The sun comes up very early in Phoenix in the Summer
 

Those of you who have been here a very long time might remember that I was one of the first two or three Phoenix forumers. It’s a city I dearly love, but had to leave because I got tired of designing projects in places like Anthem and Queen Creek. I left in 2002 and returned regularly through 2014 or so. Oddly while I have been to Arizona almost yearly since then, I hadn’t been to Phoenix at all during that time.
I had to come back for a funeral. Not something I wanted but had to do.
And so I returned last month. I have a great deal of history with this place, and my children and wife had little to no experience with it. The majority of our 4 day trip was spent with family and lurking around old haunts from childhood and college. It was a nostalgic thing for me.
But on Saturday, on nearly the longest day of the year, I managed to get some time alone. When I was in college one of my favorite things to do was to get up early in the summer and watch the sun come up. This could be done in so many places, hiking in the mountain preserve, Papago Park, roaming downtown, or just driving out to the middle of the desert. In the summer watching the sun come up over Four Peaks is truly magical.
So on that Saturday I got up at 4am and made my way to Tempe Butte, a 350ft tall promontory point anchoring downtown Tempe and Town Lake. I was treated to an absolute gem of a sunrise. The light in the desert is just different. I’ve never been able to pinpoint it, maybe it’s as simple as the dryness in the air. I love that sky.
Enough with the essay. Let’s get to the pictures…
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IMG_8323 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8325 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8332 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8336 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8342 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8375 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8393 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Tempe Town Lake was built at great cost and risk by the City of Tempe within the existing Salt River dry bed. It opened in 1999 and 20+ years later has spurred billions in development. Tempe is now easily equal to Scottsdale and East Camelback (Biltmore) as the premier office district in the state. The transformation has been amazing.

Here is a rendering from the early 1990’s:
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tem002 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

And now:
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IMG_8402 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8403 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8412 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8418 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8419 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8422 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8424 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8427 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8428 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

According to the current Phoenix forumers, this is The Pier development and has taken years and years to get to this point…
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IMG_8432 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

I didn’t venture to Mesa this time…there is rarely reason to…
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IMG_8433 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8442 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

The scale of downtown Tempe is so much different than it was when I was at ASU 25 years ago…
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IMG_8443 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8462 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

The Superstitions looming large…
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IMG_8510 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Papago Park, Squaw Peak, Camelback Mountain…my kids were like ‘what are all these rocks in the middle of the city?’
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IMG_8511 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8519 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8529 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

The upsidedown pyramid of Tempe’s City Hall is still badass…
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IMG_8530 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8531 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8533 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

The city has been working on redeveloping the original cotton mill since before I graduated from ASU (1999). Someday it might be something…
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IMG_8535 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8538 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

UofA is a much better school, but of course I’m partial to ASU…
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IMG_8571 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

When Tempe Town Lake opened, ASU created a rowing team. Previously there was no body of water in the state that would work for such a thing. ASU has been relatively successful and unique in that it can be practiced year-round…
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IMG_8580 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8617 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

In the early 1990’s, due to traffic, a twin span was added to the Mill Avenue bridge over the Salt River. Unfortunately the twin span lacks much of the grace and uniqueness of the original…
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IMG_8624 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8660 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8669 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Still a few 19th Century buildings left on Mill Avenue…though not many…
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IMG_8671 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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Being only 6:30am, I ventured to downtown Phoenix to see what I could find interesting down there. I have to say, despite all the new buildings (as there should be), it seems to have actually lost ground to Tempe and Scottsdale as a center of activity for the Valley. That’s just my opinion of course (I don’t live there anymore), but in the small time I was there, it didn’t seem much different than 20 years ago…with one exception… ASU has made a concerted effort to build a downtown campus which does seem to activated many more streets than previously existed. I will say that 20 years ago at 6:30am on a June morning you wouldn’t have found anyone in downtown Phoenix. It did seem more lively now…at least people live there…

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IMG_8688 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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This will eventually be a two tower complex called Central Station if I understand correctly…
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IMG_8731 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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IMG_8754 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

For some reason I cannot remember this building at all from when I lived down here…
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The now empty Chase Bank Plaza…a building I like very much in form (Welton Beckett), but meets the street…poorly to say the least…
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IMG_8777 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

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Whomever decided that the stucco should be painted light landlord beige to contrast with the splitface brown block should be shot…
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At least it’s not pink anymore…
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Finally partook in Matt’s Big Breakfast. It’s pretty good…
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IMG_8842 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Bertrand Goldberg…mmm…
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Midtown looks exactly the same…20 years later…
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mmm…Honey Bears…
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IMG_8889 by Michael Stroh, on Flickr

Scottsdale…had to take my kids to the Sugar Bowl…
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Hole-in-the-Rock…
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This was not much of a view when I lived here…
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South Mountain…
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Phoenix…
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Some panoramics...
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Great tour!

