Gonzales

The Arizona Board of Regents has endorsed a $187 million expansion for the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University.

At its recent meeting in Tucson, the board approved plans to build a 268,000-square-foot health sciences education building and other improvements on the downtown Phoenix Biomedical Campus. This will allow the medical school to train more physicians and strengthen the presence of the UA College of Pharmacy and other health-related colleges on the campus.

While it has been endorsed by the regents, UA must wait for a review by the Joint Committee on Capital Review before ground can be broken. The expansion plan has been approved twice by the Arizona Legislature and signed by the governor, but still must be reviewed by the committee. The committee is scheduled to reconvene after the first of the year.

Fingers crossed!!!

Two random thoughts I had while wondering Central Phoenix today:

- Theres a fence around part of the historic Post Offices south side, this couldnt be them getting ready to build the ASU Student Union could it? I thought that was on hold or still a ways off.

- On Central & Camelback where the rail bends theres a small island in the middle of the road full of cacti, succulents and desert flora, it looks nice now and will be even better when it grows in. Where the rail bends to down 1st Ave just South of Roosevelt there's another big median/island, this one is full of gravel- what gives? That island is actually bigger and could be a nice place for a bench with some trees, etc. Central/Downtown Phx has to do a better job being smart about the little things like that if it wants to succeed.

Salem, Oregon for instance has Waldo "Park" which is a 12 foot by 20 foot space of green in an intersection. Mostly its just a giant tree, but its beautiful and its a nice little bit of local kitsch. Our median on 1st Ave/Roosevelt could be similar, plant a fremont cottonwood there along with some flowers, agaves, cacti and a bench and you'd have yourself a nice little pocket of green heat relief. Instead we've just got another gravely, dusty heat sink.

EDIT: For reference, here's the spot Im talking about, seen in Google Maps:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/9412/pocketpark.png

This would be money for the building you previously posted a rendering of, right?

EDIT: VVV Yah I dont know if there would ever be enough critical mass in that spot for a newsstand, wouldnt that make more sense nearer the office towers and such? Either way with things like the Kindle newsstands may be a thing of the past.

Also, has anyone seen the chess/checkers tables at the Civic Space park ever being used? I was so excited when I saw them, it seems very cool and big city-ish, but I never see anyone using them :(

^If there was ever enough critical mass, I always thought that would be a perfect location for a Central Phoenix newsstand (a la Harvard Square). Then again, newsstands are going the way of the dodo...

Looks like the Wyndham downtown will be rebranded as Renaissance Hotel by Marriott if this tax deal is approved...

http://www.azcentral.com/community/p...hotel1216.html