Upgraded Vee Quiva Casino: I've Got Questions

I try not to get too caught up in the perceived battle between Laveen and the Gila River Indian Community over the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway. That's because I don't see much cause for conflict between the two neighboring communities. In many ways, Laveen and Komatke Village share the same concerns and have similar goals for future growth. So why does the relationship seem so tenuous?

Let's see if I can boil down our current conflict to its essence: Each side is concerned about potential externalities from the other's actions. Take the freeway, for instance, which many on the reservation oppose because the current plan cuts across a small ridge of South Mountain and will bring extra traffic south of the mountain (along with its resultant pollution). While I don't fully agree or disagree with this complaint, I am willing to lend it a bit of credence as a valid concern -- well, at least as long as we maintain a sense of intellectual consistency. What if the tribe decides to take actions that impose increased traffic, or worse, upon Laveen?

Today, the tribe's representatives associated with the Vee Quiva Casino posted, via their facebook page (apparently from Huntington Beach, CA), about upgrades coming to the casino this summer. They asked what followers liked most about the big new casino and entertainment complex. Naturally, I and a few others said that it likely meant the freeway was becoming increasingly imperative for the area:

As you can see from the above screenshot, after contemplating this idea some more, I went back to comment again regarding the location of the casino and its anticipated traffic impacts. What's worse, I wonder about drunk driving and other similarly compulsion and/or addiction-related activities that might follow a gambling facility. Am I really the first to raise this question? Coming from a hospitality and real estate background, I should hope not. This should have all been factored into the proposal for funding of a project of this scale. And just what is that scale? Here's another screen shot:

That's a $135 million facility with a full-sized hotel and 1,000 parking spaces attached!!! My only comment on the casino's rendering is this: "That's an awful lot of cars in the parking lot. Will they all be driving on 51st Avenue to reach the casino?" Now I know I'm not the only one asking this question. To have planned for so much parking, they are clearly expecting a successful operation that will attract people from all over the Phoenix area. So I guess that means we can look forward to more traffic and related issues along 51st Avenue? That is the only way in and out from the north and west, so it's therefore my only conclusion.

While we've been told repeatedly that the city has no say in such things, I demand more. We can at least employ traffic mitigation measures along 51st Avenue. This would have the two-fold effect of protecting Phoenix residents in the area and forcing something to be done about this giant bottleneck that keeps getting worse. If we strangle the cash flow to the casino, then I bet we get our freeway in a hurry. It's time to play hardball.

Laveen-SoMo, Motor City?

It's been a while, but I'd like to revisit and expand on my last post about the now closed Manzanita Speedway on Broadway Road and 35th Avenue. That one was inspired by my contribution to the PlanPHX collaborative brainstorming website, as well as pent up frustration from years of hearing about and reviewing plans to "redevelop" Broadway Rd. I'm for beautification as much as the next guy, but it occurred to me that this big idea from the city was borne almost entirely out of plans for a traffic reliever corridor, with the added benefit of some speculative land development along the way. So let's call into questions some of the broader assumptions we've made thus far about such ideas -- seems like fair game at this point -- and I promise to bring it back to Manzy's old home stretch of Broadway Road in the end.

"If we zone it, they will come!"

While we've all been quite patient in awaiting desirable development in the Laveen area over the years, it's becoming more and more imperative that the city gain a better appreciation for the affected community and overall financial/development markets when pushing these "big idea" redevelopment plans. We keep falling into a 2005 real estate boom mindset when it comes to development and, while it may work enough of the time overall, who wants to wait through a decade or two of ugliness and empty promises in hopes of a better community? My bold assertion about this idea's fallacy is that it can only bring us a more boring suburban bedroom community with a whole lot of empty dirt lots that may or may not have cotton/alfalfa planted on them. Flip a coin, hope, pray -- it's all we can really do for the most part, as we take pleasure in the few fun ideas that may be allowed to pop up along the way.

