I feel like Barbra Streisand at the Academy Awards, admiring her Oscar with the delicious, “Helloooooo Gorgeous.” That’s what I want to say every time I think of Downtown Phoenix these days – finally, it’s becoming the golden gem we’ve waited for for so long, and it promises to be just as gorgeous as we always knew it could be.
I think I’m entitled to these moments of glee, because, although I’m certainly not alone, I’m one of the people whose faith in Downtown was never shaken.
Nearly a quarter-century ago (egad, am I that old?), I wrote a story for New Times that began: “This is another boring story about boring Downtown.” There was a time when I was the only one still writing about Downtown as anything more than a wreck and a ruin.
While it seemed everyone else was eyeing those endless acres of raw desert at the city’s edge, a small group of us kept seeing incredible potential left behind in Downtown Phoenix.
One weekend in 1982, our little group went to San Diego to see what they’d done to rejuvenate their downtown, and we came home filled with visions of sandblasted brick coffeehouses and warehouse lofts. We followed it up with a Sunday tour of Downtown Phoenix, excited to discover the grand old architecture of the warehouses south of the Downtown core, and the realization that there were enough vacant lots to do almost anything you wanted.
Our little group included some who have left us – like the late Republican State Chairman Tom Pappas – and some who are still active members of the community, like Valley Leadership’s Scott Jacobson and Attorney General Terry Goddard.
We were the gang that hung out at Estelle’s in the San Carlos Hotel, the happening heartbeat of political and social hipness, but a restaurant two decades before its time.
I fit right in for lots of reasons.
Part of my zeal was selfish – the biggest economic decision I’ve ever made was to buy a wreck of a house in an old neighborhood near Downtown. I’ve been remodeling it ever since, and now it sits in a designated historic neighborhood and is worth so much I couldn’t afford to buy it today.
So Downtown has always been my “neighborhood.” And most of the years I’ve lived here, the pickings have been slim – there was a time when our choices for dinner were Durant’s, Durant’s or Durant’s. For years, I had to drive a half-mile to find a grocery store. These days, we cherish our vast selection and think twice before shopping or dining outside the “hood,” which led my friend Richie to complain, “You central city people need to get over yourselves!”
But part of my zeal was defiance, be-cause the stark, depressing Downtown that existed here for so long was created by city fathers and mothers who decided that slashing a freeway through the heart of Phoenix was more important than the 3,000 homes and businesses they destroyed to clear the land. Think about that for a moment – 3,000 homes and businesses were wiped out for the section of I-10 that runs just south of McDowell Road. I defy any area of the Valley to take that kind of hit and not come out of it staggering.
The rest of my zeal was just common sense. My graduate degree from the University of Michigan includes both journalism and urban affairs. By the time I got to Phoenix, I knew what successful cities did, and what mistakes stupid cities made. It was dismaying to find I’d moved to a stupid city. And I’ve always thought one of my duties as a conscientious journalist was to point out the mistakes.
You could write a textbook about Phoenix and title it: “How to Destroy a Vibrant City.” It’s only because the Southwest has such alluring weather that we’ve attracted the kind of growth that has overcome all the idiotic decisions our decision-makers have made over the years.
So now that everyone has rediscovered Downtown; now that it’s on the verge of its renaissance, about to get a university campus and a biotech center and Channel 8 and a light-rail system; now that it’s got a mayor who both under-stands and “gets it”; now that my ’hood is becoming the snazziest place in town; I just want to scream at the top of my lungs, “Helloooooo Gorgeous!”

