The Phoenix City Council made (another) terrible decision regarding the re-development of Downtown. Apparently we have all been slightly misled because the City of Phoenix is not broke after all! In fact, they have $5 million bucks stashed away in a mattress somewhere, $5 million they will use to buy the Ramada Inn just to tear it down.
The Ramada Inn is one of the only buildings in Downtown Phoenix that is built correctly because it is built up to the street. Streetfront retail on city blocks is an absolutely necessary component of an urban city. It encourages pedestrians to walk and shop, which creates a healthy, vibrant, urban street. Street front retail is like a membrane of a cell and it allows economic activity to pass in and out. This membrane is missing from Downtown Phoenix.
To make matters worse the city has voted to tear down the Ramada Inn. The land will be used for…wait for it…parking! Yes, more heat absorbing, pedestrian hostile, useless, valueless, asphalt.
I sent emails to the entire City Council a few weeks ago begging them not to approve any demolitions. I don’t care if the city buys the land and the building, but why demolish what is there for more parking? It would be one thing if there were actually plans to break ground within 90 days to bring to the city a mixed use building, something with a residential component, retail, entertainment or restaurants. Instead, the Ramada Inn will be razed to build another parking lot for the Sheraton, the 1970s Las Vegas-style, turd-looking hotel the City owns. Why does the Sheraton need more parking?!
The Council says that eventually this land will be part of the future ASU expansion, but it’s not like there is a shortage of land Downtown where ASU could expand. The City owns plenty of land that could be developed before anything else is erased.
There has to be a shift in the way local politicians and the people of Phoenix think about development. If anyone from the Phoenix City Council is reading this, I beg you to send me an email and explain your rationale behind this foolish decision. More parking lots will only feed the suburban blob that ate Downtown Phoenix.
A mix of eclectic buildings, the old next to the new, is a great thing. Perhaps if Phoenix stopped knocking buildings down as if they are nothing more than a house of cards then Phoenix might actually feel like a real city, instead of some suburban hellhole where everything is sterile, bland and boring beyond belief.
Shame on you, Phoenix City Council.
Ramada Important to Downtown History
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010My grandmother is one of these people.
“I didn’t know when, and I didn’t know how, but I knew I would,” she told me.
She moved to Phoenix in 1961 and has been here ever since. The Sahara, and many other resorts like it (that have been razed) were instrumental in shaping Phoenix in the middle of the 20th Century.
The Sahara was built by Del Webb, the namesake for ASU’s own School of Construction which boasts of its collaboration that creates ASU’s School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment. ASU claims to be “the model of sustainability” and the City promotes sustainable development, but in razing the Ramada, there is nothing that is sustainable, Earth-friendly, or revitalizing.
We all know that the most sustainable building is the building that is already built. The historic A.E. England building was nearly demolished to make way for the Civic Space Park but people like me and the Downtown Voices Coalition and the Historic Preservation Bond Committee and Commission fought to save that part of our history. We’ll fight to save the Ramada Inn as well.
Mid-century buildings are the next set of historic properties and Phoenix has not learned that tearing them down is bad. If the city never learns from the past, they will repeat it. It’s about to repeat now if Phoenix razes this building for another parking lot. Phoenix, you must stop destroying your history for parking lots!
The Ramada Inn has potential to bring in a constant stream of revenue and value to the city that a parking lot never will. Never. A parking lot does not make a city. It only creates vacant blight that plagues the eye.
Think “Long Term” Phoenix. You say you need more parking for the Sheraton. But if you tear down the Ramada to make a parking lot and then let ASU build something on that site “in the future” you’re still going to have a parking problem at the Sheraton. What will you tear down then?
Phoenix, use the assets that already exist Downtown to your advantage and the city will be infinitely better because of it.
Tags: downtown phoenix, historic buildings, Marilyn Monroe, Ramada Inn, Sahara
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