City of Phoenix hires consultant to simplify codes and make city more livable!! Yes!!!

Code changes aim to alter downtown

Ginger D. Richardson
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 30, 2006 12:00 AM

Anyone who currently trudges through downtown Phoenix knows that shade is hard to find and there isn't much to look at along the massive car- and construction-clogged streets. But city officials want to change that. And on Thursday, they announced that they plan to create development standards for downtown buildings and change their zoning ordinances and codes to make it easier to build visually pleasing structures in the downtown area. It's an arduous process that will likely take 12 to 18 months. But if it works, downtown visitors and workers could reap the benefits in the form of more shade, better public art and lots of pedestrian-friendly buildings with street-side retail.

"The goal is to make downtown a place where people want to be," Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said as he kicked off the Downtown Urban Form Project during a presentation at the Orpheum Theatre. "We are going to get away from looking at downtown as just steel and concrete."

The idea has its roots in the city's downtown strategic plan, which was formally adopted in December 2004. The document includes districts for government, education, entertainment, restaurants and art spaces and sets goals for new retail development, public green space and extensive shade. It is scheduled for implementation over the next decade.

Phoenix has hired Dyett & Bhatia, a San Francisco-based urban and regional planning firm, to help. The company has worked with cities from Pittsburgh to Santa Monica on their growth and design efforts."

Phoenix has the opportunity to be one of the great downtowns, comparable to Seattle or Portland," said Leslie Gould, Dyett's director of planning services. But, she added, "You have quite a number of issues." Challenges, Gould said, include the size of Phoenix's downtown, the fact that it has a great deal of vacant land, is automobile oriented and has notoriously hot summers.

Gould said Phoenix's zoning code is complicated and isn't written in a way that allows the city to get the kind of buildings it wants. Once the city simplifies its development codes, and creates minimum design standards, the City Council is expected to look at which items can be incorporated citywide.

For You Art Lovers (and that most definitely includes me!)

Art museum gets $3.1 million
The Business Journal of Phoenix - June 26, 2006

Phoenix Art Museum received a $3.1 million gift from Ellen and Howard C. Katz for the new Ellen and Howard C. Katz Wing for Modern Art.

The project is one of the five major components of the museum's $41 million expansion project.

Previously, the museum has been able to place only about 5 percent of its 17,000 works of art on view at one time. The four-level wing will add more than 25,000 square feet of gallery space.

"This is an historic time for Phoenix Art Museum," said Ellen Katz, vice president of the museum's board of trustees and chair of the grand opening celebrations. "The strong support of the community for this significant expansion will enable the museum to grow and mature among the nation's leading art museums. ... My husband and I are thrilled to be able to play a role in the museum's exciting future."

Other major components of the expansion include a new lobby and entry plaza, a sculpture garden/urban oasis, more space for The Museum Store, and growth of the museum's endowment.

A Nov. 4 gala is will kick off a week of grand opening activities with the museum opened to the public Nov. 11-12.

More than a Medical School

Don't miss this breakfast event on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 !!

More than a Medical School
The Statewide Impact of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix
presented by Judy Bernas

In 2004, Arizona had only 207 doctors for every 100,000 patients, well below the national average. By 2015, class size at the new University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix Campus will grow to 150, doubling the number of MDs graduating in Arizona each year and greatly improving the number of physicians who are trained to serve the state’s growing population.

The University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix Campus was established in 2004. In collaboration with Arizona State University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), it will be located on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus in downtown Phoenix at 7th Street and Van Buren. The first class of 24 aspiring students will start their journey at the new Phoenix medical school in July 2007. By 2015, the campus will support more than 600 medical school and 800 graduate students.

I plan to be at this discussion on the community, state, economic, and collaborative benefits of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus and the UA College of Medicine. For information, and to RSVP, go to http://www.asu.edu/xed/phoenixam/index.html#details

Entertainment District Proposed for City's Core

Mike Padgett , The Business Journal of Phoenix, May 29, 2006

A $300 million entertainment district with restaurants, boutique retail and nightclubs, is in the works for downtown Phoenix by one of the Arizona Diamondbacks owners, Dale Jensen, and development partner Bradley Yonover. Jensen, who also is one of the owners of the Phoenix Suns and Dodge Theatre, said he and Yonover, an East Coast developer who moved to the Valley a year ago, plan to announce more details in June about the project.

Entertainment venues are planned in an area roughly between Jackson and Jefferson streets, between First Avenue and First Street. It would include existing and planned residential condominiums and a proposed luxury hotel around Chase Field and US Airways Center.

