ASU/UofA Downtown Phoenix construction thread

[Jjs5056]

Originally Posted by biggus diggus

This website complains about every single thing. I like the building, the facade is pretty similar to the biomedical buildings which turned out great. But here we are complaining about something that isn't even finished.

It's a discussion forum; page 1 lists facts, and you can skip through for pics / updates if you hate actual talk re: the impact these projects have on life in the city they're built. Your positive opinion is great, but WTF is wrong with another POV? If "looks great!" is ok, "this is nasty" should be. Regardless, most critical comments are intelligent, from users who are long-time locals. It's a much more interesting place when people are personally invested in watching their city come to life.

When I posted frequently yrs ago, "it's better than nothing" was king. No negativity allowed since PHX was desperate for anything. Nobody cared about the long-term implications of a public University owning prime DT real estate and building single-use low-rises.

This 400' stretch of land (which should've never been sold to ASU with the # of lots it already owns) eats up the remaining Civic Space frontage, yet we're still not allowed to expect more than mediocre? It should've had a mix of condos, hotel, and actual employers in private projects with distinct towers / architecture and ground-floor retail engaging the park/city.

Instead, between Fillmore > VB, across from a great urban park:
1) ASU Innovation Dorm; 400' of student housing, incubator space, no confirmed retail, and brown facade.
2) BOA drive-thru ATM per ASU's design.
3) YMCA that was once a great partnership between ASU and DT until...
4) ASU Rec Center; 5 stories of redundant services that segregates the student population from the city's.
5) 100' Vacant lot.
6) 200' Single-use midrise govt. office.

[ASU Diablo]

Originally Posted by Jjs5056

It's a discussion forum; page 1 lists facts, and you can skip through for pics / updates if you hate actual talk re: the impact these projects have on life in the city they're built. Your positive opinion is great, but WTF is wrong with another POV? If "looks great!" is ok, "this is nasty" should be. Regardless, most critical comments are intelligent, from users who are long-time locals. It's a much more interesting place when people are personally invested in watching their city come to life.

When I posted frequently yrs ago, "it's better than nothing" was king. No negativity allowed since PHX was desperate for anything. Nobody cared about the long-term implications of a public University owning prime DT real estate and building single-use low-rises.

This 400' stretch of land (which should've never been sold to ASU with the # of lots it already owns) eats up the remaining Civic Space frontage, yet we're still not allowed to expect more than mediocre? It should've had a mix of condos, hotel, and actual employers in private projects with distinct towers / architecture and ground-floor retail engaging the park/city.

Instead, between Fillmore > VB, across from a great urban park:
1) ASU Innovation Dorm; 400' of student housing, incubator space, no confirmed retail, and brown facade.
2) BOA drive-thru ATM per ASU's design.
3) YMCA that was once a great partnership between ASU and DT until...
4) ASU Rec Center; 5 stories of redundant services that segregates the student population from the city's.
5) 100' Vacant lot.
6) 200' Single-use midrise govt. office.

1) How about we wait for a finished product before we pass final judgement? I can't count how many times you've blasted a project based on initial renderings or partial construction to then take back your words and say you were pleasantly surprised how good it came out
2) I'm not 100% sure but isn't this drive-thru ATM just temporary until the ATM can be built inside ASU Innovation Dorm and fully opened? I thought this was part of the agreement
3-4) I can get behind this but I realize why ASU did it this way
5) be patient
6) So you're blaming ASU for the city or county-owned building that houses MAG? Unless you're referring to a different building?

I mostly agree with your points, however. For the remaining lots fronting Civic Space Park, we need more iconic/taller buildings.

[biggus diggus]

Originally Posted by Jjs5056

It's a discussion forum; page 1 lists facts, and you can skip through for pics / updates if you hate actual talk re: the impact these projects have on life in the city they're built. Your positive opinion is great, but WTF is wrong with another POV? If "looks great!" is ok, "this is nasty" should be. Regardless, most critical comments are intelligent, from users who are long-time locals. It's a much more interesting place when people are personally invested in watching their city come to life.

When I posted frequently yrs ago, "it's better than nothing" was king. No negativity allowed since PHX was desperate for anything. Nobody cared about the long-term implications of a public University owning prime DT real estate and building single-use low-rises.

This 400' stretch of land (which should've never been sold to ASU with the # of lots it already owns) eats up the remaining Civic Space frontage, yet we're still not allowed to expect more than mediocre? It should've had a mix of condos, hotel, and actual employers in private projects with distinct towers / architecture and ground-floor retail engaging the park/city.

