[glynnjamin]

As far as I know...money has dried up...and JSED is in a holding pattern. Renderings are pretty pointless at this moment. By 2010, the market will start seeing some investors looking to take advantage of cheap land and low interest rates and may actually throw some money this way. It is a shame because all of this land on Jackson was bought by people who are just going to hang on to it. There are many private developers that would have bought one of these warehouses and converted it if not for Sarver and the speculators buying up all of the land south of Jefferson.

My gripe with the city (and state of Arizona) of Phoenix and their relationship with developers has always been that they just let the developer do whatever they want. We still have no construction on the Aloft Hotel after the city "required" them to have started in October. The city doesn't force the development of dirt lots. They don't force anyone to actually do what they say they are going to do. I have emailed Gordon multiple times about this issue. I've encouraged him to tax developers who own dirt lots in the downtown area for not using their land. I've encouraged him to tax Sarver and the rest of the JSED people if they are not going to open their warehouses up for art/retail space. I myself would gladly occupy one of those warehouses with multiple businesses if they were available for cheap rent. It seems to me that, when faced with a 30% land value tax increase vs renting your space for $1-$5 sqft to artists and businesses (even if it is only till the market turns), you would gladly take the rent over the tax.

There is a way to turn this thing around but it needs to come from the government, not the market...Thomas Friedman be damned.