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Old Posted Apr 29, 2012, 5:00 AM
exit2lef exit2lef is offline
self-important urbanista
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Phoenix
Posts: 3,019
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vicelord John View Post
http://www.scottsdalehighlinepark.co...60_Updated.pdf

Just stumbled upon this today, pardon if it's been posted, but is this basically a pipe dream by an architectural firm that they want the city to bite on? or is it something the city of Scottsdale wants to build?
I read about it a few weeks ago. It seems dubious from a few points of view, most notably:

1) The Highline Park in NYC is a reuse of abandoned railroad tracks and travels through interesting neighborhoods that people already live in or want to visit. The proposal for McDowell would create a completely new structure from scratch and located mostly by shuttered auto dealerships. You can't recreate the magic of NYC's park from out of the blue. It has to arise from assets already in the community.

2) The main existing asset involved here is Papago Park, but, whoops, that's not even in Scottsdale. Papago is mostly located within Phoenix with an eastern sliver in Tempe. The advocates for this project never seem to address how they'd make this a three-city project, which would be necessary in order to include an amphitheater within Papago Park. The Discovery Triangle organization, which is supposed to foster regional cooperation around Papago Park, would be the perfect agency to advocate for this, except that Scottsdale recently withdrew from the Discovery Triangle.

Last edited by exit2lef; Apr 29, 2012 at 4:03 PM.
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