Instead, between Fillmore > VB, across from a great urban park:
1) ASU Innovation Dorm; 400' of student housing, incubator space, no confirmed retail, and brown facade.
2) BOA drive-thru ATM per ASU's design.
3) YMCA that was once a great partnership between ASU and DT until...
4) ASU Rec Center; 5 stories of redundant services that segregates the student population from the city's.
5) 100' Vacant lot.
6) 200' Single-use midrise govt. office.

You're complaining about something that isn't even done being built. You quite simply don't know what it's going to look like - though you may have a rough idea based on renderings and the in progress construction. Further, there is similar complaining about every other proposed or under construction building. But relax, I'm not singling you out. There are many people doing it.

[combusean]

That and I don't believe Civic Space was ever supposed to be much more than ASU's campus green anyways.

Besides what biggus said, ASU doesn't own the parking lot to the south of the student rec center so they can't at all be blamed for the actions of a landbanker. And I'm 99% sure that ATM is temporary, and if it's not, it's no worse than the ATM it replaced. And saying that the dorm takes up 400' of frontage is completely wrong. Finally, the new dorm includes public exhibition and community space so it's fine.

The criticism I have of ASU is that they should have used the block's worth of empty space they have without further expanding, but then we would have been stuck with those vacant buildings that weren't going to get rehabbed on an important corner.

[DesertRay]

Originally Posted by combusean

The criticism I have of ASU is that they should have used the block's worth of empty space they have without further expanding, but then we would have been stuck with those vacant buildings that weren't going to get rehabbed on an important corner.

I'm curious what you think that it would have look like if they did that.

As far as I'm concerned about the dorm, I'm excited the the piss buildings are gone. We'll see about the entrepreneurial center, esp. if they can partner with the maker space on Van Buren. The YMCA works just fine. Students can go on either side, as can the Y people (pre-pandemic, I spent time on both sides, and saw community members on both sides--it's pretty porous, and definitely less student-centric than ASU's other spaces. We'll see.

[muertecaza]

Stumbled on a review of a new book that apparently voices criticisms of public universities' moves to downtown campuses. Since the book uses ASU in Phoenix as one of its prime examples, I figured I'd post the review:

https://www.planetizen.com/features/...ucation-cities

...For Baldwin, the scheme that most subjugates education to real estate development is that of Arizona State University’s incursion into downtown Phoenix. Baldwin savages the Phoenix area’s historical reliance on real estate as its economic driver and suggests that ASU exploited the city’s growth-friendly culture to get a sweetheart deal for a cluster of buildings downtown. The school pitched the campus as a way to revitalize Phoenix’s notoriously sleepy downtown. Baldwin argues that it disregarded the presence of an existing community of residents and small businesses that stood to be displaced by, or fail to benefit from, the development of enormous academic buildings. He further contends that the university’s private-sector partners will get to occupy untaxed buildings while generating untaxed profits for the university.

Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Ivory-...6533111&sr=8-1

[exit2lef]

This is such a tired argument:

Baldwin argues that it disregarded the presence of an existing community of residents and small businesses that stood to be displaced by, or fail to benefit from, the development of enormous academic buildings.

I know a handful of skeptics who claim that, but everything I've seen is the opposite: more local businesses and more people to support them.

[Obadno]

Trash take!

If you are going to complain about city boondoggles complain against stadiums.

Universities bring in a lot of shoppers, residents and tangential business interests on a consistent year long basis and are a fraction of the expense shelled out for stadiums.

[azsunsurfer]

Originally Posted by muertecaza

Stumbled on a review of a new book that apparently voices criticisms of public universities' moves to downtown campuses. Since the book uses ASU in Phoenix as one of its prime examples, I figured I'd post the review:

https://www.planetizen.com/features/...ucation-cities



Book:

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Ivory-...6533111&sr=8-1

The irony is that tuition will always still climb....no matter how much untaxed revenues they earn...

[phoenixwillrise]

Originally Posted by azsunsurfer

The irony is that tuition will always still climb....no matter how much untaxed revenues they earn...

ASU's growth downtown was one of the forces that is igniting growth which many will benefit from. The law school and soon to be T'Bird School sit on a property that had a run down rat invested Ramada Inn on it for one example.
ASU's campus is not walled off to outsiders in fact the park that the City built at the site is a homeless haven where they can sit there drinking, doing drugs and watch pretty coed's and probably get in a little panhandling to and if they are legit homeless who don't do those things they can get some protection from campus police.

