If there ever were a site where I'd love to see a tower that breaks from the street grid...this one is it (I've always envisioned a huge tower rotated 45deg terminating the Grand Avenue axis):

That quiznos was never very good; the one up north on 7th street is much better. Mcdonalds is complete trash.

In other Fast Food news - they tore down the KFC on 7th Ave & Osborn. They are rebuilding it.

There was a kfc at 7 av and osborn? Seems redundant with one at thomas as well.

He meant the one at Thomas.

You are correct. 1/2mile off.

Holy hell, the winter storm sure did kick Phoenix's but. I do not know if it rivals the big two that occurred in that past year+, but the wind was the most intense of all the storms in my Phoenix neighborhood (7th ave + glendale).

yeah that was a crazy wicked storm. I don't think it comes even close to past storms though because it was moving so fast last night and blew over in about ten minutes.

it came and left pretty quickly though.

We were laying in bed listening to the howling wind and remembered there was an old bathroom (huge) mirror leaning up against the side of the house waiting to be disposed of. The only thing we thought was that it would slam into the bedroom door which is glass mind you, and sure enough before we could get out and move it, it fell. Thank god it didn't break the door glass or it would have been a cold and rainy night in my bedroom.

I actually thought the storm was lame. It didn't really live up to any of the pre-storm media hype. Where was all of the flooding that was supposed to happen with the 1-2 inches of rain in Phoenix? Basically, we got (in Phx) about 4-5 hours of steady rain totally .28 at sky harbor by the 5:30pm newscast. The steady rain, stopped for hours and then we got intermittent showers. Once the front passed, the winds shifted from the south/southwest to the west, with a few strong gusts.

We didnt have power until noon so it was pretty bad for our neighborhood. Our windows definitely started shaking and I seriously thought they were going to break from the pressure. Tree-wise, nothing too bad, no 100 year old trees de-rooted.

It was pretty bad here in Nw Pboenix, I've seen several uprooted including three big palo verdes in the Chase parking lot at 59th and Union Hills

At my house at 67th and Happy Valley we got .89" of rain and it basically rained non spot from 7am to 11m

Ah, the inferiority complex continues. First it's the lack of skyscrapers, then the lack of a McDonalds in the city center and now, even God hates us by sending us a dip-shitty storm. Seems as though a storm (reminder: Phoenix is in a desert) that brought rain (.75 at my house Central Phx) hurricane force winds (Deer Valley), lightning, power outages, traffic accidents and ripped out trees would be enough for anyone since it hasn't friggin' rained of any significance since Christ was a boy! OK, I'm better now :shrug:

Storm did a number on those Navajo apartment things on Fillmore too. I didn't really think it was that bad downtown but it did remind me that I need new weather stripping around my patio doors.

A cool article from College News about Downtown Phoenix revitalization going hand in hand with the new university. Nice read.

http://www.collegenews.com/index.php...8200921973671/

While it was very nice to get rain in the desert, we are still at a major deficit for the year. Officially only 3 inches recorded at Sky Harbor.

According to 12 News at 5pm today, Phx Sky Harbor received .29 total. Tempe .39. Peak wind gust at the airport 55 mph Chandler 46 mph. Obviously parts of the "Valley" had it worse than others but then again this metro region is the size of Connecticut! At least half of the region (I-10 and south) Buckeye to Queen Creek, the storm fizzled, with low rainfall totals and just moderate winds.

This one was pretty decent but still nothing compared to the perfect storm of 2008, at least in my area.

I got an email today from the Phoenix Planning Department. The pdf is pretty large, but there is a ton of cool stuff. It's a draft so some pics and charts/graphs are missing. I haven't read through all of it but it looks like the kind of stuff we all like to know.

Link to draft Downtown Code: http://phoenix.gov/urbanformproject/dtcode.pdf

I can't open it for some reason. Any anyone else? Anything good inside????

It's a pretty big file. It took my computer a few minutes to open it.
gymratmanaz, I sent you a pm with the link. I hope it opens for you. There is a ton of stuff about height, density, pedestrians, etc.

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

There are a lot of big businesses that could move to downtown: University of Phoenix, Dial Corp., Go Daddy, Taser, waste management, Honeywell, etc. All of these companies could put their names on top of great new buildings!

Those kinds of companies are always almost in office parks. Lawyers and financial firms want high rises, tech jobs wany suburbs.

Pretty awesome about the Wyndham getting rebranded as a Marriott hotel...they are absolutely right that the Marriott brand has a much stronger name, I mean who ever looks to book into a Wyndham?

It does strike me as very odd that theyre giving these tax breaks to the Wyndham since like has been mentioned its already existing. Im happy the Marriott will be coming in though, they seem to attract a lot more folks.

Hopefully by the time the 2011 MLB All Star game rolls around the Westin, Marriott, Hotel Palomar and Hotel Monroe will all be up and running.

I wonder what the $10 Million in renovations will consist of. Interior only or will they also update the exterior?

the actually just finished renovating all the rooms (beautiful) and did hte lobby about 5 years ago.

My guess is hte renovations will do the restaurant, finish the grab and go, and do the fitness center/pool area.

Found this on another forum...

Marriot has purchased the Wyndham Hotel and will spend millions to upgrade the 70's era sea-shell shaped window exterior facade of the building...

The Wyndham Phoenix Downtown could soon get an exterior face-lift, along with a new brand name.

^Awaiting some odd group to come out and claim it's an architectural landmark...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...SSP/phx103.jpg

At least it's buried in the skyline these days...FUGLY!

Looks like a giant cheese grater to me.

Wherever you got that, it was made up.

Marriott did not buy the hotel and it is not going to be corporate owned. Steve Cohn still owns it and will continue to own it for the foreseeable future. Changing from Wyndham to Marriott is like changing from McDonalds to Burger King. Different menu and SOP book, but still the same ownership... it's all franchised.