For what it is, it's not bad and it is a big improvement over Hampton Inn. I would've liked to have seen this at least as tall as Hampton at 11 floors. But it does look like some good infill and addresses the street quite well.

Totally forgot about this one...

Edit: Since on the subject of development along Jackson St, permit activity still happening for the Home2Suites Hotel and adaptive re-use of the Fuller Paint Company Warehouse. Nice 6-story infill development

Agreed. I dig it.

I have been updating the Wikipedia page and Emporis per information CrestedSaguaro has posted :cheers:

I've been occasionally updating Wiki as well. I can't get Emporis to correct anything though after sending them several emails. I wasn't aware I could edit Emporis? Do you need an account?

Thunderbird Legacy should be a really cool project and even tho it's one I forgot about I'm especially looking forward to.

Preserve the front third of an old outmoded warehouse, redo the windows on Jackson opening it back up to the world, 200 keys, 200 residential units, hitting the FAA height limits with only a zoning formality--smart thinking there. That's gonna be a groundbreaking project for the Warehouse District.

Thanks Crested for posting the fact finding sheets. We deeply appreciate your FOIA requests.

When was emporis ever updated by somebody here? They have always been extremely persnickety about edits.

More from AZ Central on the Steinegger Lodge, the plan to demo it, why it can't be saved and confirmation that CSM wants to build a residential high-rise in it's location.

View in incognito mode if you access it.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...ng/3201590001/

Hey everyone I am new to the group and have been reading your post for awhile and decided to join. I am born and raised here in the Valley and it's pretty cool to see the development during the last 5 years. I am still a little confused on why Phoenix has such a small downtown with such a big population. I know some of it has to do with the airport and some due to height restrictions. Things like urban sprawl plays a part to but it's still very surprising when I visit cities like Austin, Denver, and Seattle to see the difference in the skyline and downtown development. What do y'all feel needs to happen for our downtown to catch up?

You pretty much hit it on the head already...urban sprawl. Explosive growth and nearly unlimited land growth contributed to a smaller downtown. Denver and Austin have tons of space to grow and are growing fast, but they are not anywhere near the land size of Phoenix's metro. Also, it's not so much FAA height limits. We have taller height limits than San Diego and yet, look at San Diego.

As for what Phoenix needs to do...it just needs to keep doing what it's doing and we will catch up quickly. ;)

Strictly talking about height, I doubt you will ever see the heights of those other cities, but if/when Astra goes up I think it will push what heights are acceptable even higher. That area has a lot of potential for height and changing the skyline.

The area immediately south of talking stick and chase field needs at least some buildings, because the view from Jefferson south just looks like the city abruptly ends. I think a development that could really energize that area would be if Virgin/Brightline developed a high speed rail station like it has in Miami and connect Phoenix to other cities with an actual alternative to flying or road trips.

Then Roosevelt and Midtown have a lot of potential as well.

I think over the next 20 years or so - downtown skyline/development will move south towards the Salt River - if the river’s restoration plan is followed. There has been purchases of large chunks of land along the river by developers that are under other uses. Many other factors play into this - most notably our willingness to work/live in high rises after this (and future) viruses have been dealt with. Right now the trend is out of the cities and back out to the suburbs.

Keep up the great work! I appreciate it. :cheers:

I appreciate you sharing this, Crested. Keep up the great work on the Wikipage. :cheers:

Phoenix grew up in the time of peak suburbanization, the downtown basically did not change between 1975 and 2005

Most of the people who moved here en mass between 1960 ad 2010 were transplants from the east and midwest that wanted their own little slice of the suburban dream. You will see this sentiment still among older transplants that actively hate highrise construction even if they dont live downtown.

My biggest wish is if we created an observation deck on the NE corner of Van Buren and 7th Avenue. I know everyone mocked The Pin idea a few years back, but if they did a tower of a flaming Phoenix (where the colors could change). For the FAA Height Max zone it would be in Area 15 aka the Max height. Ideally, the planning for this would be after Astra and Rastegar coming to fruition. With those two being over 540ft, it could increase the maximum height across the board (particularly for Area 15). Sprinkle in the completed developments on Filmore St between Central and 7th Ave. (hoping this will generate more density between Filmore and Van Buren). I just feel like an observation deck of a blazing Phoenix (with different colors) would be SO ICONIC. Plus, it might reinvigorate (no pun intended) the development of Grand Avenue. In all seriousness, I would'nt mind if they just used something similar like the Phoenix Firebirds' logo (I'm a Giants' fan for a reason, so this would be a dream come true. Haha) or other renditions of the City of Phoenix logo.

What are your thoughts?

Unfortunately you cant edit emporis even with an account, I only started emailing updates last week but yet to get a response.

I have loaded new towers that are already approved, Astra I & II & Garfield House, and the following pending approval The Edith, McKinley Green & Thunderbird Legacy. It can take up to a week or longer for approval process

Story time!

Phoenix was never a port city or anything like that, it was picked as the center of a fairly large agricultural area when it was founded--homesteads stretched very very far around the area the townsite in 1900. Thomas Rd was considered North Phoenix in 1950--the pre-war population in Phoenix was very small compared to other established cities which is why downtown is small but it was bustling in its day and on its death knell for many years after Park Central was built. Streetcars meandered around as far as 20th St, 19th Ave, an interurban to Glendale, lines like that. But they didn't survive the post war economy as the larger area suburbanized.

North Central Avenue was basically stately mansions that started to come down in the 1960s. Then, an urban renewal trend starting with county and city government buildings and later commercial buildings in the 1970s hit downtown, but it really wasn't sustained and the immediate area looked like a large nuclear bomb went off around 1980 as white flight and later the open air crack markets ravaged the central city. Phoenix wasn't that great a place to live, it was crime ridden and corrupt during this period.

Around then, and for a while, Downtown wasn't really looked at like a mixed use urban neighborhood but an anti-urban office and government district surrounded by a collection of single uses like parking garages, convention centers, arenas, stadiums, that sort of thing. It would serve a daytime population and a nighttime population but not both if that makes sense.

That was pretty much the case until 2004 or so and the urban renewal continued with ASU and the biomedical stuff landing downtown. Although there were a few signature developments like Post Roosevelt Square or whatever it it is today, what was a ghost town or gay/affordable housing ghetto had normies actually begin to want to live in the area, and although little was built during condomania preceding the Great Recession, downtown started to finally pick up.

To answer your question, opportunity zone tax credits are behind most of the dozen+ cranes in the sky today, an unexpected thing I've been waiting for for most of the last 20 years that has pretty much turned the place around within the last five years and will put a huge population downtown and further development.

Not to get political, but that is something we can thank the current administration for Phoenix's revitalization!

Another big part of this is wage growth. Will we see taller buildings? perhaps but it really comes down to the developers feasibility to justify costs to rents or projected sales for condos to achieve a return. Areas like San Diego, Denver and Austin all have much higher wages - and rents therefore developers can build big beautiful skyscapers can charge a premium high enough to fill the building up. I hope to see that we can continue to attract top talent and 6-figure earners to the downtown phoenix workforce. As lots start to get filled in around the downtown area, the only place to go is up.

That's a pretty good history!


Only other thing I would add is: Jerry Colangelo. He is/was a major advocate for DT development - especially when downtown was at its most 'dead'. His fingerprints are all over the place.

IMO, he was just as instrumental to what downtown is today as the ASU/Biomedical campuses etc.

100% agree on giving credit to Colangelo, aka The Godfather of Phoenix Sports, as well!