The Sonoran Desert is such a magical place and I am with you on the sunlight, it really is like nowhere else. I love Phoenix for many reasons and it's amazing to see the growth, especially in Tempe. Wonderful pics!

And my condolences.

my brother literally texted me this last night: "hey this is random... didn't you have a friend way way back who was a bass player and was into Rush?"

i wonder how Chris is doing these days, hope all is well. we haven't talked in over a decade.

sweet pics. phoenix is cooler than people give it credit for, the setting, the vibe i get from these pics - especially here where it's one of those places people love to jump on. my SO got to visit a couple of years ago for a conference, regret not tagging along.

Beautiful scenery, I would love to visit Phoenix other than just passing through. Hopefully I can convince my wife to visit for a few days this coming winter.

Some great shots of some of my favorite places :) Papago Park, South Mt., Tempe, Central Ave. When I lived there I use to ride my bike from Tempe over to Central Ave. and ride up South Mt. to enjoy the view. Then cruise back down into downtown Phoenix and ride back to Tempe riding through Sky Harbor Airport on Sky Harbor Blvd. I loved riding my bike all over the valley and occasionally having a monsoon sand storms blow in. Now I really wanna return for a few days... Thank you Plinko :D

We drove by this place when I toured the Southwestern US in summer very long ago, that was in the late 1990s.

I can remember, it was hot, the city looked like a ghost town. People were indoor cause A/C was necessary.

Beautiful pics. Every time I see photos of Tempe I am surprised at how much it has grown.

I suspect at night when the sun goes down a lot of people come outside. I lived in Fresno for five years and the summers are very hot (although not as bad as Phoenix) people either come outside early mornings or later in the evening. The parks were busy and there was a lot of basketball going on at night in the park.

very nice thread. while the modernization is great to see, the unsustainable growth around there makes one sad.

Good photos with some nice views! :tup:

I thought you hinted at this thread a while ago, it was worth the wait - thanks for doing this thread. Gorgeous photos of the sky and sunrise.

Although, I'm a little disappointed possibly the OG Phoenix forumer made these two errors:

1. It was a flour mill, not a cotton mill. :D
2. UofA is not a better school than ASU, in some areas yes, in other areas no. :yuck::tup:

I have aged out of really experiencing the hot spots of the Valley (plus now have kids), but anecdotally, and other Phoenix forumers would definitely know better than me, I think downtown Phoenix (northern areas around Roosevelt mostly, as well as north Central and northeast Phoenix toward Arcadia) I'd say compete with Scottsdale and Tempe although have a different clientele.

The desert metropolis. Good shots, it really has grown a ton. I have a couple of high end home builder friends mainly building around Scottsdale and Paradise Valley, but the amount of massive and complex homes they are doing is insane.

I think ASU has a better campus than U of A as far as architecturally interesting projects are concerned, and the ASU downtown campus is included in that observation.

One of the top-notch threads on this forum.

I’ve been on this forum so d@mn long, I remember when you first joined :eek: Thanks for sharing these great pics, I have in-laws in Phoenix/Scottsdale and so many of these places look familiar but so much has changed since our last trip out there.

Fantastic photo tour!! I visited Phoenix for the first time 4-5 years ago. I really enjoyed the area. I do wish I had a bit for time to explore some of the areas around Phoenix and maybe find some great trails for some great views, but hey, just reasons to come back.

Awesome thread, thanks for posting. I work in Tempe every day and the growth still surprises me sometimes.

I doubt you are interested enough to read the whole book (nor should you be), but if by chance you are, a local booster wrote a book recently pushing back on the idea that Phoenix is unsustainable:

https://www.amazon.com/Future-Suburb...s%2C141&sr=8-2

Reasonable people could disagree about how successful he is in making his case, but I thought at the very least that he was convincing in arguing that Phoenix is not particularly more unsustainable than other modern American cities.

U of A is NOT a better school that is simply Baja Arizona propaganda :yuck: They've been trying to live off of that reputation for 30 years when ASU was a big party School and UofA wasnt but they are pretty on par now.

That being said, Downtown doesn't have a lot going on at 630am, Quite to the reverse of your opinion I think Downtown has been creeping in on Old Towns Market share hard over the last 5 years, Old Town has been stagnant for the most part while downtown has boomed especially in the nightlife department. The Core Business district is still 9-5 (worse cause covid and WFH) but the area along Roosevelt is just as busy and crowded as Mill or Old Town any day of the week.

Many of the larger apartment complexes are still under construction or just coming online so the population is still set to multiply significantly over the next several years.


Oh and the pier has taken years to get there and its still like only half done.