Notes from browsing Phoenix public records:

• Site plan review this Wednesday for the Fore apartments on Fillmore between 2nd and 3rd Ave. Last I saw this is proposed as ~330 apartments.
• Building permit issued for the Financial Center fitness center in the surface lot to the east of the high rise.
• Rezoning request for NEC of 3rd St./Fillmore for a farmers market/food truck. That should put it at Skyline Lofts. Don't know any more but sounds interesting.
• Rezoning request for a bar at 222 E. Portland.

The comparsm is letting the team just go. They weren't very good when they left and we don't want to let the Suns leave just cause we happen to not be very well right now either. I remember Key Arena being one of the loudest arenas in the league during the Shawn Kemp, Gary Payton days and they also had some good years with Rashard Lewis. They were just in a bad cycle when they left and obviously would of had some good years ahead considering how good OKC has been. Letting a team go because of traffic seems pretty silly, they had already remodeled their arena and would of needed a brand new arena anyway. I'm sure the traffic isn't great for the Seahawks games, I know that's south of downtown but the fans sure support the Seahawks!

Just looked it up. Phoenix spent 350 million to build the hotel and sold it for 255 million. They still owed 300 million, so it's a loss but there were a lot of losses and mistakes around that time in history during the first boom in '06, '07. With at least making a lot of that money back the arena is a hugh investment for downtown, bringing 15,000 plus people downtown for 41 plus Suns games, plus the Mercury, Rattlers and a bunch of concerts. Compare that to maybe 2,000 people in a 1000 hotel on a good night. The arena is an investment for downtown and any great downtown needs an arena. Name me one city that doesn't? Besides what San Antonio? At least they have the river walk downtown,lol. And the extra big urban city of San Fransisco in which the Warriors are coming back to in what will be the best arena in the league. Every team plays downtown and it's super important for a growing downtown like ours, I really couldn't imagine how bad it will be if they move else where, devistating is an understatement.

If this ends up being an extension of the APS substation adjacent to it, I am not sure what there is to say. :shrug: 7th Street is such an important block for so many reasons;
1. it is already the gateway into downtown for most commuters and infrequent visitors for games, etc.
2. eventually, it will be given a diet and is a perfect location for something like BRT or even an LRT extension.
3. it breaks apart the most important parts of downtown from what should be a more affordable and growing Roosevelt Row within both Garfield and Eastlake (Hance Park, Roosevelt Row, PBC, Arena/Warehouse District)

I forget if CofPhx/ASU own the land just south, but if they don't, then a nice development here could really help offset the terrible design flaws of the PBC and the car-centric designs of the other corners. Once 'the Blocks' is complete, I think 4th, 5th, and 6th Street bungalows will fill up where vacant, and with all the recent demolitions and landbanking for the PBC nearby, it's a shame that such a hot and unique retail market will be essentially at full vacancy. The substation is already an eyesore across from a nice row of historic mixed-use, so if 50% of the block is redesigned, that would be great.

I am not sure if a hotelier has been nailed down for Central/Adams, but a Hilton Canopy + Artist Lofts + neighborhood parking (not because it is needed but to shut business owners up from making this non-issue and issue during every development review) in a 12-16 story building would make such a better gateway/bridge between Garfield and RRow. I'd much rather see a RRow Welcome Center here than in the Wurth House, along with an established gallery or, better still, a new museum or art school.

This project is amazing and will be amazing to see once finished if it gets built. I love that it is a one-phase project. For everyone who PM'd me to tell me to off myself because I thought that a single-used luxury residential tower and parking garage was a waste of this land, :tup: *THIS* is MIXED USE; this is TOD; this is designing within the context of the site. Connecting to Civic Space should have been a requirement from the start, but this design is brilliant so it's no surprise that they have added the shade structure/event space to bridge these projects.

One day, several heavy transit lines and the bus center will be bustling within and around this site, and in the meantime, multiple towers will contain students, residents, office workers, and hotel guests to provide the foot traffic needed to activate the retail that lines the 3 most important important DT blocks.

