South of Van Buren, nearer to 7th Ave there are areas zone up to 700' or so. Height restrictions aren't the issue, there's no demand for high rise in Phoenix, sadly.

Unfortunately, you are correct and this has always been the case in Phoenix since it's founding. Endless sprawl and wide open land.

When Phoenix was first founded it was small and compact, connected by a streetcar system. That changed just before the 1950s with the advent of mass produced air conditioning, cars/buses, and new suburban development. When most of the streetcar fleet was destroyed in 1947 by fire the city opted for new, "impressive" buses instead of replacing the "antiquated" streetcars in 1948 (hindsight!).

They were, for streetcars, particularly ugly, so I doubt anyone missed them. There were two bus systems back then, one private and one public. Barry Goldwater, who was running for City of Phoenix City Council in 1949, pledged to end the public system, decrying it as "socialism".

I don't blame Phoenix for making bad choices. The logic of sprawl was irrefutable, especially in a place with lots of cheap farm land. Some of the sprawl wasn't even terrible. A neighborhood like Windsor Square was exurban back in 1940 and today it is considered a classic "best years" community. Phoenix's problem was that when the production housing phase began, it completely swamped what was already in place. Value is subjective but usually perceived through the various ways we see craftsmanship creating unique places. Phoenix simply doesn't have enough of these neighborhoods to counterbalance the post-war housing pods, many of which have deteriorated into slums.

The tiny filaments of real urbanism we see in Phoenix tend to be in the Roosevelt neighborhood west of Central. I'm old enough to remember when Phoenix felt like a real city here. Over time, the land speculators and slumlords ate away at the urban fabric until it was mostly romantic ruins. Our missed opportunity to create a real city was entirely a function of "too small" meeting "hyperkinetic growth".

True but there are many other cities with somewhat similar sprawl to Phoenix such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston. Hell, Los Angeles is so sprawling that whole new metro areas developed out of the sprawl. All of these cities have buildings that are much bigger than anything in Phx. Biggest problem I see is that downtown has never been much of a destination to residents or visitors. Night life has been piss poor at best. No one lived there. No one visited from out of town except for conventions, and then why not just stay at the hotel near the airport? However, this is changing. New residential and hotel buildings as well as ASU are creating more demand or downtown bars, restaurants and night clubs. As downtown becomes more "visible", demand will increase for new towers. Downtown Phoenix unfortunately has something that none of the other cities mentioned above have: any insanely large amount of dirt lots and large parking lots that can be developed. At least there is plenty of space to grow and this is without even mentioning midtown. We will eventually see a new tower, just not sure when.

Here's a Zoning Adjustment sign that just went up for this project:

http://imageshack.us/a/img854/6995/csb0.jpg


Also, while I like the above plan for the building, I wonder how it will realistically look with the large poles, traffic signal and power lines in front of certain areas. It would be nice if that stuff got buried, but seeing as Roosevelt Point didn't do it, I doubt this project does either.

http://imageshack.us/a/img23/8812/tk0r.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img62/3792/curw.jpg

RED purchased Collier Center, revamping exterior and retail to integrate with CityScape

Since I am not feeling well and can't sleep, I decided to look for something interesting to read. I ended up on AZCentral and found this:

RED purchased Collier Center and will upgrade the exterior to better match the offerings at CityScape. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds and if RED is able to successfully attract more retail, restaurants and amenities downtown like they have to other big redevelopment sites across the state. The retailers and employers RED has attracted and partnered with to bring to its other developments look promising and the first new tenant in Collier Center is Lewis & Roca. The law firm will be leasing 70,000 sq ft in the tower which, I believe, means they will no longer be leasing space in the Renaissance Center. Here is a snippet from the article:

To read the rest of the article click on the underlined, enlarged heading above.

That's interesting news. What are they doing with the parking lot between the Collier Center and Cityscape?

There is nothing of geographical significance in DT Phx to differentiate it from it's competitors in the region. There are no natural features, such as, navigable rivers, lakes, bays, oceans, micro-climates (UHI does make it miserable at night). Our idea of a downtown could be created from scratch anywhere in Southern AZ for that matter. Since most of the historical charm and inner neighborhoods have been erased and neglected in the CBD its a tough sell to convince upper middle class populace to permanently relocate to the core.

