Category Archives: Camelback Corridor

A History of a Historic Preservation Advocate

G.G. George, the Phoenix author of the new book, “The Arizona State Fair,” has a history of preservation activism dating back to the 1960s and remains an active voice in the historic community today for Historic Phoenix Districts.

Historic Phoenix Preservation“G.G. George is the Energizer Bunny of historic preservation,” said Kathryn Leonard, the Arizona State Historic Preservation Officer.

Most recent, the Norton House and all of Encanto Park were listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This completed a project led by George, the president and founder of the Encanto Citizens Association, and the president of the Phoenix Historic Neighborhoods Coalition, to put the entire Encanto Neighborhood on the National Register, which was started in the 1970’s.

And these are only a few of her accomplishments.

“G.G. has always been an extremely valuable voice in the historic preservation movement in Phoenix and it dates back to when all of our historic districts downtown were considered blighted, and nobody wanted to live in them,” said Leonard.

Papago Freeway

George began her work back in 1969 when she heard the plan to construct the I-10 Papago Freeway was displacing residents from their homes. These homes were in the area known as the Moreland Corridor, located between McDowell and Roosevelt Streets and Central and 19th Avenue.

At the time, the Arizona Highway Department, now known as the Arizona Department of Transportation, was offering homeowners less than what their houses were worth so that they could begin construction on the freeway, according to George.

“The freeway fight spurred preservation awareness,” said George. “The homes they were tearing down in the Moreland Corridor were just as nice as this house, just as old and even older,” said George, referring to her home in the Encanto-Palmcroft neighborhood.

George was invited to a meeting by a group known as Citizens for Mass Transit Against Freeways which included a group of concerned neighbors who wanted to make a difference. George attended the meetings, heard the stories from the people who lost their homes, and wanted to help in some way.

“She really was instrumental in saying ‘Hey, these houses have value,’” said Leonard.

According to George, the people in this neighborhood had no idea there was anything they could do to stop the construction of the freeway until a few activists organized the neighborhood. Nearly 2,000 neighbors came together to express their dissent against the construction.

In 1973, a vote appeared on the ballot which determined the fate of the freeway. The Citizens for Mass Transit Against Freeways and preservation advocates won their first battle when construction of the freeway was voted down.

The Department of Transportation had to scrap their original plan for the Papago Freeway, which led to the development of a new plan of an I-10 tunnel under Margaret T. Hance Park.

Arizona State Fairgrounds

Over the years, George has worked on countless other efforts to preserve historic buildings. Most recent, when the Works Progress Administration (WPA) building, located on the Arizona State Fairgrounds near Fairview Place Historic District, was threatened with demolition, George supported the effort to save it.

George wrote “The Arizona State Fair,” a book that chronicles the history of the fairgrounds from its formation in 1905 through the Great Depression when the WPA building was built. George wrote the book “to stimulate interest in the preservation of the buildings and the grounds.” According to George, the profit from the books goes toward historic preservation efforts.

“I devote all my time, research, and writing ability to the [Encanto] citizens association who gets the profits from these books to carry on our work,” said George.

According to Jim McPherson, president of the board of directors for the Arizona Preservation Foundation, George was very supportive of this effort from both a preservation and neighborhood standpoint.

“We have been really appreciative of G.G. in undertaking that major project,” said McPherson regarding George’s book.

Moving forward, George said that she will continue to fight to preserve the integrity of historic districts.

“If we don’t understand the past we can’t even plan for the future,” said George.

Train Depot Home Up For Sale In Phoenix

There are a lot of very cool homes in the Valley, but some stick out more than others.

Train Depot in Historic Phoenix

Train depot home up for sale in Phoenix

In North Central Phoenix sits a home on top of a hill that has a unique history. It used to be a train depot in Mayer, a town more than 70 miles north of Phoenix.

The history is very cool. The train depot began operation in Mayer in 1898. It was in full operation until it finally shuttered in the 1950s. For years it sat decaying to the ravages of time, but a Phoenix man named Don Dedera had a great idea: ship the depot to the Valley and turn it into a home.

So, in early 1963, the train depot was placed on a moving truck and shipped south.

It wasn’t an easy task. It was brought down the Old Black Canyon Highway and telephone and power lines had to be moved out of the way. At one point, the moving truck turned toward the Deer Valley Airport and was able to drive down the runway to avoid even more telephone lines. Eventually, it ended up on a hill and became part of a new home.

Fast forward to a few years ago, the most recent owner, Will Auther and his wife spent nearly a year fixing up the home, and they lived in it for nearly 13 years.

