Posted Oct 25, 2018, 5:22 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2013
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Downtown Phoenix's rebirth has been decades in the making. Here's how they did it
Pretty cool article on AZ Central about the resurgence of downtown Phoenix
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news...ks/1534788002/
Quote:
Keeping momentum
There is a tangible fear inside Phoenix City Hall that downtown could backslide once again — that people will decide to move back to the suburbs and take the high-paying jobs with them.
"If we don't keep our eye on the ball, it will absolutely happen again," Mackay said.
She said the city must keep adding housing to the downtown core and continue to add the retail and restaurant components that people want near their homes.
Downtown will soon need a hardware store and other stores that sell conveniences, said downtown proponents.
Crow and Wellington "Duke" Reiter, a senior adviser to the president at ASU, want a downtown that extends from the downtown core to the Phoenix Art Museum and Heard Museum on Central Avenue and McDowell Road.
The plan, dubbed "the Central Idea," calls for activities and engagement opportunities along the full span from the core to the museums. It could include restaurants, retail, exhibitions, civic events and green space.
"When people can spend a day doing all kinds of things never having gotten in a car and say, 'You've got to go to Phoenix, you have to see what's going on there' … I think we'll really be getting somewhere," Reiter said.
And while that may seem like a lofty goal, a flourishing downtown Phoenix campus once was, too.
The Central Idea would bump Phoenix from a great regional city to a great national city, Crow said. It would connect all the main pieces of downtown Phoenix's success — the campus, the museums, the arts district and the government buildings.
"We think downtown Phoenix has unbelievable potential," Crow said.
Mackay stressed that the city cannot rest on its laurels, but must instead continue to grow and change with the evolving needs and desires of the community.
"We have got to always be reinventing ourselves, because if you don't think every other market is continually reinventing themselves, you've got another thing coming," Mackay said.
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Last edited by ASU Diablo; Oct 25, 2018 at 7:11 PM.
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