There is nothing geographically significant but there are now man-made features that completely differentiate downtown from its competitors. No other area will be able to recreate the historic neighborhoods or the amount of highrises along Central Ave. It would cost tens of billions of dollars (at least) for a competitor to recreate real neighborhoods like Encanto, FQ Story, Roosevelt, Garfield and Coronado, to name a few, and to plan/build highrises, museums/theaters, light rail and parks with real greenery that exist in the area. Would they be able to create an Encanto, Hance, Civic Space Park and the walkability that a pre-1950s neighborhood inherits by virtue of its "old bones"? Would a competitor create very green and leafy pocket parks like Portland Park or would they fill it with "desert-like" plants? I believe the biggest obstacle to attracting more residents downtown is lack of housing ... where would new, perspective upper-middle class residents locate to, exactly? Every place they could potentially move to is full. The next offering, The Residences at CityScape, will likely fill up quickly and downtown will be right back where it is now ... no housing available for those who would like to live here.

Interesting information regarding the historical context surrounding the demise of the Phoenix Street Railway. I looked up the streetcars that were used in the Phoenix system, and you are correct, they weren't particularly charming! The buses that replaced them weren't every attractive either but I imagine they had appeal compared to a system considered old and inflexible in a growing city.

http://videos.videopress.com/RA6zVaD...humbnail_1.jpg

It does however, leave one wondering: what could have been if the system, or parts of the system, survived? Would light rail have been better received in Phoenix in the late 80s since it would have connected to an existing streetcar line? Would the city already have had a system in place in the 90s similar to those in Portland and San Deigo and would it have attracted some of the explosive growth the region experienced in the 1990s and 2000s?

Even if only two legs of the system survived, say along Grand and 3rd St, there could have been more of a reason to preserve some of the history in and around downtown. Some of the neighborhoods could have experienced growth and revitalization sooner.

More pizza
 

One of the local food truck vendors is growing their business into the brick and mortar type setting. The Pizza People are opening in the former Cheuvront restaurant location located at the Artisan Lofts on Central location at1326 N Central Ave, directly opposite the library.

The opening date is in September, it will be a pub type setting according to the notice on the door.

Nice! I didn't mind Cheuvront but it was too low-key for me. It was an interesting move for them to open at Sky Harbor's T4. Back downtown, I know we would enjoy a louder, pub-like setting. Especially where we could catch a game on the weekdays ... and weekends when local teams play an away game. Something with more energy is needed on that part of Central.

APS won't bury the lines, it sucks.


This is good news...hopefully. While I don't trust RED design wise, at least this hopefully means there will be an aggressive push to get tenants in there.

I've often wondered what sort of uses could go in on the 2nd floor of the Collier Center where they have big retail spaces. Most restaurants would suffer because people don't notice them up there.

It does seem to me though like night clubs would be an ideal fit. Downtown is undeserved nightlife wise, and with that strip of nightclubs on Washington, some nice synergy could be built. Especially if CityScape phase 2 (on the parking lot) incorporates bars/nightlife onto the South side of Washington.

Hooray, thats great news. I bike by there most every day and Pizza People is definitely a place I'll stop in and enjoy.

Its good to see food trucks doing well enough to springboard their operators into brick and mortar locations.

It sounds like pretty much of a sports bar, a downgrade from what Cheuvront was, in my mind. With Bianco (multiple locations), Pomo, Piazza Locale (soon) and (I guess) Cibo, there is plenty of decent pizza around. This doesn't seem to add much to the party.

Except some good pizza and a pub setting ... this area doesn't really have anything similar to this and we could use something closer to McDowell. In terms of a sit-down restaurant with higher prices, it can be viewed as a downgrade, but I see it as a potential upgrade in terms of attracting more people.

Let me clarify what I was saying. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that there is something happening in DT. I also love history and historic neighborhoods.

Because there is nothing of geographical significance in Downtown Phoenix, there isn't a huge demand to locate on DT real estate for commerce. If there were physical constraints and natural physical beauty in DT then the demand would be there naturally, thus creating a natural urban growth machine, like in our traditional cities. What I mean by naturally is that everything seems so forced in DT, like we're begging anyone to build anything. please build on our dirt lots!!! Tax breaks, concessions, tax financed projects like the CC, Sheraton, CS, government buildings, ASU, Civic Space Park, ballpark, arena etc. These are all great projects and are important for the region, but If the demand was there naturally, there would be a huge investment by the private sector. They would pay top dollar to purchase dirt lots from land bankers.

