Historic Phoenix warehouse on track for rebirth as farmers market
by Emily Gersema - Apr. 19, 2011 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Many visitors to downtown Phoenix rarely step south of the railroad tracks.

But near the backsides of US Airways Center and Chase Field, visitors who do venture there will find streets lined with old brick and brownstone warehouses.

Several of these centenarian structures are vacant and decaying, their walls coated with the grime of neglect and age. A few have been preserved and reopened, such as the Duce restaurant, bar and clothing store near Central Avenue and Lincoln Street.

A Phoenix man obsessed with history, Michael Levine, 41, is determined to save the properties. He bought and preserved the fruit-company building that the Duce occupies.

Now, he is devoting a few weeks to restoring the original facade of the old Phoenix Feed & Seed Co. warehouse near Jackson and Second streets.

Levine said he hopes the building will get more recognition when Arizona celebrates its centennial next year. He is finishing his first phase of renewal for the building, which was constructed sometime around 1900-05.

A full preservation effort will cost about $2 million, which he cannot afford on his own.

Last week, Levine was seen standing on top of a lift, aiming the long nozzle of a pressure washer to blast each brick with 250-degree water at 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of pressure per square inch. Grime and crusts of old paint streamed down the building's face into puddles on the old seed store's dock.

Each blast exposed more of the building's history. Signs had been painted and repainted over each other.

"Phoenix Feed & Seed" of the early 1900s became, in the 1940s, "Arizona Paperbox Company," where workers manufactured the lightweight paper boxes that bakeries used for packing doughnuts, turnovers and other pastries.

"This building predates the railroad in Phoenix," Levine said, recalling that the first tracks in Phoenix were laid around 1926.

Levine, who grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., got the building listed on the Phoenix Historic Property Register in 2004, a year after he bought it. He has scoured old newspaper articles and photos to piece together details of its former owners, tenants and uses.

The building was sold in the 1940s to Monty Mansfield, a Tucson businessman who spearheaded an airport authority in Tucson.

Although Levine often looks back, he also looks ahead.

He said this building will go through another personality change. Within the next year, Levine wants it to become the home of a farmers market, flanked perhaps by a cafe or other eatery. He already has cleared an initial hurdle: Last week, he received approval from a Phoenix Zoning Adjustment hearing officer for the market.

^I am still totally confused by his farmers market idea. Who's going to go to it? Is it going to be open 7 days a week? Is he trying to compete with the very popular and growing Downtown PHX public market that has pretty loyal customers?

Maybe if its more of a swap meet sort of thing it could have its own niche, but I don't get this.

I like Prime and its pretty popular to my understanding so if that strip center is rehabbed I hope its just a cosmetic thing. I'd hate to see it demolished and lose those establishments.

The big empty wedge parcel by the LRT station is where Reid Butler wanted to build some super tall for reasons beyond my comprehension. It seems like a tall-ish building there thats to scale with the M&I bank & Landmark towers would be best. My preference would be for reasonably priced apartments there with street facing retail.

There's a "Save Beefeaters" group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-B...00537493325190

Its got some interesting photos of the interior space, diagrams of the layout, etc. I think it could be a great comedy or music venue if done right since its got so many different spaces, its versatile.

Blooming Rock also did an article on it with photos:
http://bloomingrock.com/?p=772

Uptown/Central & Camelback is really becoming awesome. My hope is that strip center on the NE corner eventually has a few more structures built on the parking lot facing the street to give it a more urban feel, that would be nice.

Don't really know if this applies to developement news but the google earth maps have been updated to March 4th, 2011. You can see noticable changes.

I have seen the google maps car 3x this week

Good news, the A's will be extending their lease for another 10 years on Phx Muni. They're not holding the City hostage which is a nice change of pace from what other clubs did. I just hope Phoenix can manage to keep the Brewers happy in Maryvale.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/p...ning-deal.html

Inappropriate Height
 

I need you guys to help me out: What's the reasoning for considering a project to be "too tall"?

Doesnt fit neighborhood character, faa hazard, etc.

Looks like Chase Field got cleaned. The roof is bright white, no longer off-white.

also if what you're looking for is downtown (and I assume it is) all the height limits for the various 'character areas' are listed in the Downtown Urban Form code. Of course one could get variances, but if a proposed building (say those proposed new apartments south of roosevelt) are within the code they should be fine no matter what spaztic NIMBYs say.

yup, I snapped a picture of them doing it back in December.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...type=1&theater

Wow its official.

