Phoenix Development News (3)

[dtnphx]

Originally Posted by N830MH

Hello All,

Did you know old Denny's is on Camelback Rd & 16th St is being demolished. We didn't even know that. Why we haven't visit on the street for a long time. We are not quite sure who going to being build a new restaurant. I have no absolutely idea.

I posted a while back that it's going to be a Chick-Fil-A. Now even Central Phoenix fowl eaters will now line up for their righteous crispy Christian chicken. BTW, there will be one built at 44th & Indian School as well.

[FitnessPower]

Originally Posted by exit2lef

Interesting report I just heard on KJZZ about why cities are encouraged to apply for the Olympics, even if they aren't likely hosts: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/ec...ics-are-hassle

cool article thxs

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by dtnphx

I posted a while back that it's going to be a Chick-Fil-A. Now even Central Phoenix fowl eaters will now line up for their righteous crispy Christian chicken. BTW, there will be one built at 44th & Indian School as well.

Do you this mean In-N-Out Burger or something like that.

PS. What happened old restaurant is being demolished on Cactus Rd & Tatum Blvd? When it did happens? Which one is that?

[trigirdbers]

"I'd love for someone to push a penalty for land banking. But to do that, you would need a politician who is prepared to find a new job next election cycle."

I don't think it would be impossible. You would just have to lower some other tax so that the proposal was tax neutral (or, even better, a net tax-cut). If you, say, lowered the property tax on completed high and midrises in the core at the same time you raised it on dirt you would certainly spur the development of some lots that were right on the margin.

[Arquitect]

Originally Posted by trigirdbers

"I'd love for someone to push a penalty for land banking. But to do that, you would need a politician who is prepared to find a new job next election cycle."

I don't think it would be impossible. You would just have to lower some other tax so that the proposal was tax neutral (or, even better, a net tax-cut). If you, say, lowered the property tax on completed high and midrises in the core at the same time you raised it on dirt you would certainly spur the development of some lots that were right on the margin.

That would be an awesome solution. I bet it would indeed spur some developments.

[dtnphx]

Originally Posted by N830MH

Do you this mean In-N-Out Burger or something like that.

PS. What happened old restaurant is being demolished on Cactus Rd & Tatum Blvd? When it did happens? Which one is that?

In-N-Out is going on SW corner, Chick-Fil-A will go on NE Corner, or just off NE Corner next to Arcadia Car Wash.

[N830MH]

Originally Posted by dtnphx

In-N-Out is going on SW corner, Chick-Fil-A will go on NE Corner, or just off NE Corner next to Arcadia Car Wash.

Actually, In-N-Out Burger is in NE corner, and Chick-Fil-A is in SE corner. Got it?

[ASUSunDevil]

Originally Posted by dtnphx

In-N-Out is going on SW corner, Chick-Fil-A will go on NE Corner, or just off NE Corner next to Arcadia Car Wash.

Doesn't that lot seem a bit big for just an In-N-Out? Is anything else going to be built along with it?

[dtnphx]

Originally Posted by N830MH

Actually, In-N-Out Burger is in NE corner, and Chick-Fil-A is in SE corner. Got it?

For all you out there who think I was too harsh, here's the revised text:

Dear Sir, although you seem sure of yourself, you are, in fact, incorrect. Here is the actual zoning announcement. Yours truly, dtnphx.

4402 E Indian School is on the, wait for it, NE corner.

9.
Application #:
ZA-220-12-6
Existing Zoning:
C-2 ACSPD
Location:
4402 East Indian School Road
Quarter Section:
17-38(H11)
Proposal:
1) Variance to reduce street front landscape setbacks to 15 feet along 44th Street. Minimum 25 feet required. 2) Variance to reduce the required parking to 37 spaces. 39 parking spaces required. 3) Variance to reduce street front landscape setbacks to 15 feet along Indian School Road. Minimum 25 feet required. 4) Use permit to allow a drive through facility within 300 feet of a residentially zoned property. Use permit
required. 5) Use permit to allow outdoor dining within 500 feet of a residentially zoned property. Use permit required.
Ordinance Sections:
623.E.4.e 702.C 623.E.4.e 623.D.154.d623.D.154.c
Applicant:
Don Ikeler Chik-fil-A, Inc.
Representative:
Chris Gephart Kerr Project Services
Owner:
Jay Schneider R.P.A. of 44th Street LLC

[PHX31]

Not a big deal

[Vicelord John]

No, it's not a big deal but the guy copped an attitude and he was wrong while doing it. The deserves to be called out.

[nickw252]

Originally Posted by Vicelord John

No, it's not a big deal but the fucking guy copped an attitude and he was wrong while doing it. The retard deserves to be called out.

