Saying the right things but doing the wrong things at CityScape

With CityScape's grand opening looming, the Republic ran a story featuring this amazing quote from RED Development's Jeff Moloznik:

"I think what separates CityScape from Arizona Center is that when you do
take the wrapping paper off and our tenants are open, people will really see an
engaged street front," Moloznik said. "If you want to have retail on this site,
it has to be facing the street."

With all due respect, what in the world is he talking about? Anyone with two eyes can see that CityScape mostly turns its back to the street. In that regard, at best the development is a marginal improvement on the Arizona Center.

Working counter-clockwise from the west side of CityScape's primary retail block at Central Avenue and Washington Street, the west side features an entry to the parking garage, a teeny little auxiliary door for Five Guys, and a back door for CVS at the southwest corner.

The south side is more of the same-- from west to east you have the CVS back door, a blank wall with some measly posters and windows, another parking garage entrance, and on the east side an entry for Oakville Grocery.

The east side is open as you look across the concrete jungle that a very few people still call "Patriot's Park" to the true front doors of CVS and Lucky Strike (recessed far away from the street in true suburban fashion).

And the north side features a secondary building that has no entrances facing the street.

I'm sorry, but a couple token windows and back doors do not "engage" the street. A walk down the street of virtually any major urban center in the world would illustrate the difference. Either RED is being disingenuous or, more likely, this is more proof that they're suburban developers that simply didn't have a clue about building an urban structure.

CityScape = Collier Center

Anyone disagree that by January 2011, CityScape will only comprise two blocks of (mediocre) retail and a single high-rise? (A carbon copy of the Collier Center, as I originally suggested in February 2007?)

Granted, this is a position on which I'd like to be wrong. But the signs all point one way-- the most telling coming a few months ago when the project's developer, RED Develoment, split the incentives in its development agreement so that it could receive half of the promised millions from the city even if it only built one tower at CityScape. Right now, RED is saying that it's building the office tower on the block on the east side of Central and Washington streets, but that the hotel/condo tower will follow in a few months.

We'll see. Any project that depends on condo development in a significant way is probably DOA in this market. And the need for hotel rooms downtown will be significantly blunted by the opening of the city-owned Sheraton.

In any event, the Arizona Republic needs to stop exaggerating the scale of this project. I've seen story after story-- one ran today-- that refers to CityScape as a "sprawling, $900 million project spread out over three blocks." Again, while I'd love to be wrong, this project is not going to spread over three blocks-- my understanding is the project partner that was to develop the block between First and Second streets has already dropped out; it's definitely not going to amount to the $900M touted by the developer in order to gain city approval.

Ultimately, I don't care all that much whether one tower or two is built, although I'd prefer two. My hope was to finally get a project in downtown Phoenix that engages the street with quality retail. My expectations all along have been very low on that front, so if CityScape only ends up producing one more downtown tower, I won't be much more heartbroken. It's too bad. Much as I'd like, I just can't get excited about this project.

CityScape aftermath

The Parks Board voted 5-2 to adopt the conceptual master plan for CityScape. My initial reaction and observation following last night's meeting:


A lightweight board. "New York might have Central Park, but New York also has a lot of other things that I wouldn't want," said Parks Board member Laura Bell in casting her vote to turn over the park to RED. Huh?! Even CityScape supporters would have to admit the board's comments in electing to abdicate their roles as stewards of a park to the private sector were pretty much insipid. Jim Holway was the lone bright spot among that dismal crew.

Class warfare. The young professionals in the room, many of them residents of the Orpheum Lofts, generally supported CityScape (while in general the opposition was older and less well-to-do). I don't get it- haven't any of these young professionals lived in other cities? Don't they realize that trading away the public park for a PF Changs doesn't make our city better, it just makes it generic?

Nobody buys RED's "park." In its presentation on CityScape, RED Development tried to make the claim that the little grassy spot in the middle of the AJ's/B. Dalton's/PF Chang's complex was Patriot's Park. They even tried to say that 20,000 people could attend an event there (even though their diagrams showed half those people would be unable to see the "stage" because their view would be blocked by PF Chang's). But nobody who spoke on behalf of the project tried to defend RED's ploy. Aside from the developers, even the supporters of CityScape seem to concede that Patriot's Square is gone.


Streetside Retail? It's hard to say whether there will be streetside retail. Yes, one of the development team pledged in the meeting that all parts of the project will have street-fronting retail. But earlier in the presentation one of the RED guys mentioned only "retail along Washington and Jefferson." Holway brought up the fact that RED hadn't received any commitment from the proposed tenants to have street-facing retail. And RED's own plan points out "street side retail" only on the new east-west street, and nowhere else in the project (see below). Hopefully-- at least-- there will be street-fronting stores.

Summary. In all, this was no surprise. It's Phoenix! The developers generally rule the day. But they did have to make some concessions. And maybe the people in attendance-- who seemed so desperate for new development-- will get over their civic inferiority complex and not be so desperate the next time a developer proposes some crappy deal to the city.