I hate that they are throwing around the word 'grocery' in tandem with the retail component. 1 big box grocer is already more than a downtown needs, s o I'd hate to see much of this frontage wasted on another. Something equivalent to a Milk & Honey, though, would be great. ASU should be attracting similar tenants to the ground floor of their main tower on Central and within Taylor Mall, but these would be fantastic additions:

1. Barnes & Noble ASU along the park edge
2. Walgreens for quick items
3. Amazon store
4. Apple store
5. West Elm/CB2
6. Urban Target
7. Mens Warehouse/Brooks Bros/Jos A Bank/CHICOS/NY&CO
8. upper-level iPic theater
9. PF Changs, Oreganos, Olive&Ivy

By the time any of those retailers would be attracted to downtown Phoenix those retailers wouldn't exist in their current form.

That has to be the first portion of the Filmore project? Right?

EDIT: NVM thats the Aspirant, nice another 15 stories that will be visible on the skyline

Jjs5056 is correct, and I am quickly warming to this addition (Central Station) to the Civic Space Park. It is multi user friendly. It is for a wide variety of people. It has a great meeting space with shade. I am excited!!!!!

Same here. Add another 10-15 stories of height and I'll be even more happy!

And I believe this might be the first time that Jjs has spoken 100% positively about a proposed project :cheers:

agreed, a little more height would be nice, but thrilled for the project already!!!! (Wonder if more height is even a possibility, since the newest drawing is so new)

You may get your wish on a lot of this. Berger didn't specify a hotel brand in their RFP response, but they indicated they had had initial discussions with Moxy and Yotel, and were open to other lifestyle brands. The proposal has just 60 parking spaces, all of which are publicly available. And there is 6000 sq. ft. of retail, 35k of office, and 17k of "flex" space proposed, all of which could be put to interesting uses. And I count 20 stories proposed. Really hope this one comes to fruition.

The gas station has been demoed. It’s been quick progress since it was chained off to its demolition. I’m afraid of an extended substation being the case as well
but after looking around online I don’t see anything mentioning expanding substation at that corner. To be honest, I’m a bit more skeptical that they’ll either rebuild another gas station or worse... put in a Circle K.

I believe they upped it to 17 stories last I read. Even better :tup:

They have removed all of the tanks and are doing environmental abatement currently, which means it's unlikely to be another gas station. Since the parcel hasn't been sold my guess is the owner is going to try to sell the land soon.

APS does not own the land and I do not believe there is any intent to expand the substation. There's also a new Circle K across the street, so I don't think they will build another one. Only thing I can find on the lot is the demo permit which looks like it means everything including the tanks. If they are removing the tanks, it is likely they will not build another station as even remodel's tend to keep existing tanks unless they are like 40 years old.

Here's the demo permit. There's 2 other permits for the tank removals, but nothing else I could find that indicates what else could be going on with the lot:

https://i.ibb.co/JdBjyDW/950-N-7th.png

Again bad comparison
 

Having grown up in Phoenix and now living in Bellingham, Wa I would like to say yes the Sonics had some great teams but right now in Seattle they rejected a new arena and have basically agreed to rebuild Key Arena. Comparing the Seahawks attendance to Key Arena disregards the fact that they have what 8 home games on Sunday, (far less traffic),vs 41 home games (often week day nights) and it's much easier to get off of I-90 and I-5 to get to that stadium. For Key Arena you have to work your way thru the numerous office buildings with a heck of a lot of traffic to get to Key Arena. Not something people having worked all day would like doing. Traffic in Seattle is some of the worst anywhere and will not help them getting another team.

Correction on this:
Just looked this up and this is the development behind the O'Neil Printing building. The Aspirant development on the North side of Fillmore is proposed at 17 floors. This would be awesome if both of these developments get off the ground and add some height in this area.

So what project is this?

I don't have much on it. Here's the pre-app for for it. It doesn't specify height, but I vaguely recall it mentioned earlier this year to be around 15 stories.

Edit: I just realized that Fore is the company building the multi-family project at Central and Columbus. Maybe that's a good sign this will happen.

https://i.ibb.co/NtSnZgh/Fore-Site-Plan.png

So we are going to have a 17 story Aspirant and 15 story (uknown) across the street from eachother?