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Originally Posted by exit2lef
I felt that way almost 20 years ago when the Arizona Center first opened. There were huge crowds there for the first few years, but by the mid-'90s, they began to search out the next trendy attraction. I'm normally optimistic, but I hope this is not a case of deja vu. After seeing big projects fall short of their goals for two decades, I'm much more impressed with nearby places like Hanny's, Cartel, etc. -- places that do something cool with an old building or a modest storefront.
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I remember my dad being extremely fickle about downtown in the 1990s and not liking the hassle about any of it. We stopped going to Sun's games because he thought America West Arena was too much of a pain in the ass.
Downtown didn't really register on a lot of people's minds back then. The newness of Phoenix's late-term urban renewal (Arizona Center, AWA, and Chase Field) lost any cachet with overall bad design.
15 years later downtown registers on a lot more people...
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When the Arizona Center first opened, it had a cluster of nightclubs known as "Phoenix Live." Under one umbrella, there a was a sports bar, a dance club, a pub, and a dueling piano bar. During the early '90s, Phoenix Live was packed almost every night with people who came from all over the metro area. Then, in the middle of the decade the crowds thinned, and by 2000 the complex was gone with its space, which was mostly on the second floor, converted to offices. The lesson I take from this is that nightlife preferences are always fickle. You can create a sensation with almost anything for a while, but then people move on. That's why I'm skeptical about Lucky Strike and the Comedy Club having a lot of staying power. They'll definitely draw crowds for a few years, but the long-term outlook is challenging without more of a residential base near CityScape. I hope I'm wrong, but so much of what is happening now feels like deja vu from two decades ago.
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Somebody actually programmed it to be this one-stop-shop for entertainment? No wonder it died. You're right about those places being extremely fickle and rarely make money in the long term. None of the ones I went to are still around...I think they tore down Pompeii and "The World" (?) is Palazzo now. I remember reading reviews about the dueling piano bar and being mildly curious until everybody called it a one-star tourist trap.
I'd like to think there's far more of a convergence of people instead of just sports fans and office dwellers than we had in the 1990s to support venues at places like CityScape for the long term.
The threat of DUIs and the light rail will do wonders for lack of a nearby residential base ...
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