I'm pretty sure English is his second language. Based on the context It's a pretty big leap to jump to the conclusion that he "copped an attitude."

[dtnphx]

Originally Posted by ASUSunDevil

Doesn't that lot seem a bit big for just an In-N-Out? Is anything else going to be built along with it?

The whole parcel, outside of the In-N-Out pad is still a mystery. I've heard retail and I've heard apartments, too.

[PHX31]

A couple of very minor things I snapped pictures of today downtown. First, a small horribly stucco'd office building on the west side of 1st Ave just north of McKinley:



It is for lease... but is it also being rehabbed? The true look of the building is being revealed:



When google drove by a while ago, it had some kind of paneling:




And a few days ago I wondered if there was an old hitching post and ring still existing downtown. Turns out, it is. How crazy is that?

[PHX31]

Found another small-lot infill... this one seems to be a single-family, possibly two units. It's better than an empty lot. I like the mixture of old and new. Again, we need more like this to fill in the plethora of empty, previously demolished historic house, small dusty downtown lots.



Others posted previously:

[ASUSunDevil]

David Krietor named CEO of new Downtown Phoenix Inc.

Mike Sunnucks
Senior Reporter-
Phoenix Business Journal

Former city of Phoenix deputy city manager and Sky Harbor International Airport director David Krietor has been named CEO of a newly formed downtown Phoenix group focused on economic and community development and marketing.

Krietor will take over as the CEO of Downtown Phoenix Inc. in April. The group will serve as a new parent and umbrella group over the Downtown Phoenix Partnership business improvement organization and the Phoenix Community Alliance advocacy group.

The new DPI group will focus on helping businesses and residential development, as well as attracting special events and marketing the downtown area. It will also oversee a new community development corporation that will help downtown projects with financing and other assistance.

Krietor said the new nonprofit group’s focus is on areas in between Seventh Street and Seventh Avenue and McDowell Road and the railroad tracks just south of Chase Field and US Airways Center.

Krietor is presently a vice president at Rural Metro Corp. He will step down from that post at the end of the month and take over at DPI in April. The Phoenix City Hall veteran was also chief of staff to former mayor Phil Gordon, and was the city’s economic and community development director. He retired from city government last year.

“We did a national search but we kept coming back to Dave,” said Michael Ahern, managing partner of RED Development, which owns the Cityscape project downtown.

Headhunting firm DHR International was hired to conduct a national search for the new Downtown Phoenix Inc. CEO. DHR conducted previous searches for the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce and Arizona Commerce Authority.

Ahern has been one of the lead architects of the Downtown Phoenix group. Ahern said Krietor was involved in the group’s early planning and shouldn’t have a steep learning curve.

Plans for the DPI group have been in the works for some time. It is modeled after downtown economic development efforts in Denver and a number of others cities. DPI will serve as the parent group to the Downtown Partnership and Community Alliance as well as oversee community development and special events programs.

Krietor said the budget and staffing of the new group is still being worked out and the goal is to avoid redundancies with the Downtown Partnership and Community Alliance.

Ahern said some downtown businesses and organizations are donating seed money to get the DPI group going. He declined to disclose which companies or groups are donating until the group has a more formalized structure.
The Downtown Phoenix Partnership is funded via business improvement district taxes assessed on businesses and property owners in the downtown core. It has a $3 million budget.

The Community Alliance is funded via membership dues. The group has 150 members.

Ahern and PCA chairman Mo Stein said they hope the new efforts will help the Community Alliance grow its membership. Stein, a noted Phoenix architect, hopes to be at 500 members soon with a long-term goal of 1,000.
“It’s going to help us on all platforms,” Stein said of the new efforts.
Plans are for PCA president Don Keuth and DPP CEO David Roderique to continue in their roles as the head of their respective organizations.

The idea behind the new group is to have an umbrella organization that can coordinate, compliment and manage what DPP and PCA already do. DPP has geographic boundaries to downtown’s core. The group is best known for it orange-shirted ambassadors who help tourists, conventioneers and sports fans navigate the area. PCA is a nonprofit advocacy group that has pushed for more development and infrastructure in the Valley’s central business district.

DPI organizers brought in former Downtown Denver Partnership CEO Brad Segal to help them craft plans for the Phoenix group. Denver’s efforts have been used as a blueprint by a number of other cities to promote their downtown and economic development there.

The city of Phoenix and Mayor Greg Stanton are also backing the new group. Stanton and City Manager David Cavazos will be on DPI’s board.