"Let development take shape organically"

There's an equally sound argument that works much of the time, but likewise assumes that certain conditions are already met. The notion that we can take a more passive approach to economic development by simply enabling those who want to bring new ideas to the area works really well in adaptive reuse situations where the community is highly vested. We see it now along the light rail line, and have a great proof of concept in the downtown area -- particularly along Roosevelt (some may remember when the city proposed clearing the entire area for more sports venues -- thank goodness we didn't!). In Laveen, I'd argue that this is partly the kind of thinking we need in filling our vacant retail spaces and as a means to more creatively re-envision opportunities for something more interesting than the subdivision-meets-strip-mall scenery that we've mostly seen pop up in the last decade. However, if you scroll through this blog or take a survey on public sentiment, I don't imagine you'll get the sense that a Houston-like no zoning model would meet the community's interest very well on a widespread basis here.

A better alternative: the "integrated economic development" approach

If you google the above phrase, you'll likely find scholarly articles about promoting economic development in struggling third world locales. That's because the folks who have studied such ideas from a holistic viewpoint recognize that a scorched earth model of redevelopment doesn't work in helping communities build themselves up. It may work great for slapping a five-star resort on top of an impoverished area and then building walls around it, but not if you recognize an intrinsic value in the people and the community targeted for development/redevelopment. Instead of replacing everything in sight, let's focus on the infrastructure and guided assistance to improve upon whatever positive attributes are already present -- one iteration of this idea that I've seen both poorly and brilliantly applied in economic development circles is "cluster development" (see San Diego bioscience cluster, for a good example). Doesn't this seem more fitting of the Laveen and SoMo area? It does if you take a moment to appreciate what we already have here.

"One man's blight is another man's playground"

So, now we return to Broadway Rd. If you have generally avoided it, as I know many have, please do yourself a favor and take a little cruise next weekend to see what's there. If you see either "junk yards" or "brilliant green recycling businesses", you've probably made a value-based judgment. Let's try not to go there and instead focus on a common denominator. I see money -- and believe me, others do too. I may be a real estate guy, but I'm not looking at how we can get rid of all that industrial "junk" in hopes of redefining the "highest and best use" for the area. That's because I see economic activity, a crucial component of which is the "activity" part. I also see a lot of land owners and business operators who have been around for a long time and have a great basis in their land -- not to mention all those potentially valuable assets that appear to sit there rusting away (but believe it or not, some of those lumps of metal actually change hands from time to time).

Instead of asking how we can successfully move everything to a different area of town or different city altogether (where someone else's vision is executed), why aren't we asking how we can facilitate their success in moving merchandise within our city limits, meanwhile improving the aesthetics and streetscape in the area? Why not go for the win-win, which may seem like a lot more work from a concept design standpoint but would be infinitely more valuable and less expensive to the city overall. If you saw the Broadway Road plans from the city's streets department last year (or was it 2011?), you may recognize that we haven't really been asking these questions -- the proposed landscaped island and high crowning/slope of the street are unacceptable to heavy trucks in the area, for instance. To the city's credit, these points were heard at the LVPC meeting a while back and we were told that city staff would revisit the plans.

But there's more that we can do. This ought to constitute its own visioning project, and the city should call in the business/property owners in the immediate area as the primary group, while seeking broader community input on aesthetics. All that most people want without thinking too much about it is for things to look nice and be more convenient/harmonious. We can certainly address these criteria, while at the same time unlocking a phenomenal economic development opportunity in the process that benefits all. Better yet, we can do it on the cheap if we all put our heads together -- after all, I can't imagine a more resourceful and industrious area nearby than the Broadway Road corridor.

