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Originally Posted by Spitfiredude
Blah don't care for Monti's... I've been there twice and it was not anything special. For me below average. The building is staying and that is what is important.
I think we are starting to see consistency for downtown building height. I know some people don't like that much height is occurring closer to Mill, but I think that its fine. It keeps a small town feel for the neighborhood. I was in downtown Bellevue (Seattle) last weekend and it made me think of Tempe for some reason - on a slightly larger scale. There was a mixture of high rise/mid rise development. Some development did not have ground floor retail, but majority did. This is what I notice is trending with height:
The outskirts have the taller buildings (Univ, College, Ash, Lake)..
Going toward the core (Mill/5th) you see a trend toward mid rise development (Hanover, Orchidhouse/Brickyard, Gateway building, mid rise directly south of Gateway, Residence Inn, possible future development)...
Mill is mostly low rise which is expected.
On the outside of the high rise sections you have mid rise to low rise (Farmer Avenue-west of Farmer Avenue; Apartments south of Omni).
The lake is pretty much all mid rise and up. I'm not sure what to think about "SALT" (that name sounds lame..HFL lofts were better).
I want everyone's opinion on the consideration of high rise, mid rise, low rise for Tempe standards? Obviously high rise in Tempe vs Phoenix vs Chicago will be different. IMO, I think below 50' is low rise, 50-200' is mid rise, and 200'+ is high rise.
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Bellevue is on a much larger scale as you noted; while Tempe is experiencing a boom and is the most dense, urban place in the valley, it still is lacking when you consider similar cities. It's still growing up from a small-town college-focused area to a more metropolitan city with a well-rounded economy.
Not only is Tempe landlocked, but its downtown is essentially defined by natural (Salt River, Tempe Butte) and mand-made borders (ASU, Loop 202), meaning that all development really needs to be smartly planned. I think your breakdown of where highrise, midrise and lowrise development needs to occur is spot on, but the problem is that current development trends aren't following that pattern. Mill between Rio Salado and University is fine with < 5 stories, but that should expand to ~20 along the lake, 10-20 along Ash and College, and 5-10 along Farmer and Apache.
Lakefront development should all be in the 200'-300' range, and yet SALT is 4 stories and the Jefferson is 6. Ash should have staggering heights between 10-20 stories to balance off the precedent set by W6, yet Hanover is 5 stories and Ash/University right now is only slated for 82' on a lot that should be 20+ stories. Etc, etc. I won't hate on USA Place because at least its model is very sustainable and dense if built out according to plan, but even that is rather sprawled out with nothing more than 8 stories aside from a 14-story hotel over a very significant portion of land.
College is essentially filled up unless some redevelopment occurs and, unfortunately, the only building more than a few stories is student housing. Hopefully, the last phase of College Commons/Block 12 includes a market rate tower and retail so that at least there's a nice variety instead of being essentially a more public campus mall.
Lastly, Apache is filling up with low-rises, student housing, and 1-house structures, when it should be a mix of market rate and affordable housing almost ALL mixed use in order to promote a true, transit-friendly neighborhood along that corridor. Gracie's Village was a great development, but those folks still need a car in order to buy their daily necessities because no developments have gone up/or will be going up that intend to bring groceries, hardware stores, dry cleaners, fast food, ethnic markets, etc.
I think with the Stadium District, we might need to start looking at Rural a and University as the next attractive roads that can handle mid-high rise development. Rural is a solid midpoint between the 101 and McClintock and Priest and some high, urban development on both would really help connect the dots. Otherwise, development is going to sprawl beyond the current LRT, BRT is still years away, and the streetcar does nothing to help alleviate this because it's essentially redundant with the light rail. That route should've been kept to Rio Salado and gone down further East, or attempted to connect the other areas where development might/will occur: Broadway/10, Papago Park and Southern/Rural (like, say a line that ran from Broadway/Priest up Priest to McDowell/Rural).
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