[Obadno]

https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/...tor-space.html

Wexford Science & Technology LLC is launching an innovation lab in downtown Phoenix to give growing life science companies access to flexible lab, office and lab support facilities.

Called Wexford Innovation Labs, the new tenant will take 34,500 square feet of space within Wexford's 225,000-square-foot 850 PBC research and education facility recently built on the Phoenix Bioscience Campus.

This innovation lab will offer lab spaces ranging from 250 to 1,000 square feet for startup bioscience firms that aren't quite ready or able to afford their own commercial lab spaces.

So far, 60% of the lab space has been preleased, said Doug Woodruff, senior vice president and west region executive for Baltimore, Maryland-based Wexford Science & Technology LLC.

Arizona State University has 112,000 square feet at 850 PBC, representing about half of the total structure, he said.

Woodruff said he's negotiating with other life science tenants for the remainder of the building, which sits on the northern portion of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus. The property sits on a 7-acre parcel north of Fillmore Street to Garfield Street, between Third and Sixth streets.

The total parcel has enough room to build more life science and research space in the future for a total of somewhere between 1.5 million to 2 million square feet, Woodruff said.

"We are in early stages of design for the next building, which will be somewhat larger," he said. "We haven't landed on the updated square footage."

[DesertRay]

Originally Posted by azsunsurfer

The irony is that tuition will always still climb....no matter how much untaxed revenues they earn...

Blame the state. AZ took away 50% of state investment in 2009, and never restored it. It's a damn miracle that ASU's tuition has barely increased compared to everyone else, and that ASU Online is hella cheap. Michael Crow deserves a medal for keeping prices down despite the state trying to bleed them dry.

[TJPHXskyscraperfan]

I assume, those new dorms should be opening in time for this semester, isn’t it like 400 plus beds? Man they gotta do something about that Circle K across the street. Circle K needs to at least take some accountability with some no loitering signs, Idk, they may have them. And get the homeless off their property.

[combusean]

It's 532. That Circle K should look more normal when all the residential development around it fills up and maybe office workers come back again.

[CrestedSaguaro]

Originally Posted by combusean

It's 532. That Circle K should look more normal when all the residential development around it fills up and maybe office workers come back again.

Not sure, but that Circle K is a menace. I unfortunately stop there once or twice per week as it's close to my work. I gotta tell ya, walking in there every time scares the hell out of me. It also seriously needs to be rebuilt. Just trying to get gas there is very problematic. It's just a bad layout all around. It was probably ok when not many people needed it. But with the explosion of residents downtown and a ton more coming with ASU, O'Neil, Aspire and Fillmore all coming online soon, it is definitely no longer up to par.

Does Circle K own the adjacent fenced lot to the North?

[Prestige Worldwide]

Originally Posted by CrestedSaguaro

Not sure, but that Circle K is a menace. I unfortunately stop there once or twice per week as it's close to my work. I gotta tell ya, walking in there every time scares the hell out of me. It also seriously needs to be rebuilt. Just trying to get gas there is very problematic. It's just a bad layout all around. It was probably ok when not many people needed it. But with the explosion of residents downtown and a ton more coming with ASU, O'Neil, Aspire and Fillmore all coming online soon, it is definitely no longer up to par.

Does Circle K own the adjacent fenced lot to the North?

Looks like Westward Ho owns the lot to the north of Circle K

[biggus diggus]

Circle K, as a big company, doesn't spend much money on beautification and safety practices. It's just the way it is. As long as that Circle K is there the corner will have issues. When they remolded the one on 7th Street a lot of guys in the neighborhood said it would be great for us but they were wrong, it was covered in degenerates on day one. Looks great on the outside, though,.

[azsunsurfer]

Originally Posted by biggus diggus

Circle K, as a big company, doesn't spend much money on beautification and safety practices. It's just the way it is. As long as that Circle K is there the corner will have issues. When they remolded the one on 7th Street a lot of guys in the neighborhood said it would be great for us but they were wrong, it was covered in degenerates on day one. Looks great on the outside, though,.

It's not the companies' fault, it's the demographics

[Phxguy]

An ASU professor of mine once cited this Circle K in particular can’t be remodeled or expanded because of a policy that prohibits auto-oriented businesses within the downtown boundaries. The policy grandfathers in gas stations and auto repair shops (Sun Devil, Auto Shop, etc) but prohibits them from modifying their property so long as they remain ‘auto-oriented’ by zoning definition.

[azsunsurfer]

If its profitable in its current form, then Circle K has no incentive to sell or redevelop that property.