Tag: Lennar Multifamily Communities

Downtown Phoenix In Review 2014: Opportunities

As 2014 winds down, let’s look back on the year that was in downtown Phoenix. In this finale post, I’ll look at downtown Phoenix’s opportunities for 2015.

[editor’s note: Over the previous ten days, we’ve published our year-end Downtown Phoenix In Review 2014 series. In four posts, we looked at downtown’s strengths, weaknesses, and threats that shaped its 2014 and set the stage for 2015 and beyond. You are invited to read all of the published essays here.]

Downtown Phoenix In Review 2014: IV. Opportunities

1. Building on economic momentum of the University District. In December, a study was released that showed University of Arizona’s Medical School in downtown Phoenix had a $1.3 billion economic impact in 2013. Not in this study was the economic impact of Arizona State University’s presence, though I’ve teen told that those studies are in the works. There is a curious dislike of the presence of these universities in downtown Phoenix but this is the best thing that we have going for us at the moment. These institutions also have something that private ventures might not have: permanence. This quote from an article in CityLab (formerly The Atlantic Cities) summarizes this well: “‘General Motors in Flint, Michigan, picked up and left. And with it went all of these jobs, and that really decimated the economy,’ says [author Tracey] Ross. ‘Wayne State University in Detroit? They’re not going to be picking up and leaving.’”

2. The “Central Arts District” if it gets going and becomes more inclusive. Not much is known about the Central Arts District other than it consists of several of the arts organizations in Midtown, the Phoenix Community Alliance, and the ownership of the VIAD corporate center. The Midtown Museum District, whose mission and boundaries are the same, seems to have been kept in the dark about this. Even the Phoenix Arts and Culture Commission, of which I am a Commissioner, knows nil about this group.

3. New residential projects coming to downtown. Ground is set to be broken on several residential projects in the central core this year: the Union at 1 Avenue and Roosevelt, the Muse at Central and McDowell, and projects surrounding the Barrister Place project at Central & Jefferson. Physical design notwithstanding, these projects will bring some new density downtown, always a positive. If Phoenix is going to latch on to the back-to-the-city movement happening nationwide, then some new residential density is needed. This is a start.

4. The Super Bowl comes to Phoenix in February. As the world descends to Phoenix for February’s Super Bowl, Phoenix has started to put its best foot forward. While the game is in suburban Glendale, most of the main events are in downtown Phoenix. This is a great chance to show the world about Phoenix. Despite the problems of the N.F.L. this year surrounding domestic abuse (among other things), the Super Bowl brings the eyes of the world to its host city. Phoenix’s urban leaders should capitalize on this.

5. A new Chief for the Phoenix Police Department. After a tumultuous tenure as Chief of Police, Daniel V. Garcia was fired by Phoenix City Manager Ed Zuercher on 18 December after Mr. Garcia called a press conference slamming his critics and demanding a contract extension from the same City that ordered him not to hold that press conference. Telling of Mr. Garcia’s tenure was his curious absence from a marathon City Council meeting the previous day to address community-police relationships. With community-police relationships on everyone’s minds these days following high-profile incidents in Ferguson, New York City, and even here in Phoenix, a new start was needed.

Downtown Phoenix in Review 2014: Weaknesses

As 2014 winds down, let’s look back on the year that was in downtown Phoenix. In this second post of four, I’ll look at downtown Phoenix’s weaknesses.

[editor’s note: Over the next few days, we’ll be publishing our year-end Downtown Phoenix In Review 2014 series. In four posts, we’ll look at downtown’s strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities that shaped its 2014 and set the stage for 2015 and beyond. Part I of this polyptych looked at downtown’s strengths. Parts III and IV will be published after Christmas.]

