Driving up Seventh Avenue

Had a few thoughts while driving up Seventh Avenue today:

* While the HOPE VI project that replaced the Matthew Henson housing projects was much-needed and a big upgrade, how come other cities get true, urban HOPE VI projects and Phoenix gets a suburban-style apartment complex? In DC there's a block-long HOPE VI project that mixes low-income housing and market-rate apartments that meshes perfectly with the surrounding historic Capitol Hill brownstones. In fact, developers and preservationists alike have mistakenly taken pictures of the block as an example of the 100+ year old historic neighborhood (even though it was built in the late 1990's). An urban project on Seventh Avenue would certainly have been preferable to the fenced-off building that was built instead.

* Arizona Preservation Foundation is renovating the Montgomery House at Seventh Avenue and Mohave Street, one of the two oldest remaining adobe structures in Phoenix, with plans of turning it into offices. It's a cool building and it will be interesting to track its progress as it's restored.

* While it still completely sucks that Madison Square Garden was torn down in 2005, the building that replaced the Garden could have been worse, I guess. It does attempt to mesh with the street with a large sidewalk, and it's reasonably attractive. Negatives: the aforementioned teardown of MSG, of course, and the lack of ground-floor retail.

Elsewhere in downtown Phoenix, a sign and rendering appeared today at Second Street and Roosevelt advertising the construction of four urban brownstones. The web site listed on the sign links to a realtor with no information regarding the project. I have my doubts, but I'll add this project anyway to the Downtown Phoenix Project List.

Downtown's best choice in District 7: Ruth Ann Marston

My choice in the Phoenix City Council District 7 race, after hearing all four candidates speak individually and in a recent forum, is Ruth Ann Marston, edging out Michael Nowakowski. While as a voter there are many issues I care about, this is a downtown blog and I'll explain why I think she's the best candidate for downtown.

Marston's a political veteran and knows the workings of city hall after years of dealing with Phoenix government, albeit as an outsider. She won't be intimidated by the veterans on the council and consequently won't feel the need to join the council in all the 9-0 votes to which we've become accustomed. Marston's accomplished, serving as the president of the Phoenix Elementary School District governing board and helping to save Kenilworth School from I-10 construction, among other achievements. Finally, she has a favorable view of historic preservation and should be able to lead developers away from wasteful conflicts like the fights over the Sun Mercantile Building and Patriot's Park while still encouraging necessary downtown development and progress. (The Sun Merc and Patriot's Park battles have partly been a failure of the city council and staff, who could have helped avert the fights simply by giving some better advice to the developers early in the process.)

While Marston is the best choice for downtown, Michael Nowakowski wouldn't be a bad alternative. He's willing to listen and also probably won't buckle under to the developers' wishes, if his wife's courageous vote on the CityScape issue while sitting on the Parks Board is any indication.

Laura Pastor has failed to impress me with her grasp of the issues. She seemed to mix up the Sun Mercantile/W Hotel annex issue with the demolition of Madison Square Garden when asked a question at one forum. She all but acknowledged that she'd side with the developers if a battle pitted developers against a public outcry. There's of course the concern that she has her sights set on her dad's job, and while that is not something about which I could speculate I think it's a safe bet that she'll rarely, if ever, break from the status quo at City Hall. And Phoenix needs leadership and courage, not someone who's more concerned with political expediency.

Finally, Art Harding is enthusiastic and fairly well-informed, but the political newcomer didn't seem to give a compelling reason to favor him over an experienced veteran like Marston.

One last note-- in the recent debate at the Irish Cultural Center, the candidates showed they all could use a broader perspective. Moderator Richard de Uriarte asked all of them during the "lightning round" which city is Phoenix's biggest rival. Harding said Scottsdale, Nowakowski said Tempe, Marston answered Glendale, and Pastor said it was Goodyear. (Goodyear?) In any event, District 7 is home to more than 250,000 residents and is as big as if not bigger-- by itself-- than every one of those suburban cities. A mammoth city like Phoenix needs to view its rivals as places like San Diego, Denver, and even LA. The candidates should all be thinking a little bigger, and hopefully the eventual winner will do that while on the council.

Downtown's hurdles

One of the toughest hurdles that has faced downtown Phoenix for decades is the fact that the city and county governments have consistently used it as the storage center for the metro area's downtrodden. Jails, homeless shelters, and mental health facilities are all clustered downtown. Yes, they've got to be somewhere, but downtown bears a vastly disproportionate burden in housing these uses.

One telling statistic along these lines is that downtown's main zip code is home to the largest number of registered Level 2 and 3 sex offenders in Maricopa County. The 85003 zip code is home to 40 such sex offenders, all of whom live right downtown at Fifth Avenue and Adams next to a police station, but mere blocks from the Orpheum Lofts and 44 Monroe. Compare this to zip codes 85017 (west Phoenix/40 sex offenders), 85040 (south Phoenix/36 sex offenders), 85014 (east Phoenix/15 sex offenders), or of course 85281 (downtown Tempe/14 sex offenders), 85251 (Old Town Scottsdale/6 sex offenders). These are all in raw numbers-- if there were some way to measure these in per-capita terms I'd bet the proportion of sex offenders to total residents in downtown Phoenix would be staggering.

Downtown Phoenix should be a place where all types of people can freely mix. But it can't be overwhelmed by any one type of person-- so if Phoenix is serious about turning its downtown into a world-class (or even "national-class") destination, it needs to stop viewing downtown as the dumping ground for society's troubled.

A decent sports bar for college football, that's all I ask

You’d think that with two stadiums and five professional sports teams downtown that you’d be able to find one good sports bar. But until downtown has a full-time residential population it appears even that’s too much to ask at this point. I can see people poised over their keyboards ready to talk about Majerle’s and Cooper’sTown and the like. But let me explain what I mean.

Girlfriend_of_Downtown_Resident and I organize football-watching events for the college we attended. We get a decent group of up to 35 people for the bigger games, and of course being a downtown booster I wanted to host the events somewhere in downtown Phoenix (and take the gamble that we could convince people to visit). Our school plays many of its games at noon in the eastern time zone, so we needed a place that opened early to accommodate us, and preferably one that served breakfast (who wants to eat burgers at 9 a.m.?). That shouldn’t have been a big deal, as dozens of sports bars across town open at that time to accommodate football fans. But none of them are downtown.

Obviously places like Seamus McCaffrey’s and Portland’s were out because there aren’t enough TVs or seats to handle a group of our size. That left Jackson’s on Third, Cooper’sTown, Coach & Willie’s, Majerle’s, or even Networks in the Hyatt. However, none of them open early or serve breakfast; in fact, Jackson’s doesn’t even open at all unless there’s a game going on at Chase Field or US Airways Center that day. They were even a little rude at Coach & Willie’s when I asked about hosting our group— a lot of thanks for trying to drive some business their way.

So, after a broader search, I had to settle on something in north-central Phoenix. At least it’s still centrally located, although it’s not the same as bringing people downtown.

One of the most fun things about living back east were Saturdays in the fall, when people would be walking all over the city to head to gatherings to cheer on their alma maters in football. That happens here, too, although it’s spread out all over the city and people drive to get to their destinations. Hopefully, when we’ve got enough people living downtown to warrant opening up some of these places early, we can have a little bit of that magic in Phoenix as well.