Quote:
Originally Posted by PHX31
I agree, and I think this is our only hope to having great cohesive neighborhoods and a nice urban city we can be proud of. It's slowly happening in Roosevelt and Evans Churchill (which will not have nearly as good of a mix as Roosevelt as most of the old homes are gone, save a couple select blocks).
Seriously though, what's the deal with the Union? I'm so looking forward to that taking up that empty lot. It will really tie together Roosevelt east and west of Central.
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Phoenix is not comparable to downtown Tempe or Scottsdale; both of those cities had walkable downtowns, with building stock in place and a pedestrian-scaled grid form (vs. superblock formation) setting the stage for the surge of investment seen today. These downtowns have gone through numerous transformations before settling into the distinctive destinations they are now - Scottsdale with its eclectic old west vs. modern luxury, overlaid with upscale shopping and unmatched art, dining, hospitality, and nightlife; Tempe took a chance on the lake and is seeing it pay off - in combination with progressive, urban policies, the neighborhoods adjacent to downtown have densified while increased height and amenities develop around Mill Ave, the Lake, and ASU. That's why we are seeing true midrise, urban development in both cities, and high rise development in the case of Tempe. Downtown Phoenix, OTOH, lacks any identity or differentiator that makes it the 'best of' in any category. Its new investments have been great, but infrastructure (light rail), and amenities for the tax-base (convention center) do little to create a 'something' that isn't there, and the BIG IDEA projects have only blasted away historic building stock for a sterile, hot, uninviting built environment.
If every lot downtown was filled with 4-story development, we'd have a forever-dead center city. Phoenix doesn't have the surrounding neighborhoods that Tempe and Scottsdale have; it bombed away its Chinatown, its Mexican Barrios, and its Arts District - all now creating miles of uninhabited land on the border. 4-story developments are nowhere near the kind of density needed now as the city plays catch up. The tunnel vision in creating the Biomedical and ASU campuses at all costs have created a whole bunch of obstacles and it doesn't seem like a long-term plan is on anyone's agenda. The Biomedical Campus should have never been able to extend past Fillmore. This new residential project will eventually be swallowed up by single-use medical buildings instead of mixed use midrises, and live/work townhomes transitioning into the adapted single-family homes that should've created a vibrant Evans Churchill feeding the Roosevelt Arts District. With so many lots dedicated to single-story, single-use buildings, downtown needs to grow bigger/taller or start redeveloping the wasted space (hi, Met and St. Croix).
Also, while I agree that skyscrapers don't create a vibrant street life, a vibrant street life isn't possible without skyscrapers.
Where were the residents of 44M supposed to go exactly? 44M never rented its retail, and the surrounding area is mainly commercial/hotel. But, I bet (and know from 1st hand experience) that many residents attend First Fridays, go to places like Bliss and Rumbar, etc. But, there's no Mill Ave which took off the second W6 opened or a W Hotel-anchored Entertainment District being infilled now with condos and apartments like there is in Scottsdale. Everyone hates my obsession with retail, but the current sporadic pattern is going to leave downtown with nowhere for street life to even exist. Roosevelt is too much of a niche to be a real shopping street and CityScape is more of a nightlife/tourist attraction; Central should've been the main street of contiguous shopping, with neighborhood retail/services along Fillmore.
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