Big win for downtown Phoenix

For all the bandwidth I’ve devoted to pummeling the Cityscape project, it’s good to finally have something positive to say. Construction started this week on a 12-story apartment tower that will sit atop the existing Palomar Hotel at Jefferson Street and First Street. This is great news as it further expands downtown Phoenix’s full-time residential population, putting additional foot traffic on the sidewalks, providing customers for local businesses, and even improving safety by adding what Jane Jacobs called “eyes on the street” watching out for trouble. Hopefully the apartment building is attractive and provides some definition in the form of balconies (which would be a nice counter to the heinous Palomar, which reminds me of the 1970s-era office buildings that were gutted or imploded in D.C. during that city’s recent building boom).  Whatever the outcome of the apartment building, it is probably safe to say that at the very least Cityscape is an improvement over the Arizona Center.