Our Vision and Our Goal

If we really work to build community support and put the full power of the city behind this idea, great things can happen. We can tap into far more of the wealth that changes hands each year at Barrett-Jackson and the other big car shows (this should be a record setting year, btw, according to the Phoenix Biz Journal -- read it here). Sellers are already buying parts in our corner of town after all, so why don't we push them to start doing more of the work and spending more time/money here as well? Likewise, why don't we have some of these U-Fix-It business concepts that appeal to many classic car enthusiasts (code for recently retired guys or busy professionals with disposable income who prefer to outsource the heavy equipment but want to keep the nice car at home) -- a great idea that I wish was mine, presently serving the north Phoenix area. And while we're at it, how about making up for missed opportunities to attract national companies already doing business in the area, like the "totally awesome" Local Motors (see video, above) or that hybrid/electric vehicle battery maker we heard about a while back (battery makers may like our harsh climate for testing purposes), not to mention all those automotive testing grounds scattered around the region. There's plenty of room for the old and the new on the south side of town, especially in light of the forthcoming Del Rio Brownfield redevelopment, which could anchor the automotive focus of the area. For added community support, might I suggest our two great engineering schools at UA and ASU, our various private technical schools and programs at community colleges, and the "Maker" community (look it up -- very cool stuff). And if we're looking for an economic cluster, mechanical design/servicing makes sense in the area, where we also have several aerospace component companies to the east. So, who's with me? You're welcome, City of Phoenix. I may not have cited all my resources, but I think I just offered the outline for a compelling powerpoint presentation if nothing else.

Who wants to help push city staff to get to work on this? If you hate the idea, please tell me why and offer constructive criticism. We need to start taking action, even if it's just to get our voices heard, and we need to get to it sooner rather than later. We also need executable ideas if we're going to successfully push the city to invest its energy in our community as we see fit. That's all I'm trying to do here, other than please my inner child by preserving a wide swath of land where we can make cool stuff.

Bring Back Manzanita

Does anyone else fondly remember the sounds of Manazinta Speedway on a Friday night? How about the sounds of cash registers clanging with every ticket sold and every supporting business transaction that was associated with it?

I attended the planPHX meeting at Cesar Chavez Library tonight, where I was thrilled to hear Phil Hertel's suggestion that we should bring back Manzanita Speedway. Phil owns an auto recycling business on Broadway, specializing in classic Buicks (http://www.speedwayautomotive.com/), so he knows something about this business. Apparently there's a real lack of auto racing in the Valley right now, and that means pent up demand.

I know very little about the auto industry, but couldn't agree more with Phil. Even I have driven along Broadway on a Saturday morning in the past and gawked at the crowds. My first thought was that this looks like something really cool, something cool that most of us totally fail to notice! But here's this opportunity and a thriving culture staring right at us.... Why not make something more of it?!

So that's why I've submitted the following plans to the city. Please support them:
"Car Culture" 
"Car Culture, Part II -- Del Rio Brown Fields"

More info about the Del Rio Brown Fields Project here: http://phoenix.gov/greenphoenix/land/brownfields/delrio/index.html

Update: Thanks to Steven Klein for a link to Arcadia Publishing's book about Manzy: http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/9780738585178/The-Historic-Manzanita-Speedway-in-Phoenix

How Can We Grow?

There's been a lot of discussion in the past (and present) about what additional amenities Laveen and south Phoenix need and how the city might help us get there -- or in many cases, how the city has perhaps failed to help in a meaningful way. In conjunction with my previous post regarding the MyPlanPHX website, I'd like to make a proposal as to how we can step forward with meaningful progress at the city level utilizing existing city staff and departmental resources.

First, it's important to note that this website serves all of Phoenix and a great number of active contributors are from other areas -- heavily weighted toward downtown and midtown from what I've noticed (take a look at the charts I posted -- mostly familiar names from CenPho). Those folks are facing some of the same issues as us, but often from a slightly different angle. This means we can likely get them on our side in many ways that we may not have previously thought possible.

Prominent Laveen resident Erika K (you all likely know her from our FB group) submitted a plan back in August, titled "Marketing the City of Phoenix", which has picked up a great deal of support and generated a lot of discussion recently. Erika's concern is that our city is not proactively getting the word out about some of our greatest assets, and that the city's various campaigns are all too often uncoordinated. I think we can all share that frustration at times, especially when it seems that our part of town is all too often overlooked for new city-backed initiatives that involve economic development. If you agree, then please go read through Erika's proposal and the discussion that follows. Perhaps then you will feel inclined to second it.

