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.

Another retrofit to bolster streetlife in downtown Phoenix?

Visits to San Diego during the summer are bittersweet: obviously the beaches and gorgeous weather are awesome, but it's hard not to feel envious while walking around that city's awesome downtown, with its abundant streetlife and invigorated historic structures.

While any Phoenician who's headed to San Diego knows the general contrasts between the two downtowns, one detail about San Diego has always really struck me as illustrating the difference between downtown San Diego and downtown Phoenix: our respective NBC affiliates' locations.

On one hand, you have downtown San Diego's entry, pictured above. While it's in a nondescript office tower, it sits in the midst of downtown and adds to the streetlife in the area by allowing passersby to glimpse inside to see the studio and filming, like the NBC mothership in Rockefeller Center.

On the other hand, you have downtown Phoenix's NBC affiliate. While it is at least downtown and now very transit accessible (with the Roosevelt/Central light rail stop a mere two-minute walk away), the building is a typical downtown Phoenix fortress. It's a single story with no windows and one lone doorway off Central (that is probably never used, like most of the front doors in the buildings along Central).

But all that may be about to change. Channel 12 announced plans to move into the Arizona Republic's building on Van Buren Street, and to modify their new digs so that they too would have a first-floor studio that's visible from the street. Cheers to that decision, and it's about time. Hopefully the vacated fortress on Central gets a new tenant willing to upgrade that building...a lot.

While it's not much, it's still good to see downtown Phoenix gain a little ground on its neighbor to the west.

Slowly but surely

In a testament to how much people want an authentic, urban environment in Phoenix, there's still progress downtown even in this bleak economy.

Downtown denizens like me have looked forward for years to the opening of the Phoenix Public Market's permanent grocery store, the first such store in downtown Phoenix in a generation. Tomorrow is the day that the market finally opens. Here's hoping this is just another step in the remarkable growth of the public market since it opened in early 2005.

Did you know-- and can you believe-- that a housing development was actually just completed downtown? A transit-oriented development for seniors called McCarty on Monroe opened last week at 12th Street and Monroe, just one block north of a light rail stop. In this economy, this type of small-scale, near-downtown development is crucial if we're to build a true walkable urban environment.

Finally, the ultimate slowly-but-surely piece of news that emerged downtown is that the Downtown Phoenix Partnership is organizing a "zombie walk" the night before Halloween. While I beat up the DPP for a lot of their moves, they deserve some credit for putting this fun idea together.

Downtown odds and ends

A well-placed source says:

* Workers will install the civic space park artwork (you know, the "jellyfish") on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week.

* The Suns estimate that 10% of fans at US Airways Center arrive on light rail.

* Light rail ridership numbers in February are significantly higher than January's numbers, which beat the preliminary estimates.

* Unfortunately, 44 Monroe only has 11 contracts out of 202 units in the building. A glance at the building at night-- where only a handful of condos are lighted up-- seems to confirm that statement.

(Somewhat OT) What you didn't read on the Downtown Phoenix Journal

The following is a somewhat off-topic digression:

I like the Downtown Phoenix Journal blog and read it pretty much daily. The Journal does a nice job of tracking downtown's events and providing commentary. I also support its right to advertise products-- I have some Google ads on this site. I even look past my pet peeves about the site, namely that the picture on its front page is of midtown, not downtown Phoenix, and that it aggressively pushes renaming the warehouse district downtown as "SoDo," and those truncated SoHo type nicknames (LoDo-Denver, SoMa- San Francisco, etc.) are passe.

But I thought it interesting that the site moderates its comments and raised an eyebrow when I tried to comment on the Journal's post about "FHA Zero Down- Until Sept. 30," and apparently my comment was rejected. The Journal was encouraging borrowers to take advantage of the last few days of the FHA no-money down loans. As the economy crashes down around us due to people getting into loans they couldn't pay back-- and the active government encouragement of such-- I thought this post was misplaced. I wanted to politely point that out. Anyway, here's what I tried to say (roughly, as I'm paraphrasing from memory):

"Love the blog and support your right to advertise. But at this point, with the economy in its current state, do we really need any more people getting into zero-money down loans?"

I thought it was pretty innocuous. But apparently the powers that be at the Downtown Phoenix Journal didn't agree. Your thoughts?

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.

Random Thoughts

* Stock Footage. I loved seeing the downtown Phoenix shots on ABC today during the Suns game, but is it too much to ask for these guys to get some current footage? The downtown shot during today's game showed an unfinished Summit in the foreground and a half-built 44 Monroe in the distance. The downtown shot during a recent Diamondbacks game on Fox Sports Arizona recently panned over downtown at night-- but 44 Monroe hadn't even been built yet-- meaning the shot was at least two years old. Hey, downtown Phoenix can use the publicity, but let's get some current footage so everyone can see all the new projects.

* New Diamondback attitude. Speaking of the Diamondbacks, I heard Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall on KTAR's morning show this week-- he joked that he wanted to have a contest to send a fan of an opposing team to Cincinnati (in his mind, a lousy city). I love that kind of attitude. I have attended tons of Cardinals games over the years that were filled with fans of the other team, and I've always had the belief that the Bidwell family didn't mind that, believing a customer is a customer. It's great to see the Diamondbacks take the opposite approach. One more reason why I had no problem watching the Cardinals move out to Glendale.

* Dead Real Estate Market. While the foreclosure rate in central Phoenix is low relative to the rest of the metro area, home sales in downtown Phoenix are nonexistent. There have been seven - seven! - sales in the 85003 zip code during the first quarter of 2008.