Working on the designs with Jensen and Yonover is Wellington "Duke" Reiter, dean of Arizona State University's College of Design, and architecture students in ASU's Phoenix Urban Research Lab in downtown Phoenix. "Our goal is a successful street-level lifestyle and activities in the area (near the arenas)," Jensen said.

Jensen said he and Yonover already purchased several smaller properties in the area for about $25 million. The $300 million figure is the estimated cost at build out. So far, they have spent more than $1 million just for the designs.

The partners have kept their plans quiet until now to lessen the chance of property owners inflating their prices and to avoid dealing with property speculators getting ahead of them and boosting property prices.

Downtown hotel operators, including Wyndham Phoenix Hotel General Manager Steve Cohn, said downtown Phoenix is lacking entertainment options for conventioneers, and timing is critical because of the $600 million expansion and renovation of the Phoenix Convention Center.
In their purchases of land around the sports arenas, Jensen and Yonover also have been meeting with W Development's David Wallach, who is building The Summit at Copper Square condominium project just south of the arenas. Wallach and Yonover were fraternity brothers in Indiana. They were unaware of each other's plans in downtown Phoenix until after Yonover and Jensen began buying land in recent months.

The proposed entertainment district would envelop the luxury 39-story W Hotel, planned by Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. The hotel is proposed between the sports arenas, facing Jefferson Street. Its $200 million price tag is not part of the projected $300 million cost of the proposed entertainment district.

Word about Yonover's and Jensen's proposal came out during their May 24 presentation to a Phoenix City Council subcommittee about an annual Indy-style race they want to schedule for 10 years, starting in November 2007. The subcommittee ordered city staff to prepare a report projecting the economic impact numbers of the race as well as what the race would cost the city and businesses near its route.

The downtown race is opposed by Phoenix International Raceway President Bryan Sperber and some state lawmakers. Sperber said the proposed Champ Car World Series race Nov. 16-18, 2007, is the weekend after the Checker Auto Parts 500 at PIR. During the subcommittee meeting, Yonover told City Council members Tom Simplot, Peggy Neely, Claude Mattox and Chairman Michael Johnson that the Champ Car race's startup costs would be paid by his and Jensen's organization, Arizona Grand Prix LLC. He later estimated those costs at $15 million. "This is on our dime, not on the city's dime," Yonover said. He also said the three-day race would generate more than $50 million annually for the city and have a total attendance of about 150,000. "We have a 10-year contract, so this would be every year for 10 years," Jensen said.

Jensen and Yonover said they are not asking the city to upgrade downtown streets to racing standards. Instead, according to their proposal to be considered by the city, they will pay for the upgrades and later seek reimbursement of part of their costs from sales tax receipts from festivals scheduled as part of the three-day race.

A Champ Car racing car resembles an open-wheeled Formula One car.

L.A. firm buys retail space at Orpheum Lofts, Tapestry

May 29, 2006
The Business Journal of Phoenix
by Mike PadgettThe Business Journal

A real estate investment company in Los Angeles is buying the retail spaces in two of central Phoenix's newest residential condominium buildings.

YBM Properties Inc. in Los Angeles is buying the 10,750 square feet of retail space in Orpheum Lofts at 114 W. Adams St., and the 15,000 square feet of commercial space at the Tapestry on Central condos at Central Avenue and Encanto Boulevard.

Escrow for the Orpheum Lofts property opened May 16 and will close within 90 days. Escrow for the Tapestry property, which has seven commercial spaces facing Central, is expected to close in October.

The broker for both deals is Dennis Kolodin at Realty Executives. Kolodin also will be the leasing agent for YBM Properties.

"We're going to be leasing the space to businesses that we think are synergistic to the Orpheum residents and to the immediate area," Kolodin said.

He said the Tapestry properties could be converted into "a trendy coffee shop, book store, video store, a drop-off dry cleaner, art galleries, a trendy wine bar, those type of uses."

One of the condo owners at Orpheum is John Pasquinelli, who said he would oppose any kind of loan or bank office in the residential building.

"One thing I'd like to see downtown is a good quality market, like a Whole Foods kind of market," he said. "I would like to see something pedestrian friendly."

The seller at Orpheum Lofts was TASB LLC in Denver, the original developer of the Orpheum Lofts. At Tapestry on Central, the seller was GDC Development Corp. in Arizona.

For more: The Kolodin Group 602-315-9292 or 480-603-8220.