Phoenix Development News (3)

[DevilsRider]

Spot on, Hoover. Lots to like about this project. But a City RFP for land right in the heart of downtown, sitting on top of the City's transit hub, having THAT much parking space?? Hopefully the city can get that number down now that they've selected the proposal...

But if I remember correctly, this is something like double the number of units as 44 monroe? If built, this will be a great boost to downtown, and that dog park (looks like it will take the space currently occupied by a large bus shelter and landscaping?) will be a great complement to Civic Space Park for downtown's residents.

Originally Posted by HooverDam

That looks like it could be a great project for downtown. More residential is always needed.

Early impressions:

The Good:
+ 500+ new people living downtown
+ Fairly tall by Phoenix standards (390'/34 floors)
+ Builds a new dog park that will actually be used by downtown high rise dwellers (the one at Hance Park serves the historic neighborhoods more)
+ Project appears to narrow Van Buren and widen the southern sidewalk
+ somewhat mixed use, adds space for a new Coworking space (though it does seem odd that they're saying that space will have to be used for that use)

The Bad:
- Current massing is rather wide east to west. Currently the view from Civic Space to the south is awesome because you see a variety of buildings of differing ages, sizes, etc.
- It'd be nice if the top was a bit more architecturally interesting, its sort of just another box on our skyline
- Its mixed use, but only barely. It'd be nice to see a lot of food options added, seems like a natural fit for a transit center. With Kahala HQ'd in the PHX area, you'd think the City could partner with them to get a bunch of their chains in a complex like this.
- Main issue: WAY over parked. You've got more than 1 parking space per apartment, that's silliness. The garages at Skyline and Roosevelt Point are consistently half empty. Considering this is built over a transit center, thats too much.

[ASUSunDevil]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Wow that's pretty stunning! How likely is this to happen?

WOW! That looks absolutely brilliant.

I think market rate apartments will work fantastic there, similar to W6 in Tempe which is just about fully leased. There is a big market for renters that want a view without the insane prices of Palomar.

[dtnphx]

Great proposal and a great-looking building. Very Sim City-ish!

[combusean]

I like this building, I just wish there were more of it. Seems a waste to have this slim building and a gynormous garage on an entire city block.

And where exactly is the transit center? If they're just dumping bus riders out onto the street with no shade or seating it's going to make riding the bus downtown even more miserable than it already is.

And also, I deleted several above posts. If you have a problem with the content of a post that is still on topic, you are free to ignore it, scroll past it, or whatever. Do not clutter this thread with garbage.

[PHXFlyer11]

Originally Posted by combusean

I like this building, I just wish there were more of it. Seems a waste to have this slim building and a gynormous garage on an entire city block.

And where exactly is the transit center? If they're just dumping bus riders out onto the street with no shade or seating it's going to make riding the bus downtown even more miserable than it already is.

And also, I deleted several above posts. If you have a problem with the content of a post that is still on topic, you are free to ignore it, scroll past it, or whatever. Do not clutter this thread with garbage.

I like the building, but yes, where is this station??? I think that the giant garage is somewhat so people can park and ride. Which makes a little sense in our city, but I don't see anything that looks like a station, which is too bad!

[PHX31]

They said 390' +/-... I hope they end up breaking through the 400' barrier. It would be a nice win for us.

The dog park is a good idea for the residents, although it would be a pretty tiny dog park, mostly a place to let them out.

I can't remember from the initial RFP, but are all of the bus lines being relocated outside of the site moving the bus stops on Van Buren, Central, and 1st Ave? Or will some bus stops be under the parking garage building? I can see the light rail stations are still there and will likely remain. It seems like this RFP was to utilize the land for mixed uses and residential, and not actually make it a "central station".

I know this design is extremely preliminary, so I'll be interested to see how it morphs over the years.

