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The new owners of the Arizona Center retail district in downtown Phoenix have signed a local restaurant group to open three restaurants in the struggling shopping plaza.

Pretty Decent Concepts, the team behind downtown Phoenix’s Wren & Wolf, Chico Malo and the no-phones allowed bar Trophy Room, have leased out nearly 10,000 square feet of space in the Arizona Center, including the former Hooters space.

Theodore Myers, one of the co-owners of Pretty Decent Concepts, told the Business Journal the group had been eyeing the Arizona Center as a destination for a new restaurant concept since 2017 and are happy to finally be connected to the space.

“When you look at Arizona Center, it was a bit of a black eye to the burgeoning restaurant community that is trying to develop here,” Myers said. “Having an unsavory restaurant chain anchor in that space for 30 plus years. It has always been a bit of a personal goal of mine to take what should be a prominent marquee corner in downtown Phoenix.”

The plan is to open three new, but “synergistic” concepts in the space. Myers deliberately did not give out many details but said one of the concepts will be “an upscale vintage steakhouse.”

“It will be like if Durant's was reimagined and opening in a much more prominent location in downtown Phoenix. That's our goal with this,” Myers said. “We want this to be the staple steakhouse restaurant in downtown Phoenix.”

The comparison to Durant’s is meant to be a homage to the timelessness and lasting ability that the more than 70-year-old restaurant has had on Central Avenue in downtown Phoenix.

Arizona Center gets a jolt of 'creative energy'
Similar to the other Pretty Decent Concepts locations in downtown Phoenix, the firm has brought on Peter Bowden to design the new restaurants. Construction has already started on the project and all three restaurants are expected to open in December 2024 or early 2025, Myers said.

Myers credits the new owners of the Arizona Center for helping him and his team, which includes his wife Kaitlin Myers and Thor Nguyen, bring the long-planned restaurants to life.

AZ Center LLC, which was formed by longtime Valley real estate investor Daryl Burton’s Reliance Management, in the summer of 2023 acquired the Arizona Center, which includes the retail space and the office building.

“We were talking to the previous ownership group, they were out of San Diego, and I don't think they had an understanding of what downtown Phoenix needed to be,” Myers said. “When the asset traded hands to Darryl Burton, who is local and has the same passion that we have, we very quickly got the deal done in like two weeks.”

The center, located near the corner of Third Street and Van Buren, was built in 2000 and underwent a massive renovation in the late 2010s. The center has several empty retail and restaurant spaces, but current tenants include AMC Theaters, Jersey Mike’s, Cold Stone Creamery and BoSa Donuts.

“[Pretty Decent Concepts] came in with not only just concepts but a creative energy and a level of care and detail to the concepts that they execute on that we think fits really well into what we're doing at Arizona Center,” said Faith Burton, the director of special projects for the Arizona Center. “It is really a crucial first step in the things that we're going to be doing at Arizona Center as a whole.”

Besides Pretty Decent Concepts, the center has also signed another restaurant tenant and has painted several murals in the space.

The Arizona Center adds to a pretty lengthy list of projects Pretty Decent Concepts is looking to open in the Valley. The company is still working on getting open Carry On, its third concept in downtown Phoenix’s Renaissance Square complex at the corner of Washington Street and First Avenue. The company is also signed on to open two concepts under one roof in the former P.F. Chang’s China Bistro space on Mill Avenue in Tempe.