I learned to debate by taking the opposite stance of what I believe and making the strongest possible arguments. And I’ve never used that more effectively than the night in the mid-1980s at ASU’s College of Architecture when I debated Mayor Terry Goddard about Downtown Phoenix.
Terry was a Downtown freak even before he became perhaps the best mayor this city has seen to this point. He, too, has lived most of his life in Downtown Phoenix and paved the way for much of what’s happened here.
So when the Architecture School asked us to debate, Terry had to take the pro-Downtown side, leaving me to debate something I didn’t believe – that Downtown was worthless and we’d be better to move on.
I remember calling it a bowling alley, so dead you could roll a bowling ball down any of its major streets and not hit anything. I remember talking about the four bums who were the only guys on the street after 5 p.m. I remember suggesting that we were wasting our time and money on a place nobody wanted. Terry’s a far better debater than I am, and he was wonderful that night, countering all of those arguments by stressing the incredible potential of the place. I was happy the students bought hizzoner’s side of the debate, and I’m thrilled that today’s crop of budding architects are helping design and shape the new Downtown.
But I also have to give some credit to Jerry Colangelo, even though I have long fought his fascination with public financing of his sports venues. He convinced city fathers and mothers that it’s in the public interest for taxpayers to pay for stadiums and arenas that make rich sports owners and players even richer. And he was savvy enough to play both of the lo-cal governments – the city of Phoenix and the county of Maricopa – into financing America West Arena and Bank One Ballpark.
Some think those places are what sparked the renaissance in Downtown. They get some credit in my book, but they certainly aren’t the whole story. What they did was put the stamp of the city’s most influential businessman on a part of town everyone else forgot – and if he’d built those stadiums somewhere else, as he originally wanted, I know he wouldn’t have gotten such a warm response from elected leaders. I think what those stadiums did was bring thousands of people who’d never been south of Indian School Road into the heart of this city, and once they got there… well, it wasn’t so bad.
But here’s the bottom line: Enough stadiums, already. A couple years ago, when I saw the Phoenix City Council de-cline yet a third Downtown stadium – the Arizona Cardinals football stadium – I knew we’d crossed an important bridge and were leaving behind some troubled waters.
But that doesn’t mean we still aren’t making mistakes. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the major blunder we made in the process of building the sports venues: We built that mega parking structure across the street from them and screwed up a lot of things. That $80 million monstrosity was sold to the public as needed parking for all the facilities in that neighborhood, including museums, as though they needed thousands of spaces capable of unloading in minutes. Please. It was built for AWA and BOB, period.
They built that parking structure immediately east of the Civic Plaza, on the only piece of land that could have easily accommodated an expansion of the plaza and convention center. So now, we’re tearing up the plaza to build the equivalent of a seven-story convention center expansion that will cost some $600 million. If I had my way, I’d tear down that parking garage and put the convention expansion where it belongs – throwing away that $80 million is cheaper than mucking up everything else.
Mistakes aside, today’s visionaries for Downtown are led by none other than Mayor Phil Gordon and ASU President Michael Crow. Their plan to put a branch of ASU smack-dab in Downtown is brilliant. What that alone will do for our cultural and economic life is just incredible. And it will inspire so much more.
I’m betting we can entice some of the Valley’s best developers – including Scottsdale’s DMB – to take up the challenges of urban design. (Hey, guys, it doesn’t take much to build whatever you want on a flat piece of desert. Impress us by showing what you can do in the midst of the nation’s fifth-largest city.)
But there is much left to do. Downtown is still more promise than proof, and so it won’t hurt if I suggest a few things that could help:

• When ASU develops its Downtown campus, it should look to the Phoenix Public Library system for its library needs. The beautiful Burton Barr main library is just a few blocks north – it will be on the light-rail line – and whatever resources the university intended to spend on libraries should be spent there. Let’s not duplicate an already fabulous resource.
• Somebody – Dan Harkins? AMC? – should put an art and independent film theater in Downtown Phoenix. The recent closing of the independent Madstone was sad, but I’ve got to ask, what in the world was it doing in Chandler in the first place? Duh! Dan, I’m tired of driving to your Camelview Theater to see the movies I most want to see – take a look at the Downtown demographics and you’ll see we’re ripe for this kind of theater. And AMC is already sitting at Van Buren and Third Street with 24 screens, certainly one or two could be devoted to foreign and experimental films.
• Don’t do anything – not a single thing – to stifle the incredible spontaneous success of First Fridays, when everything from the public library to individual art studios are open for visitors. Many galleries plan special events for the first Friday of every month, proving that if you stay out of the way, artists will do amazing things.
• I want a killer bookstore in Downtown Phoenix, and more fabulous coffeehouses like Lux. I want quirky and wonderful specialty dining spots like Lo Lo’s, which offers only chicken and waffles.
• I want Circles to continue being one of the best music stores in the state, and I hope My Florist Café expands its menu. Thanks for the new Downtown markets at The Gold Spot and Willo Breads; I hope AJ’s knows how much we treasure its presence at Camelback and Central; Cheuvront’s is a great addition to the Downtown scene; Ruby Beet Gourmet is accurately promoted as “fine dining with rustic charm”; and there’s no finer pizza anywhere than Bianco’s.

And do you know why I just know I’m going to eventually get most of those things? Here’s a hint: It doesn’t hurt that the governor of the Great State of Arizona lives Downtown, or that Mayor Gordon does too, or that its new lofts and “urban mansions” will attract some snazzy folks. (Our challenge will be to keep enough “affordable housing” so we don’t squeeze out diversity.)

Yes, I’m pretty jazzed about what’s happened and what’s happening to Downtown. You would be, too, if your neighborhood included the Phoenix Art Museum and the Heard Museum; the Herberger Theater and Symphony Hall; the Rosson House and the best antiques and second-hand shopping anywhere in the state.
I’ve waited a long time for my ’hood to be hot, and for others to recognize our uniqueness. And now the time has come.
Sorry, Richie, we central city people are just never going to get over ourselves!