I agree that “griefing alone won’t do it” when it comes to change. But I don’t consider it just complaining, I’m trying to raise consciousness. Far too many people in the Valley think that Downtown Phoenix is a big dumpy wasteland, and it’s not! I love Downtown Phoenix. Downtown Phoenix has so much to offer (and so much potential) and only a fraction of the millions of people who live in the Valley know it. (I took my grandma on the light rail for her birthday last spring and I was pointing out the parks, bars, restaurants, hotels as the train was cruising through Downtown and up Central and she looked at me and said, “I’ve lived her for over 50 years and I had no idea any of this stuff was here. Why would we come to downtown Phoenix?”) It’s that mentality that I try to counter in my writing.

I want nothing more than for Downtown Phoenix to be an urban core. I wish I had a bazillion dollars so that I could buy all the land and develop it myself. But the reality is that we have a city council without much vision, a population who views Downtown Phoenix as a dangerous place to venture into to see a Suns game then leave as fast as possible, zoning laws that encourage demolition instead of preservation and development, and state lawmakers who have proposed eliminating the tax credit for historic properties. (I wrote about it here: http://jsethanderson.com/?p=997) It feels like such a daunting challenge to see any real, meaningful change. Phoenix is tough city to be an urbanist, but it’s what I’m fighting for.

The map picture you show, which is directly from google maps, is from 2006 or early 2007, based on the construction of the ABC1 building (not shown in your picture).

Since then, the following has been built on the vacant land shown in your picture:Alta Lofts, the BioScience High School, the power transfer station at Garfield and 7th Street (behind the Shell gas station), the Portland 38 and the other condo place at Roosevelt and 9th St., Portland 2 (which will never sell at their current prices), a bunch of small stuff on the Garfield block, 215 E McKinley condos (now rentals because they could not sell) including Moria, the Sinclair gas station, and some houses on there have actually been razed to prepare the blocks for development.

So, it’s not like nothing has happened, and if the above trend were to continue, this place would be completely built out in six to ten years, but that probably isn’t going to happen due to the economic situation.

Rumor has it that the bus station across from the Quiznos is moving away because they need more space due to good business.I have no idea what will happen to that lot afterward, but it’s prime land.

The big chunks of land south of the Garfield block, all the way down to the TGen block are a part of the Arizona Bioscience roadmap, and they are being held onto for educational institutions and commercial entities.There is some money in the AZ budget to assist with this kind of stuff, but I’ve not really heard much about plans.I have no idea what is going on, but would really like to see this get moving.An NIH research building would be pretty awesome.More ASU life sciences would be good (what ever happened to the school of nursing hospital that was supposed to go in on the TGen block?)

As for the other lots, yes, they need to get used.

I applaud criticism like this.It’s needed, and the pressure needs to be there to get this land used.Your complaints are legit and pretty much everyone knows it.

The question is, what do we do about it and how do we get development to happen here?Griefing alone won’t do it.