Does downtown Phoenix not want business?

If downtown Phoenix is to emerge as a premier national downtown, it needs to do things better than other places. And if Fiancee_of_Downtown_resident and my experience is any indication, downtown still has a ways to go in some respects.

Fiancee_of_Downtown_resident and I are smack dab in the middle of wedding planning (which also helps explain the lack of attention I've given the blog). Being downtown boosters and all, we really liked the idea of having our reception somewhere around downtown. We contacted two city-run downtown facilities, both of which advertise in wedding publications as sites to hold receptions. We absolutely loved one of them, an historic building that could have been the site for a unique and unforgettable wedding reception and possibly ceremony. We toured the place, met with the relevant city representatives and were probably going to book the event until...they stopped calling us back.

Seriously? In this economy? A city starving for revenue is too busy to call a customer back? (A customer willing to spend several thousand dollars, no less.)

Our experience at the other downtown facility was not much different. We called the wedding coordinator there and this time we did receive a response...about eight weeks later.

By that time we had already moved on to plan B. We love the spot we picked in the Camelback Corridor, but it's tough thinking about what could have been downtown.