The ample parking is pretty annoying, given it's perfect location near all of the major transit in the city, but it makes sense... at this point it would be difficult to market units without their own parking space. Car-free lifestyles are still pretty rare, I'd assume most potential renters will utilize light rail, bus, bikes, as much as they can, but they'd likely still need a car, and want a parking space for their unit. Even if the parking areas end up partially empty most of the time.

EDIT:
Regarding parking, I would think they would try to make some shared parking agreements with parking garages nearby. Looking at the aerial of the site (below), check out the huge parking garage next to the MAG building just west of Central Station... I see the top floor COMPLETELY unused, on which I count about 125 free spaces. And that's the middle of the day during a work day, likely the most heavily used time of day for a parking garage like that. So, it's basically useless currently. If they tried to get some shared parking agreement with the owners of that parking garage (the owner according to the Maricopa County assessor is First Interstate Bank of AZ (weird, they own a parking garage?)), they could easily cover parking requirements, and save a ton of money by not building excess parking.

[dtnphx]

Originally Posted by PHXFlyer11

I like the building, but yes, where is this station??? I think that the giant garage is somewhat so people can park and ride. Which makes a little sense in our city, but I don't see anything that looks like a station, which is too bad!

My guess is that the station will be on the first floor of the garage with bays for the buses, tickets, concessions, etc. The above floors of parking are for the apartment owners and some for the small amount of retail and workers at the site. I don't imagine they've forgotten the transit aspect of it. It still has to have at least as much as it does now, just in a new configuration.

[Sean1187]

Delete

[Leo the Dog]

What a sleek looking building! Love how it's NOT a box. If built, it'll add a new dimension to DT.

[KevininPhx]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

Wow that's pretty stunning! How likely is this to happen?

Hell, yeah.

[pbenjamin]

This looks interesting.

http://grist.org/cities/these-incredible...to-an-urban-utopia/#.U2z5GXjxKys.twitter

[turpentyne]

Phase 2 of Portland Place will begin soon (by the deck park & Central)

http://azbigmedia.com/azre-magazine/new-market/multi-family/phase-2-portland-park

I like that they're planning to include some shops/food on the first floor. wine/coffee, etcetera.

[HooverDam]

Originally Posted by pbenjamin

This looks interesting.

http://grist.org/cities/these-incredible...to-an-urban-utopia/#.U2z5GXjxKys.twitter

Jesus the comments on that thing are amazingly stupid.

Why do desert communities have to deal with such endless, ignorant nonsense? Does Minneapolis have to deal with a bunch of pseudo intellectuals saying "but its very cold!" every time a story is written about their city?

Originally Posted by turpentyne

Phase 2 of Portland Place will begin soon (by the deck park & Central)

http://azbigmedia.com/azre-magazine/new-market/multi-family/phase-2-portland-park

I like that they're planning to include some shops/food on the first floor. wine/coffee, etcetera.

Looks great, I hope it happens.

[KevininPhx]

Originally Posted by turpentyne

Phase 2 of Portland Place will begin soon (by the deck park & Central)

http://azbigmedia.com/azre-magazine/new-market/multi-family/phase-2-portland-park

I like that they're planning to include some shops/food on the first floor. wine/coffee, etcetera.

That looks amazing.

[kingofleos]

Originally Posted by HooverDam

That looks like it could be a great project for downtown. More residential is always needed.

Early impressions:

The Bad:
- Current massing is rather wide east to west. Currently the view from Civic Space to the south is awesome because you see a variety of buildings of differing ages, sizes, etc.

That's what my main gripe has been. If only we could have mid-rises and high-rises from Fillmore up to McDowell. Imagine that skyline, the length would rival that of Chicago and New York. Albeit, we'd still have nowhere close to the overall volume, the skyline would absolutely stun if we could get that gap connected.

