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Originally Posted by AZ71
So in other words...its just a huge shopping plaza straight from the 90s surrounded by fast food joints. No organization or pedestrian areas or an innovative community gathering space. I find this entire project uninspiring and quite horrible, actually. Glad that region is getting stores...but this isn't the way to do it.
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Unfortunately, there is usually a significant difference between what Bourn Companies initially proposes and what they end up doing. Here''s a review of a few of their projects:
1. The Landing - the wording from their website on this project states that it will be "An eclectic mix of retail, restaurants, office and hospitality encircle a vibrant family-friendly zocalo-like plaza with local food, retail, entertainment and amusements." As currently built out, there is no longer any room for such a plaza, which obviously will not be incorporated.
2. The Bridges - there is similar, lofty language on their website describing two of the main projects within the 111 acres they are developing here. The description of The Brioso states that it will be "an eclectic Spanish-inspired residential community centered around a vibrant Main Street scene....and an innovative urban style resort," plus "an active 25-acre community park" with multiple amenities. To date, all we're seeing under construction are some modern-style multi-family apartments and another multi-family development with detached units. The Spanish-inspired theme, the Main Street focus and resort? Nowhere to be seen. And I'm guessing the elaborate park will never get built, eliminated at some point for more income-producing elements.
Mosaic, another project within The Bridges, is supposed to be "a creative office and educational district featuring JTED's....campus." JTED has been built on one end of the property, but nothing else built to date other than a Whataburger and an extended-stay hotel under construction. Again, where is the plan for this district? It seems like they're willing to put a building up for whomever wants to be there, without any real plan guiding any of it. And there is nothing in an existing area plan or city code to make them follow through with any of these proposals, even if they make nice copy for their website.
3. City Park - this downtown building--now known as the Hexagon Building--was originally supposed to include a ground-floor food hall and second floor bowling alley and entertainment area. However, as the years went by, and those spaces remained vacant, Hexagon eventually took over most of the remaining space. Bourn even had to return some of the GPLET money provided by Rio Nuevo, as they couldn't find a retail tenant to fill the NE corner of the ground floor. (Luckily, they were able to get The Monica from the Flores family to occupy the food hall space, who will be a stable, long-term tenant for them.) And they are now selling the nearby Indian Trading Post to Rio Nuevo, as they have been unable to find a suitable tenant to occupy that building.
And so it goes with our small local developers, many of whom have big plans, but are often unable to execute them, due to financing difficulties, etc. And I understand that initial plans often have to be adjusted due to economic conditions, but it seems that these factors can also cause these smaller developers to miss out on some windows of opportunity to get projects done.
For example, downtown's Mercado District had a wonderful award-winning plan to be a walkable, mixed-use urban development, initially to be surrounded by many museums and cultural amenities. Even though the museum part never panned out, many early adopters bought lots and built homes there, hoping that other parts of the plan would come together. However, many of the original residents have since left, as the only real amenities within walking distance after more than 10 years are the streetcar and Mercado San Agustin, with a few restaurants and shops. And at the pace they're going, The Gadsden Co. won't come close to buildout of the district for another 10-15 years, and well-heeled buyers and retirees don't have the patience to wait that long.
But an even bigger issue for the downtown is the lack of a guiding plan to redevelop the whole area, incorporating the latest best practices of urban development. The city and Rio Nuevo need to put together such a plan, which could still make a huge difference with all the existing vacant land and redevelopable properties in the downtown. (Rio Nuevo was even admonished to be more proactive in development planning in their most recent audit.) Yes, the proposed high-rise apartment building at Congress and I-10 would be a nice addition, but in the context of what bigger picture and plan for downtown's future?
Downtown was run down and unattractive for many years, so the city and Rio Nuevo have been happy to approve most any new development project that showed up. However, to really create the vibrant, desirable downtown with all the amenities modern urban centers should have, we need to move beyond that old mentality and create a vision and plan that outlines what we want our urban core to become. Perhaps then we can attract the larger national developers who would be willing to invest the funds to build some remarkable new projects, and also have the resources to execute those projects in a reasonable time frame.
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maybe including a connection to VA hospital.
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