As for me, I've chimed in a couple of ideas for citywide initiatives that I think would really help take this notion a step further. We need to not only create the outward-focused marketing materials, but also shift gears elsewhere to show our complete commitment to making this a reality. Here's my comment on Erika's recommendation (which includes links to a few more ideas):

What if we implemented a plan to take a more holistic view of economic development and dispersed it throughout many city departments, while providing central oversight? Here's a plan that I submitted a while back:http://www.myplanphx.com/shaping-phoenix-s-future/let-s-modernize-and-decentralize-economic-development

Also, I'd love to see the planning department work with our community and economic development department to highlight specific business opportunities based on zoning, proximal uses, etc. While it's part of the recommendation for our light rail, this could work throughout the city. Here's that proposal:http://www.myplanphx.com/what-new-destinations-are-needed-along-the-light-rail-corridor-where/business-opportunity-mapping

And finally, as a focusing measure to work on behalf of each village or other geographic area of our city, I strongly recommend business incubators:http://www.myplanphx.com/shaping-phoenix-s-future/business-incubators

MyPlanPHX Idea Submission

Hi All,

Been a while and I've missed this blog. Looking forward to becoming reacquainted with it again, as there's lots to share. First and most importantly, how about this cool new website from the city of Phoenix, which I've been using to submit ideas as have a couple other active residents from our area. More details below.

Cheers,
Patrick


Data on MyPlanPHX
As you can see from these charts, the top ten users have submitted over half of all ideas on the MyPlanPHX page and are generating more than two-thirds of the discussion. Not sure about you, but I'd say this calls for a little more input for a city our size. I'd also argue that perhaps there's an opportunity for more Laveen and south Phoenix residents to jump in and have our voices heard. Just a thought, but certainly worthy of your consideration. Here's my profile (Patrick B4) in case you want to see my ideas. Just know that there's a catch -- you've got to sign up before scoping out users' profiles.

Laveen Related Posts on MyPlanPHX
Build the 202!
Don't Build the Loop 202
Replace Major Arterial Roads w/ "AZ Parkway" Design

Increase Shade Canopy Coverage on the LACC
HAWK Lights for Improved Walkability and Biking

If I'm missing any others, please share in the comments section below. Let's start discussing how we want to improve our city.

Why I Support the Dispensary

As many are already aware, the city of Phoenix is currently considering a controversial proposal for a medical marijuana dispensary to be located at the SW corner of 35th Avenue and Southern Avenue. In order to make this happen, the business owners must not only obtain a special use permit, but must also obtain a "variance" due to proximity to residentially zoned property and a daycare business in a nearby shopping center. Here's why I think this variance should be granted:

First, by process of elimination, let's review the other commercial locations where a dispensary could go. 51st/Baseline, also near schools/daycares/residential, is easily Laveen's prime retail market. This means prime rents as well, which I would guess are not an option. 51st/Southern already has a smoke shop and, oh yeah, a public charter school (maybe someday that office complex will appear on the NW corner as well). This doesn't seem like a great location to me, especially as close as it will be to the planned freeway and all of the pre-existing traffic on 51st -- why let it become a one stop drive-by location for those passing through. Then there's 35th/Baseline -- you know, right across from the park, library, and high school. No go. So how about 27th/Southern? Nope, there's a private school and a daycare there. 27th/Baseline? I suppose that one could work, except that there's also a public school nearby and this is otherwise a very low-traffic area. So how about 43rd/Southern? 35th/Broadway? 27th/Dobbins? 51st/Dobbins? Somewhere mid-block? I don't think any of those are good options, considering they are not very visible or patrolled (not sure that there's actually available space at any of those, either).