Downtown Phoenix In Review 2014: II. Weaknesses

1. “Still-none” items from 2013 Year-in-Review weaknesses list. At the end of 2013, I commented that two of downtown’s weaknesses were a lack of a close, walkable grocery store and not enough residential density. Here we are, one year on from those comments, and we’re in the same boat. Though more boutique restaurants have opened downtown, the economic activity and residential density needed to support them isn’t following. The recent closest thing to a grocery store for downtown, Bodega 420, closed in June. Speaking of residential density: while some projects are slated to begin in 2015, those will bring limited relief to many of central-city Phoenix’s housing problems, including genuinely affordable housing for families, not just urban hipsters. It might be, unfortunately, too little too late.

2. Thinking we can copy-and-paste our way to become a better urban city. There is a difference between taking smart practices from other cities and just trying to emulate them. I was engaged in a conversation with a downtown observer who said that downtown Phoenix and downtown Denver were alike. While this might be true on a very superficial level, this ignores one very crucial element that the design-centric community here ignores incorrectly at best and dangerously at worst: context. There are very different contexts for why Denver (or any other city, really) is the way it is and why we are the way we are in Phoenix. Understand those first and then things will start to make sense and downtown advocates can work on smarter and better projects.

3. Suburban-urban projects underway on Central Avenue. Construction began in earnest on the new Elevation Central apartment complex at Central and Highland this year and the Lennar “Muse” project at Central and McDowell is set to begin in early 2015. Both of these projects are uninspired in their design and where they are in this place and moment in Phoenix history. Both projects are four-story stick (read: wood frame) wraps of a five-story parking garage and both projects do not make architectural gestures to Central Avenue, urban living, or this unique moment in Phoenix’s urban history. They look like projects better suited for the far suburbs than transit-oriented development in central-city Phoenix.

4. Results from November’s elections. To nobody’s surprise, Republicans took over the United States Senate and kept their hold on the United States House of Representatives and all of Arizona’s statewide elected offices. (Of course, when the other major party runs away from its accomplishments or its de facto leader, this was bound to happen.) In Arizona, cities and urban issues failed to come up as talking points from the candidates, which shows that there isn’t an interest at the statewide level to have Arizona’s cities be key parts of the 21st century urban-centric economy. Only one candidate replied to a list of urban-centric questions I posed: Congressman-elect Ruben Gallego. (I think it helped his campaign, n’est-ce pas?) In addition, November’s elections solidly disabused the notion that Arizona is a purple state: despite a few progressive enclaves in Phoenix and Tucson, this state is solidly red.

5. New flight departure paths from Sky Harbor and initial Council inertia. In September, the Federal Aviation Administration published new departure procedures for aircraft departing over central-city Phoenix, taking them over Grand Avenue instead over the Salt River. While details on who knew what and who approved these plans are unclear at best, there was a lot of inertia to get individual members of the Phoenix City Council to use their collective bully pulpit to effect change. In some correspondence I have received, one councilperson said that the City has no jurisdiction over the FAA and so they would not contact the FAA on that constituent’s behalf. While that statement is technically true, the City does have a bully pulpit it should be using how it can. Recently, the Phoenix City Council unanimously passed a resolution asking the FAA to revert to the pre-September departure procedures.

Statement on the Central & McDowell proposed apartments

My statement to the City of Phoenix Site Plan Review team concerning the proposed apartments for Central & McDowell in midtown Phoenix.

[editorial note: The following statement was given to the Site Plan Review hearing regarding the proposed apartment complex at Central Avenue and McDowell Road in midtown Phoenix earlier today. For additional context and comment, please read the “Almost Missed: Central & McDowell” essay, published 18 July 2014.]

Central & McDowell site As we have seen this afternoon, a siteplan for an apartment complex at a key corner in the City of Phoenix has been presented.

Many people here have talked about where this building is but I want to explore a different dimension: when this building is in the Phoenix urban story. Recently, Downtown Phoenix played host to two large-scale music festivals attracting thousands of people, the VIVA PHX festival on March 7 and the weekend-long McDowell Mountain Music Festival at Hance Park at the end of March. Today also marks the return to classes for the students at Arizona State University, including the almost-20,000 students studying at the downtown Phoenix campus alone. Major events of the February 2015 Super Bowl will be sited in Downtown.

