Chateau on Central closes $5.4 million double home
 

http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/m...4-million.html

http://www.4-traders.com/news/Chatea...ion--17204501/

Great to see home prices rising in the urban core, and money coming in to the area, but that sounds awful. 11,000 sf? And an indoor waterfall?

Everything about that complex is horrifying.

While attending ReInvent Phoenix workshops, we did an exercise where we placed stickers on a map. One sticker signified where we wanted to see stabilization (ie historic 'hoods and buildings), another sticker signified change/OK for demolition and rebuilding. EVERYONE placed the latter sticker on Chateau.

When I lived DT, seemed like there were lowlifes/drunks that would congrgate at the first ave circle K. Now that the community is changing for the better, this is no longer acceptable to have an establishment that attracts this element. Hopefully they won't be able to expand to a super pumper station. Those belong outside of DT.

I completely understand why Circle K wants to expand. Having a large station near downtown would make them a lot of money. But this location makes very little sense. First off, it is not really off the highway, the same way 7th street is. This limits the clientele they are targeting. Second, as the area continues to develop more around light rail and create more transit oriented developments (which will happen), the need for a large gas station will be greatly reduced.

Agreed, I was just going to basically say the same thing. I could see the 7th St location being good (for them) for a large expanded gas station (even though it would be bad for us/the city), but 1st Ave is not nearly as busy, and that neighborhood is not nearly as car centric as almost any other neighborhood.

We all know the horrible demise of the historic neighborhoods in and around DT Phoenix. The Roosevelt area, especially the area south of Fillmore really had a rough time. Looking at old aerials, I've been on a mission to recover any photos of neighborhood streets that I can of this area. Mostly to quench my thirst of curiosity of knowing what the area really used to look like when it was a beautiful neighborhood, and to know what we lost. I finally found one picture that gives a little bit of a glimpse.

Here's the aerial of a portion of the Roosevelt area from 1930:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...moreaerial.jpg

It basically looks like a beautifully-gridded early 20th century neighborhood full of all sorts of interesting houses.

The picture I found is of 3rd Ave looking north from Fillmore. Here is the current view (from google street view):
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...p/fillmore.jpg

We've had discussions (long ago) about this parking lot and there have been several condo proposals in the area. And although I believe that mid-century apartment building recently got a nice new update, I'd still rather have streets lined with great historic houses as seen in the aerial.

Here is the picture I found. The houses used to sit on what is now that parking lot:
http://i74.photobucket.com/albums/i2...anor_1960s.jpg

It looks like it might be from the late 1960s. The houses are great 1900s or 1910s bungalows. I really wish they could still be around. However, seeing this picture makes me realize that the area really was doomed. The yards look unkempt, there are some ratty mail boxes randomly placed, large trees are dead (unless it's winter but I don't think it is), and crappy signs for parking lots are already popping up. It's sad that the area took a turn for the worse and ultimately died due to many factors, but it was probably unavoidable.

At the time it was built, the circle K just a block away probably was a sign of progress, or, at least, no one cared. Unfortunately, now we're left with trying to fight the spread of the cancer we created, or trying to clean up a gigantic mess, and it's difficult.

Awesome find and post phx31! I've been following the LA Noir thread big time and own many before and after/devleopment Boston books (and even a few Phx books). This subject has always been very interesting to me.

Notice how the date palm (or is it a pineapple palm?) in front of the apartment building has grown up.

The noirish LA thread is amazing! Those guys are incredible. And they are very lucky to have seemingly endless photographs to pull from (and seemingly endless subject matter from historic LA). Phoenix was infinitely smaller than LA back in the day, but there also seems to be much less photographic documentation here as compared to LA.

Yeah, I did notice that palm. It's pretty cool it is still alive.

Haha! I really like that building. The interior of this mansion is definitely gaudy but the outside looks great. I don't like that glass box next to it, however.

Need One Real Tower PLZ
 

Driving in to downtown from I-10 heading east gives you a image of a real skyline in Phoenix best sight of downtown in my mind. If we could just get a couple of real high-rises around the westward Ho near central and 1street between Fillmore and Garfield those empty lots are skyline could be real good! By real high-rises I mean 650-1000 feet! Will Never have a real Skyline in till we at least have one signature Big Tower! And those lots are some of the few downtown we could build that high! Already Posted this in Asu/downtown but must Vent here too!

Downtown will likely never have a tower surpassing 700' due to Sky Harbor; although I wonder if an 800' tower would ever receive approval from the city and FAA. I could see one built in Midtown near, or over, Park Central Mall. I do believe the city has waivers for building heights north of McDowell but I would have to check on that. The FAA would then have to give the go-ahead for a tower that tall in Midtown.

Even 700' would be great...I mean our tallest now is what, 482'? 700' would be huge by comparison.

It's been 40 years since the VNB (now Chase Tower) topped out as the city's tallest. During that time, Phoenix had some of its most prosperous years. Of course, the city was still busy giving wealthy landowners everything they wanted in terms of zoning, which resulted in a new downtown at 24th St & Camelback, to go along with the moribund "midtown" downtown on north Central. There's not enough gas left in our civic engine to redress this lack of discipline. When I first started posting on this site, I noticed even then the enthusiasm for building outlandishly tall buildings outside downtown. That's Phoenix. We thought the sky was the limit and now we're left wondering why there's no real need for tall buildings anywhere. Good downtowns "force" skyward because land is scarce and expensive. That's not Phoenix. There's no lack of cheapness here. And as a corollary, there's no real need for height.

Rising home prices in the absence of rising incomes is not necessarily a good thing. It leads to future bubbles that are unsustainable. The average consumer is largely priced way out of the housing market short of manipulated (ie, leveraged) interest rates. We're heading for a major correction when the Fed stops manipulation of the market. And, unfortunately, large banks are no longer in the business of loaning money to consumer short of government massaging. They are largely in the business of speculation and manipulation of commodity, equities and derivatives market.

Man I agree... I was checking out the Salt Lake city page the other day, and their downtown isn't far from being on PHX's level. Sad considering PHX is the 5th largest city. Unfortunately downtown is likely 20 years away from even getting a 500 footer.

I agree with all of you - it would be great to get a "signature tower" for downtown. If we got a 700 Foot tower placed in just the right spot, our downtown skyline would go from below average to above average - in my humble opinion...

We need a company willing to consolidate all their office space into a single tower in downtown Phoenix to get anything near a new tallest. That or one currently in downtown needs to run out of space. State Farm could have potentially brought quite a tall building (for PHX standards) but instead chose to go to Tempe with multiple smaller buildings. What happened in Oklahoma City with the Devon Tower can hopefully happen here.

I think FAA won't let do it. Due to height restrictions. I don't think ever happen anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure we can have a building taller than Chase if the need should ever arise. I'm not talking about a supertall or anything. There are areas in downtown/midtown that allow over 483 feet.