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Originally Posted by Jjs5056
CO+HOOTS is expanding and was looking exclusively at downtown for their new location until Mackay convinced them to go to Midtown. Their current Eastlake location is irrelevant.
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Midtown is much more likely to have the budget office space some tech startup or incubated business will be seeking. Downtown is still a premium district to rent in.
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I completely understand what you're saying in some regards, and no - my alternative is not to let the area lay in its current state forever, but to let private market demands and private developers invest into the area as the benefits of dense urban infill will have been seen by the success of projects like the ones being built in Garfield. In the meantime, the City - instead of playing real estate developer - could focus on projects like making 7th Street less of a highway, designing PBC to connect to both the east AND west, etc. to allow the development east of downtown to support the core instead of blocking them out. And, they could also enforce things Urban Form so that the chance of a street lined with retail could actually be a reality instead of blocks of loading docks and garages (can you imagine the type of design that would fly on 9th/Jackson?).
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The City is not going to buy the UP land or assemble it, so chill. If anything, they'll get nearly free land for an arena probably around where 12th St and Buchanan would be and probably land for a city park. The other lands will be owned by a Union Pacific subsidiary, and will be sold and developed by UP at a significant profit. They'll do soil remediation, have some hand in building streets and infrastructure, and build in some zoning entitlements in the form of a loosely-written Planned Unit Development that will be more or less rubber stamped because there are no neighbors.
If Garfield and other neighbors like that were denser and people found crossing 7th St to be more of an en masse barrier, people would be clamoring for Phoenix to do something about 7th St. I really haven't seen any private organization shepherd that task, however.
As for PBC, I don't ever think I've seen a mixed use major medical or research facility, but what do I know. The PBC is probably one of those things Phoenix should have put somewhere else outside of downtown rather than sticking in the thick of things, especially when the height and density would have been supported elsewhere
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Look at what's been done at 111 Monroe; a private developer renovated what was once unusable, outdated office space and attracted a ton of employers...
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111 Monroe was an afterthought renovation during the height of the boom when downtown office buildings were essentially full. It's taken years of investment to attract those employers, and it's still very much a Class B building. Cheap sells.
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And, yes, I do think moving the arena will kill the Warehouse District. What chance does it have if you replace one of its only sources of energy and visibility with a giant empty shell and superblock? A new mixed-use arena in its current location is a chance to connect Jackson to Jefferson with a mix of residential, offices, and retail that could finally spark something. This + LRT = exactly what you say has to happen: giving neighborhoods (that exist - unlike any new faux urban-or-not 'hood potentially built on 9th/Jackson) like Central/Grant Park access to services, schools, jobs, and making them an affordable option for middle-class Phoenicians.
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You want Jackson St to be a thing that benefits from peak arena traffic, when really the only businesses that do so don't really cater to urbanites but suburbanites that only come downtown to have a beer in or around an event. I'd rather that kind of traffic was away from Jackson St and in a more sanitary environment.
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