Speaking of Hance Park, over two thousand people showed up at Hance Park on March 27 to see the unveiling of the new Hance Park Master Plan to get a feel for what public space and the urban ethic in Phoenix will be. Part of the success of that plan depends on increased density around the park; while this project provides modest density, it is nowhere near what it can or should be. Actually, the success of many urban-focused initiatives depends on increased density in our urban core. There is interest from both current and future urban dwellers—and from those in the urban academy—that the City of Phoenix get this urban moment right.

The City of Phoenix’s zoning scheme cites this area as a “downtown gateway” as part of the Downtown Zoning plan. I see it, too, as a midtown gateway, welcoming people to midtown Phoenix and our grand street, Central Avenue. As part of the Downtown Gateway, buildings are allowed to go up to 250 feet. While I am keenly aware that height and good urban design are not always congruent, a good urban design makes gestures to its geographic place and its moment in history. This is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put something of quality compatible with place and time on this site…but this project falls woefully short.

As City Hall and community leaders work through their approval or disapproval processes, there is only one question that should be considered: “Is this project worthy of being a gateway to downtown Phoenix?”

Thank you.

Almost Missed: Central & McDowell

An apartment complex is proposed for a key corner in midtown Phoenix. This is a good thing, right? Think again. This is a missed opportunity.

[ed. note, 18 August 2014: Today at 2pm at Phoenix City Hall, there is a site plan review hearing on this project. Come to voice your opinion.]

There has been much excitement lately about a new apartment complex that is proposed for the northwest corner of Central Avenue and McDowell Road at the southern boundary of midtown Phoenix, situated in the heart of the Midtown Arts District, near the McDowell Road light rail station, and near the excitement surrounding Hance Park. As such, the design and architecture of the building will celebrate not only this location but this unique moment in urban Phoenix history, right?

Oh, if only that last sentence were true.

The design foisted upon us by the developer and architect fits in more to a suburban context in Anytown USA than this geographic place and historical moment. The building doesn’t even attempt to make gestures to its geography or its moment in history; it is a four-story building that makes no design cues to anything but its own parking lot.

Given what’s proposed, the fact that this project is garnering excitement from civic leaders and neighborhood interests is very disappointing. I’ve frequently said on this blog that “we must do better” in Phoenix and this is one project that needs to do better. But in thinking about what “better” means, I’ve only thought about one thing: This project must be stopped before it gets farther along in approvals and the building process. Such a grand re-design is needed that scrapping what is proposed, hiring an architect with an acute knowledge of the urban Phoenix condition, and coming up with a different plan is the only solution.

For any project that will go on this site, we must ask this fundamental question: Is this project worthy of being a downtown and midtown gateway?

As part of the downtown Phoenix zoning overlay, the northwest corner of Central & McDowell is designated as “downtown gateway,” meaning that buildings can go up to 250 feet in height and, more importantly, be built right up to the street. This design is neither of those. Its setback from Central Avenue is in the neighborhood of 20 feet and its height is, as mentioned above, four stories.

I am keenly aware that height doesn’t necessarily equal design quality. In fact, I’m more in favor of buildings that are 10-12 stories in height (a consistent and continuous density) than building really tall-for-Phoenix buildings for the sake of being really tall. But consider: One of the requirements for the true success of Hance Park’s redesign will be density on and near the park. My friend Tim Sprague’s Portland on the Park project will provide good density; no, I’m not being paid or encouraged to say that.

Many have said that a grocery store will make this project work and although downtown Phoenix desperately needs one, integrating a grocery store with this project won’t save it. Phoenicians should look at the new Lunds store in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, recently opened and integrated with new apartments in the former Saint Paul Public Safety Building (which was a façadectomy), as a model. An all-stick frame construction, as is proposed, will not fit a grocery store…full stop.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to put something of quality on a key vacant lot. To put the proposed project here is a waste of a lot of things.

I will say it again, Phoenix: we must do better. We simply must.