Circle K outcome is evidence of downtown’s progress

Circle K yesterday retracted its application for a liquor license at its proposed site on the southeast corner of Seventh and Roosevelt streets, just hours before the Phoenix City Council was to consider the matter. Without a liquor license, the company’s plan to knock down a couple historic buildings on a prime downtown corner in order to build a suburban-style 16-stall gas station won’t happen. While this result seems like a no-brainer, this is the kind of fight that would have gone the other way even a decade ago. That’s because up until the turn of the century, there weren’t enough residents downtown to create a critical mass to fight a project like the Circle K development. But in 2012, a groundswell of residential opposition cropped up to defeat the suburban-style gas station, including the Garfield Organization, Evans Churchill Community Association, Downtown Voices Coalition, Thunderdome Neighborhood Association (sidenote, and with apologies, but what is that?), Roosevelt Row CDC, Concord Eastridge (developers of Roosevelt Point), Artisan Village Board of Directors and St. Croix Homeowners Association. At least half of those organizations didn’t exist in 2003. While downtown Phoenix residents still lose their share of battles in the struggle to create a vibrant downtown— see Robert Sarver’s decision to tear down the historic properties adjacent to US Airways Center— the Circle K outcome shows that the tables are beginning to turn.