by Chad Graham - Oct. 9, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
Light rail is giving Central Avenue a chance to become Phoenix's premier boulevard.
The avenue's 3-mile stretch from just south of McDowell Road to Camelback Road is a jumble of disconnected identities. High-rise office towers back up to historic neighborhoods. A world-renowned art museum sits across the street from a CVS pharmacy.
It is the address for the Heard Museum and Phoenix Public Library's main branch, two of the most architecturally significant buildings in the Valley. Yet there are acres of empty lots, as well, many in decades-old holding patterns as past excitement and blueprints faded.
"The light rail provides that avenue to put together the final pieces," said Phoenix City Councilman Tom Simplot, who represents part of the Central Avenue corridor and is chairman of Metro light rail's board of directors. "We will have a live, work, play environment."
Promising future
Although it still might be a decade away, a more vibrant Central Avenue could mean more residents living and working in the area. It could mean well-heeled professionals and First Friday artists shopping at boutique stores and frequenting independent coffeehouses and unique restaurants.
Central Avenue could become the place where suburbanites grab a drink or dinner and then take light rail to a sporting event or concert downtown. It could become a destination street like Mill Avenue in Tempe.
"(It) could be a very walkable, shoppable street as far down as you want to go," said Brad Plumley, co-owner of Haus Modern Living. "There's a lot of empty space."
His business, which sells items from $4.50 luggage tags to $15,000 Italian sofas, moved this summer from Biltmore Fashion Park to near a Central Avenue light-rail stop.
"Ideally, Central would be more cosmopolitan with more locally owned businesses opening up and selling their products," he said, adding that he would like to see the area be known as the antidote to the big-box chain stores common elsewhere in the Valley.
Economic pain
Until the late 1980s, Central Avenue was a center for corporate headquarters and ritzy living, but the artery dimmed after the recession of the early 1990s.
The street's image began to re-emerge in recent years with the development of luxury condominiums - with everything from sleek and modern designs to stately Victorian row houses.
With light rail coming, the avenue readied for its largest building boom in more than a quarter-century, but the real-estate bubble burst before much of the construction began. Developers again abandoned or delayed projects.
It may take a decade after light rail opens to spur such wide-scale development again, Simplot said.
"Until we get a track record of sustainable ridership, I don't think we're going to see the developers finding the financing to be able to build in the short term," he said. "We know that there is a lot of excitement from the development community about the potential and possibilities. Once the financing comes back into Arizona, we know . . . there will be building that will be going on: more apartments, more condos, retail, commercial, office space."
Luxury living delayed
David Pourbaba, CEO and founder of 4D Development & Investment in Los Angeles, still hopes his luxury-condominium project will be built.
Cielo Phoenix, a 36-story building of 500 condominiums with units initially priced from $300,000 to $2 million, has been delayed until at least next year. It was to have been the new home to Arizona Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart.
"Right now, the market is just not there," Pourbaba said. "The capital market is going to get worse through the end of the year, but we expect it to get better in the second quarter of 2009."
Still, he has faith that light rail will draw new residents to the area after the economy recovers and that they will want a nice place to live.
"At the end of the day, Phoenix is too big of an area, and the driving just makes people tired," he said. "I think there will be some conservation, people will want to be closer, and the only way to do that will be to go vertical."
Hip and cool already
What might Central Avenue look like in 10 years? Some signs of urban hip are already in place, and others are on the way.
One corner to watch is Central Avenue and Camelback Road, which already has boutiques like Frances Vintage and Halo Precision Piercing.
Postino Winecafe, an eatery in the Arcadia neighborhood, will open a second location, Postino Central, at the former home of Katz's Deli on Central Avenue. It is set to open by January. Highly anticipated restaurants Cyclo and St. Francis Place are set to open nearby.
At the corner of the two major streets, a residential and hotel project has started moving through the city-planning process. Light rail will go behind the property diagonally, making it one of the easiest places to get to.
Construction woes
Down the street, near Steele Indian School Park, there is Lux Coffee, a hip hangout with minimal decor and works by local artists. The coffee bar remained busy through the construction that devastated other businesses, but it is ready for that messy chapter to be finished.
Jeff and Tara Fischer bought the coffeehouse in October 2005. Light-rail construction began in early 2006.
Jeff remembers the time the restaurant's water was cut off and it couldn't serve coffee. Construction limited patrons' access into the parking lot.
"The construction was out of our control, so we focused on things that we could control," he said. "We shifted away from being predicated on volume and more predicated on having a really quality experience for everyone that came in."
They tried to provide the best individualized service possible, in part by memorizing customers' names and usual orders.
When Jeff Fischer looks at Central Avenue now, he still sees a lot of the empty lots left by the mortgage fallout.
"I hope the light rail fills in some of those voids," Jeff said.
No comments:
Post a Comment