That's great to have more of a student presence downtown with PSL moving. Now we just need ASU's law school to move.

Welp the Cities incompetence is actually a good thing for once. The Circles building is way too cool to just be offices that most of the public would never have access to, that seems like a less than ideal use.

With those gay (? I think they're all gay anyhow) clubs/bars just down the street on Central I think it would make a lot of sense for Cirlces to be turned into a club/bar/nightlife destination. The big circular picture window is right in front of a turn table floor thats left over from the days when the place was a car dealership. It would be neat to have a rotating bar or dance floor or something.

That's a good idea... Central right through there would be a great little area, flanked on one side by the Phoenix Public Market.

Starting with the Westward Ho, which has some cool retail spaces (I don't know if they are being used, I don't think so).
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...jpg?1303402227

Moving north through the strip of gay bars/clubs (I don't know their current status, I'll assume they're still open)
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...g?t=1303402380

Immediately north of this is an empty lot, followed by Circles (potential future bar/club)
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...g?t=1303402469

If only something simple could be built on that empty lot to tie everything together. Maybe with a ground floor restaurant and top floor apartments. I'm thinking something like the one on McDowell at about 5th St:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...g?t=1303402534

The thing on McDowell (the Max and Lucy Building) is between 1st and 3rd ave. It is mixed use, with an office and gallery down and a private home up. Extremely cool building.

You're right... I meant to say 5th Ave, but it's really closer to Central. We need more smaller mixed use buildings in northern downtown like that. Everything doesn't have to be a super-development and take up half or a whole city block.

Finally confirmation on the Phoenix School of Law moving into the former Phelps Dodge Building. Good to have young students right in the core.

Phoenix School of Law moving into new downtown Phoenix digs
http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/n...-into-new.html

PHX31, you're right that the Westward Ho does have spots for ground floor retail but all of them are empty. No one is likely going to want to put their store, bar, whatever in a smelly building full of Seniors who are in HUD housing.

I so want the Ho to be converted to an upscale boutique hotel like it should be. I'm happy to have the Seniors downtown, but it seems like a building expressly built with their special needs (handicap accommodations and the like) would be better suited for them.

All the bars along Central are still open, or were as of me moving in January, so a nightlife type destination going into Circles would certainly help build on that synergy. The more I think about it the coolest use for Circles I think since its so big would be a traditional dance club/ballroom type place. There's nothing like that in CenPho, there's Kats Korner in Mesa and another place up on T-Bird and the 51, but a big dance hall that could bring in swing, big bands, salsa, etc. to downtown I imagine would be really popular.

Finally on the subject of the public market, I sure would like to see it expand to that surface lot bounded by Central, 1st St, Fillmore and Pierce. A large Sky Song style shade structure over that lot would make it into a great permanent public market. I'd love it to grow into a market like most other big cities have with lots of international options, vastly more produce as well as more non grocery items.

They could also use the underground portion of that lot that apparently once was home to a bowling alley for restrooms and facilities. Then I'd like to see Pierce closed off between Central & 1st and used as a permanent home for food trucks that can continue to augment the market.

All of that would free up the inverted L shaped lot (bounded by 1st, Central, Pierce and McKinely). I think it would be terrific for a public garden and citrus orchard to then be built there. The things grown there could of course be then sold at the outdoor market or in the market store.

We'd really be looking at something special along Central if all of that happened. Going from the CBD, to the park, ASU downtown, the rehabbed Post Office as ASU student Center, a public market that takes up an entire city block, the Ho back to its full glory and then a strip of night life spots all before hitting the Central/Roosevelt station. It would be awesome.

/\ You're quite the visionary. All of that would be amazing... Central could revive itself to glory that should be for the center street of the entire city.

There are plans for this already, I believe. I'll have to dig them up from the public market's website or facebook. I think I posted about it earlier in this thread.

EDIT: I can't find it.

Ah well, no biggy :D I know they've been parking the food trucks there on Saturdays during the market and such already. If the market was ever able to expand to a 7 day a week operation or whatever Id hope theyd close down that small section of Pierce for the trucks permanently.