Scottsdale Az New Downtown Project
February 21st, 2008 Posted in Old Town Scottsdale, Scottsdale
Council gives go-ahead to huge downtown project
SCOTTSDALE - The Scottsdale City Council approved a mammoth downtown development of apartments, offices and retails that will tower over 5th Avenue and Goldwater Boulevard.
As with the Scottsdale Waterfront and Optima Camelview, the latest project in downtown Scottsdale’s multi-billion-dollar renaissance went through its share of criticism.
But aside from concerns about conventional and unimaginative architecture, the council voted 5-2 to grant new zoning for Hanover R.S. Limited Partnership of Scottsdale. advertisement
“I don’t see this as destroying the character of downtown,” said Councilwoman Betty Drake, who voted to approve the project with Mayor Mary Manross and council members Wayne Ecton, Jim Lane and Ron McCullagh.
Councilmen Bob Littlefield and Tony Nelssen voted against the project, saying the developer wanted too many zoning concessions without giving enough back to the community - either in architecture or public space.
“This is a big corner. This is a big important project,” Nelssen said. “At least five of (the council) thinks this is what the future of Scottsdale should look like.”
The final architecture of the downtown Scottsdale’s Hanover buildings will have to be approved by Scottsdale’s Development Review Board.
Hanover would include street-level retail and 230 luxury apartments in a 6.1-acre triangle bordered by 5th Avenue, Indian School Road and Goldwater Boulevard.
The developers plans to demolish the existing Ramada Inn Express and the Village Inn restaurant.
Some of the apartments in the interior of Hanover would rise up to 65 feet, or five stories.
Zoning attorney John Berry described Hanover as “another example of the ripples of redevelopment” that have put Scottsdale on the international map.
The project would revitalize a deteriorating dead zone between the new SouthBridge retail center, the renovated Valley Ho hotel and condos, and the Scottsdale Waterfront retail and condos, Berry said.
John Washington, who opposes the project, characterized Berry’s “ripples” of redevelopment as a “tsunami threatening to wipe out the character of the city.”
While Berry produced a petition of 139 businesses and neighbors that support the plan, others said that businesses would be kicked out of buildings.
Some speakers said the plain look of the buildings did not fit in the context of downtown.
“What we see here is not consistent with what, for 100 years, has made us famous,” said resident and opponent Sam West.
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