Several local business executives and community leaders have been named to DPI’s board and more picks will be coming after Krietor takes the post.
They include Local First Arizona director Kimber Lanning, Arizona Public Service CEO Don Brandt, Downtown Voice Coalition chairman Tim Eigo, Arizona Latino Arts and Culture president Linda Torres, Stein and downtown arts advocate and Changing Hands Bookstore general manager Cindy Dach.

The Arizona Diamondbacks, Phoenix Suns and other downtown businesses will also be involved with the new effort.

The city of Phoenix and businesses leaders have long tried to bolster downtown into more of hub of activity as well as residential and commercial development. The goal has been to shed downtown’s image as a ghost town after the workday ends.

The city has used tax breaks and other incentives to help get projects such as Renaissance Square, CityScape and the Arizona Center built.

There have also been public construction projects such as the city-built US Airways Center, the $600 million expansion of the Phoenix Convention Center and the Metro light rail.

Ahern, Stein and Krietor said top goals for downtown going forward will be to help bring more residential development to the area, as well as engage smaller businesses and encourage “urban pioneers” such as entrepreneurs and infill developers to take a chance on downtown projects.

Krietor said there are approximately 20,000 people living downtown, including 1,000 ASU students.

Jay Thorne, another city hall veteran involved with the new group as well as CityScape and a proposed Phoenix Observation Tower tourist attraction next to the Arizona Science Center, said traditional pessimistic images of downtown Phoenix have eroded.

Thorne notes there are fewer crime and safety issues for ASU students downtown than there are for students at the main campus in Tempe.

[MegaBass]

Roosevelt Street redesign project remains contentious around issue of on-street parking

Cookies and bottled water did nothing to soothe flaring tempers over progress on the Roosevelt Street redesign project Wednesday after the city of Phoenix Street Transportation Department presented its 90 percent completion report.

Wednesday evening’s meeting at Roosevelt Community Church was the third in a series of public scoping meetings conducted by the Street Transportation Department to gain community feedback on the project, which has been in progress since 2005.

Plans for the streetscape must be finalized by March 15 to be eligible for federal funding, but community members are still at odds over several aspects of the project, including the implementation of on-street parallel parking spots.

The street transportation department lacks the authority to design on-street parking in front of properties where business owners object, said Kerry Wilcoxon, an engineer with the city of Phoenix.

“When it’s all said and done, if every business owner along this stretch wanted parking, you’re only talking about nine spaces,” Wilcoxon said. “But even if it were two or three, we would determine it on an individual basis. We just need the decision made by the business owners.”

John Logan, co-owner of Carly’s Bistro at Roosevelt and Second streets, hopes the project’s wider sidewalks will allow him to add a patio seating area. On-street parking would take up too much sidewalk space and would discourage foot traffic along that section of the street, he said.

“We want to encourage a pedestrian atmosphere,” Logan said. “The spirit of a pedestrian area is not to entertain cars.”

On-street parking is a recurring point of contention between business owners, who don’t want parked cars blocking the fronts of their businesses, and other community members, who want street parking to serve as a protective barrier between street traffic and pedestrians.

Wilcoxon said the city has contacted business and property owners along Roosevelt Street about parking but plans to do so again in a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise before the March 15 deadline.

“We’re trying to keep as much of this open as possible,” he said. “The decision-making is the difficult part. And if you think that you guys are not at the table, you’re wrong.”

If no compromise can be agreed upon, the plan will proceed as it currently stands with no parking for the four-block area, which already has on-street parking between First and Second streets.

Pouring 20-foot sidewalks without cutouts for street parking makes it difficult to add parking later if business owners change their minds, community members pointed out. But were parking cutouts to be included in the new curbs, businesses that want to avoid cars blocking their front could optimize sidewalk space by adding parklets — specially designed platforms that extend the sidewalk surface to fill a parking space.

“I’d rather you do nothing than do it wrong,” said Will Novak, a Phoenix native and downtown activist. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs to be close. We can’t shoot an airball. We at least have to hit the rim.”

Artist Meejin Yoon also presented her updated designs for the project’s shade structures, which resemble chunky, geometric mushrooms. The designs show the parasols clustered together and shading a small plaza on the triangular piece of land north of Roosevelt Street between Third and Fourth streets.

[HooverDam]

Here's what I'd like to see instead of the Cities plan if anyone cares:

[Sepstein]

The Pin was mentioned in that article maybe it isn't just a marketing scheme by that company. Seems like the DPI wants it to happen! I think it would diffently bring tons of people downtown! And would be in perfect spot being so close to convention center Chase field and US airways!

[Sepstein]

Putting it at Hance park and making it a lot taller would be great addition to skyline to fill in between midtown and downtown highrises. That would look great! But the science museum it's best spot to attract most people for reasons stated above!