Would DT (Anywhere, USA) be the place it is today if it wasn't on the (Mississippi, the bay, Great Lake, ocean front, large port, natural resource rich lands etc).

Lack of housing isn't the problem, it's lack of demand for housing. While DT has managed to fill a couple building with renters, the suburbs (including other the suburban Phx neighborhoods) have built 10s of thousands of housing units. There have been some recent successes in new developments DT, which is awesome, but If there was high demand, Garfield would be THE big city vibrant place to live. There wouldn't be any dusty lots and prices would be in the 500k - 1m range. Just look at a satellite image of the area within the freeways.

DT Phoenix and the immediate neighborhoods around it has some of the lowest population density census tracts. One could argue that it is our man-made creations in combination with nothing of geographical significance that have made DT less desirable. UHI, traffic, huge roads, super blocks/dead zones, sky harbor, freeways an so on.

I disagree for a few reasons:

1) Anytime a new residential component is constructed it fills up faster than any suburban apartment complex. Apartments in suburban markets have more vacancies than downtown, some markets significantly more. The same is true for suburban office and housing markets as opposed to the downtown market, including the historic districts. Suburbs and exurbs were harder hit by the recession with more bankruptcies, foreclosures, and vacant homes. Downtown does not have more huge roads or any more freeways than the suburbs which aren't harmed by having huge freeways and arterial streets. Sky Harbor really has no bearing on development in the residential neighborhoods in and around downtown, especially to the north.

2) Garfield isn't a downtown neighborhood. Garfield is, however, full or small apartment buildings and single family homes. Garfield doesn't give off "THE big city vibrancy" that areas in Roosevelt and Evans-Churchill provide. Garfield is also growing and becoming ever more densely populated especially with more urban-minded artists and neighborhood pioneers. That includes many of the long-time Latino residents who are embracing the changes and influencing the culture of the neighborhood.

Downtown was less desirable in the decades before 2010, not because of the lack of natural features, but because of the expense relative to cheaper land in the exurbs. AND a bad reputation that has only recently changed in the minds of suburbanites and new arrivals. Also, the Sun Belt traditionally attracted those concerned with size of home instead of urbanity. All that is beginning to change, little by little.

3) The smallest Phoenix Council Districts and Census Tracts—in terms of land—include downtown and the Central City. The smallest council district is 4 which includes portions of midtown and downtown starting around I-10.

http://phoenix.gov/cityclerk/service...ict/index.html

Even though NE and NW Phoenix have seen "tens of thousands" of new home builds, in order to meet the 180,000 population threshold those suburban districts have to be many times larger. Even District 6, which includes Ahwatukee, is much larger (2 or 3 times the size) than D4 which is basically the Central City district. Whole cities like Chandler (58 square miles) and Gilbert (76 square miles) have only slightly more total populations than District 4. Population densities are highest in certain Maryvale and Alhambra census tracts closest to downtown/Central City (up to 17,000/square mile), but downtown and midtown have higher densities than any suburban city.

For one, downtown which is only 1 to just under 1.5 square miles has about 10-12,000 residents. That alone makes it more densely populated than any city or suburban city (even Tempe) in Arizona ... for that matter, in the Southwest. 20,124 people, as of the 2010 census, live within a 1 mile radius of First Street and Washington; this despite super blocks, rail yards, financial/county/state districts, large parks, vacant lots, etc.. A one mile radius is approximately 3 square miles; therefore, there were ≈6,708/sq mile in neighborhoods around downtown in 2010.

Here you will find countless reports on downtown demographics:
http://www.downtownphoenix.com/busin...arch?x=18&y=14

I suppose it depends on the person. I personally never went to Cheuvronts much, too pricey except for a rare treat. A more casual sports bar setting with good food though? Count me in.

There's really nothing like that from 7 to 7, I-10 to Thomas. I'll love having a place that walking distance to my home.

http://bmander.com/dotmap/index.html...4311/-112.0515

This map displays that very few people live in DT.