And a related article in today's AZ Republic about the University Square Project:
Neighbors want answers to project plan
http://www.azcentral.com/community/t...ea0607Z10.html
Katie Nelson
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 7, 2006 12:00 AM
Traffic congestion and parking were on the top of people's minds Monday night when more than 45 people gathered at Lorenzo's Pizza, Pasta & Café.
The group learned about University Square, a hotel, condo, office and retail megaplex that would take up one of Tempe's city blocks if it gets approved by the city during the next year as they munched on pepperoni pizza at one of the businesses that's on the soon-to-be construction site.
The crowd consisted of mostly area residents, but a few business owners were in attendance. Both groups peppered the developers who plan to build the three-tower project that would reach as high as 30 stories on University Drive, smack between downtown Tempe and Arizona State University.
Traffic congestion and parking were the main concerns, and the only topics that created clear tension.
But building heights, blocked views and construction dates and times were also mentioned as topics neighbors are worrying about as plans for the project are put into place.
"This project is going to greatly impact my life," said Deborah Ryden, 58, who lives in a fourth-floor Orchid House loft that faces what would become the new University Square development.
"I don't think that any of us mind a new development down here. But I think most of the residents here agree we never thought we would see 30-story towers and be surrounded by high-rises," Ryden said.
Complaints from Ryden and many others centered on the impact of more vehicles coming to Tempe's already clogged downtown streets.
"That's why we're here," replied Tony Wall, president of one of the partners developing the project.
The developers and designers hope on-site amenities and workplaces, combined with the coming light-rail lines, would allow people to live without owning a vehicle, or at least reduce the amount of car trips they make.
The skeptics in the crowd, meanwhile, shook their heads.
People also asked if Seventh Street would be widened to accommodate the project's residents, employees and patrons, making the now-mostly quiet road a thoroughfare between Mill and College avenues.
And they wanted to know when the one-story shops currently on the land would be razed, and if rent would go up once the building was built.
Wall and the rest of the team said many of those specifics depend on the city, and answers would evolve in coming months - an answer that created some frustration within the audience.
"It's hard to imagine what this will be like in three years," said Amanda Conti, who was representing the local businesses Liquid Carma and Tattooed Planet. "We don't know what is going on. For us, we're floating until you let us know."
A trio of developers, two of which are from the Valley, is putting the project together. Shea Commercial and 3W Cos. from Scottsdale are working with the California-based Triyar.
Representatives from both Shea and 3W were at the community meeting, as well as two Phoenix-based architects who designed the project.
University Square would consist of a retail and parking on the lower floors with three towers extending upwards, including a 13-floor office building in the shape of an oval, a 26-story condo building along Seventh Street, and a 30-story hotel/condo tower that would be off Myrtle Avenue.
The project is only in the design phases now, said Wall, president of 3W. But the developers this month will begin to seek the needed permits to build.
They said they hope to break ground on the project's first phase a year from now.
Construction, the developers said, could take two to three years.
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Information from the AZ Republic:
The city's first public hearing for University Square is set for 7 p.m. June 20 before the Redevelopment Review Commission. The meeting will be in the City Council Chambers, 31 E. Fifth St
-Andrew