[Jjs5056]

Portland Place looks amazing and is a great example of a design situated perfectly for its site. So much care and thought has obviously gone into the project, and I think the heights are perfect- adding density adjacent to Hance, enhancing the visual skyline, and providing a mix of living options in one singular project. Aside from the small lot next to 3rd ave, this is going to complete the best neighborhood in downtown. The range of quality living options, beautiful designs, hidden parking, and mix of professional services and eateries make Roosevelt-Portland, Central to 3rd Ave the closest thing we have to a perfect urban mixed use neighborhood.

Now, everyone will hate me, but I'm sorry, I can't just not respond to the Central Station RFP. Remember that shiny 200 Monroe tower that everyone agreed was one of the worst, anti-urban designs they'd seen? Do you remember why it was so awful? 1) It presented blank walls on 3/4 sides, with only a lobby breaking up the 4th's frontage. 2) The office tower was 1/3 the surface area of the parking structure. 3) The development was way overparked. 4) Bizarre setbacks left odd amounts of open space on the north and south sides, allowing *possible* future development, but making it really hard with the small amount left.

Well, I am almost positive these 4 points can all be used to critique this Central Station design. Mixed use is a meaningless description in this city; other cities are creating projects with residential, office and hotel towers on the same block with ground level retail... THAT'S mixed use. And, I guess I was naive to have read the RFP and thought we were going to get something in between that and the actual design.

2/3s of the block dedicated to a massive parking structure on the CENTRAL TRANSIT STATION site is unacceptable. This would've been a great chance to highlight alternative modes of providing parking for residents, such as the share agreement PHX31 mentioned. At the very least, the residential parking should've gone underground, with park and ride/retail/office parking in a garage wrapped on all 4 sides by residential (north), retail (east and west) and office/retail (south).

The east and west sides look to have the same odd setbacks as 200 Monroe - just landscaped open space adjacent to the garage; I'm hoping this serves some kind of transit use that isn't obvious, otherwise the combined surface area could've easily allowed for another tower. Having no retail at a transit center adjacent to a University is a big miss and seems to go against what the city had in mind in creating a vibrant development. The tower should have stepped down to allow views, with the remaining units running along the east/west perimeters on top of retail, with an office tower (12 stories or so) on the south end.

[PHX31]

/\Can't disagree... hopefully this is so early on in the design process, the setback issue will be resolved and retail will be added, at least on Central.

I emailed the procurement office to see if I could get information on the "losing" proposal. No luck.

[soleri]

I'm very impressed by the Portland Place rendering. If you recall, the original expansions, part II and part III, involved 10 and 12 story buildings, and utterly uninspired architecture. If Phoenix gets this instead, thank the real-estate bust. Cornoyer Hedrick was the architect of Phase 1, perhaps the best recent condo project in Arizona in terms of design. BTW, not to pull a scab here, but Cornoyer Hedrick came up with a smashing design for the city-owned convention hotel. They lost to the hotshot firm out of Miami, Arquitectonica, which bequeathed Phoenix possibly the worst-designed piece of 🞵🞵🞵🞵 in recent American history.

Jjs, I agree completely with your take on the RFP at Central Station.

[michael85225]

Originally Posted by HX_Guy

I really like this proposed building, kinda reminds me of the Museum Tower in Dallas. I hope they decide to make it slightly taller because it's looking a little stubby there. The cons that others have mentioned are true (the setbacks, enormous parking area, etc.) but this a very early design and I'm optimistic it will be redesigned.

[PHXFlyer11]

Originally Posted by michael85225

I really like this proposed building, kinda reminds me of the Museum Tower in Dallas. I hope they decide to make it slightly taller because it's looking a little stubby there. The cons that others have mentioned are true (the setbacks, enormous parking area, etc.) but this a very early design and I'm optimistic it will be redesigned.

I just realized why, other than the parking garage this thing is somewhat disappointing to me... We are in the process of taking a public survey on rail alternatives for the high-speed line from Tucson. There MUST be the option/future space to add a station here, otherwise this whole thing is useless. We're going to end up with a central station that doesn't even incorporate high-speed rail.

Admittedly, there really is no way for the train to make it to that location unless they tunnel it underground, but damn...