That leaves us with the intersection of 35th/Southern as the only one with plenty of available commercial space. This intersection has been plagued with business closures, from the ghost town of a Mervyn's center on the NW to the now shuttered Ace Hardware on the NE and the closed OfficeMax on the SW. But what has done well there? Wal-Mart, multiple fast food restaurants, and more recently there have been several medically related businesses popping up (and a little confection shop and locally owned gun store if we're being thorough -- please spare the obvious jokes and unfounded concerns about co-locating a marijuana dispensary nearby). The dispensary didn't choose one of the nearly empty shopping centers or a hidden location in the back corner, but instead opted for a shop space out in front of the busy and well patrolled Wal-Mart, also near an urgent care facility and multiple other relatively high traffic businesses. What a sensible location! They're *ahem* puffing some new life into the area and perhaps even benefitting other nearby businesses (sorry, couldn't help it).

Isn't this what we want? Shouldn't we want the most visible and secure location available? Doesn't it make sense that this business be located nearby other medically relevant businesses if we are to accept the "medical marijuana" premise, which isn't remotely up for debate on this matter? I don't feel strongly about this issue, except that I want badly for common sense to prevail on such matters so that we can spare our energy for the more important battles. If you believe as I do that this is an easy one to let pass, please feel to contact Mary.L.Brown@phoenix.gov and Alan.Stephenson@phoenix.gov via email with a short note expressing your support (apparently you need to send it off by Wednesday, May 23rd for it to count, but don't sweat the details -- just your opinion, name, and maybe address so that they know it's from an actual member of the community). Also, I understand that the dispensary operators and their representatives are meeting with neighbors at the Laveen Starbucks (at 51st/Baseline) this evening, Monday May 21st, at 6:00 PM. I encourage you to go and find out more. Otherwise, keep an eye out for private crops, coming your way soon (almost forgot to mention that a dispensary location preempts growing rights nearby). That is all. Have a wonderful day.

***Full disclosure: I own a home in Laveen, but have recently moved down the street and now live in the South Mountain Village. This will be properly mentioned in the message I plan to send the above mentioned city officials in favor of the dispensary.

Update, May 21st, 4:11 PM: Here's my letter to the city officials mentioned above:

Dear Phoenix Planning Officials: 

Please see my recent blog post in favor of the medical marijuana dispensary currently being considered for the intersection of 35th/Southern in Laveen: http://www.ourlifeinlaveen.com/2012/05/why-i-support-dispensary.html. For the record, I am in no way affiliated with the applicants, nor do I have a stake in the overall medical marijuana debate. And as noted at the very end of my post, I am no longer a Laveen resident, but still live nearby and have an interest in the community as a property owner. I have also served on the LVPC in the past, worked in commercial and residential real estate, and been an active community member, which I hope provides a certain degree of authority on the matter. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or requests for comment. 

Best regards, 

Patrick Brennan

The Big GRIC Vote Day Is Now Upon Us....

In tracking the coverage today of the GRIC vote for a recently proposed realignment of the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway, I found a couple of interesting news stories. First, there's a great write-up at azcentral that covers much of this project's history (click here), and then there's this other story from azfamily (click here)...... Needless to say, I was not pleased with KTVK's horrible coverage, so I sent the following message to feedback@azfamily.com, and would not mind if you sent something similar:

As a South Mountain area resident and founding member of the Friends of the South Mountain Freeway group, I am concerned that your coverage focused on the freeway as a bypass route that will primarily be something of a burden to surrounding areas. This freeway also represents a vital piece of local infrastructure for people nearby, as it will bring a hospital to Laveen to serve the entire surrounding area, reduce trip times for people living and working in Laveen and Ahwatukee, and take heavy traffic off of our local arterial and collector streets. Further, the freeway brings with it a host of additional economic development benefit for its surroundings, by broadening the market base for retail and other commercial developments that will follow suit. Please do a better job in your future coverage to look at all sides of the story rather than the perspectives of a noisy few opponents -- especially when our fragile local economy is at stake. 

Update 2/7/2011, 10:00 PM: This just in, the unofficial vote results from GRIC are for the no-build option. This likely means that ADOT will pursue the original alignment and fast-track the project: http://www.gilariver.org/index.php/news/2552-gila-river-voters-say-no-to-loop-202-extension