Now, they’ve decided to put it on the market. They hope that someone will take it over and keep the history of the home alive and help to keep the story of the traveling train depot alive.

6 BIKE LANE PROJECTS COMING TO A DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU

6 BIKE LANE PROJECTS COMING TO A DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD NEAR YOU

JULY 28, 2017 BY FARA ILLICH

6 Bike Lane Projects in PhoenixRight now, Phoenix lacks a comprehensive bicycle network connecting the downtown business district with surrounding neighborhoods.

But a number of improvement projects aim to change that.

From road “diets” to restriping, the City of Phoenix is not only focusing on making downtown more bikeable, but more walkable and livable too.

Six projects impacting downtown are in the works, which will add things like cycle tracks (two-way bike lanes), landscaping enhancements, signage, lighting and ADA improvements.

Omar Peters, a director with the Urban Phoenix Project (UPP), sees the changes as a step toward making cycling as comfortable as driving.

“It’s exciting to think about biking this entire area and it’s a nice, easy, protected and pleasurable ride,” he said.

As the special projects administrator for the city’s street department, Mark Melnychenko sets up many of the community meetings advocates (like Peters) attend. Melnychenko gathers public input and helps lead the design and construction process.

“I think we’ve made some pretty good strides in what we’re doing with streets and transportation in the Valley,” he said. “If we had talked about these types of things even 10 years ago, people would not have listened to you, now it’s part of everybody’s vocabulary.”

“Complete streets” are part of that new vocabulary, a concept that emphasizes the importance of multi-modal transportation. In fact, the city just passed a complete streets policy on June 28, ensuring all transportation improvements moving forward have things like walkability and bikeability in mind.

EVANS CHURCHILL & ALVARADO

One example of that is the First Street Pedestrian Improvement Project, which started in 2012, and is slated to conclude sometime this year.

Big changes on First Street have already been made between Van Buren and McKinley Streets, including repaving, reducing the roadway width, widening the sidewalks and adding bike lanes.

Those improvements will extend through the Evans Churchill neighborhood up to Margaret T. Hance Park in the final phase.

Third Street is another major artery running north from downtown. And unlike 1st Street, which dead-ends at Hance Park, Third Street helps bridge the I-10 barrier from Evans Churchill into the Alvarado neighborhood and beyond.

Stretching all the way up to Indian School Road, the Third Street Improvement Project will impact a lot of central city neighborhoods. It already went through the public input process, settling on design plans that reduce the traffic lanes from five to three and add buffered bike lanes. Construction will begin in late 2018 or early ‘19.

CORONADO

Running east-west, the Oak Street Improvement Project will tie into 3rd Street, which links with Roosevelt and First streets, and the rest of downtown Phoenix.

It basically provides a walkable, bikable corridor through the Coronado neighborhood (and areas east of that), in addition to easier, safer passage across major intersections like 7th and 16th streets.

According to Melnychenko, the Oak Street improvements are a great example of how the city is creating one big bicycle network, while trying to keep motorists, residents and pedestrians happy.

“Everything we do with the streets is a balancing act because we have commuters, bicyclists, public transit — and we need to balance the use of the street,” he said. “We have go about it incrementally because it impacts a lot of people.”

Construction on the Oak Street bike lanes is set to begin in 2019, and will eventually tie into the Grand Canalscape near 24th Street.

So while many of these projects aren’t connected yet, they eventually will be.

ROOSEVELT & WILLO

For instance, there’s a bike lane gap between Central and 7th Avenues along Roosevelt Street — but that’s about to change. The street was recently redone east of Central Avenue (along Roosevelt Row), and now it’s the west side’s turn.

In addition to repaving and restriping Roosevelt Street, Third and Fifth Avenues will also get bike lane makeovers, possibly as far north as Thomas Road. As part of the lengthy pre-design process, which concluded in December 2016, key stakeholders provided input, followed by a three-day design charrette.

Because of the all the new development happening in that area and connection to downtown neighborhoods like Roosevelt and Willo, a lot of community members attended the discussions.

UPP was one of the groups present, pushing for cycle tracks on both 3rd and 5th Avenues, in addition to two-way traffic south of Roosevelt.

“When you think about all the new residential that’s happening, there’s a reason why these people want to move downtown,” Peters said. “They want that lifestyle and that includes being able to walk to places, being able to bike to places.”

GARFIELD

The historic Garfield neighborhood east of downtown is also growing, and a new project along Van Buren Street would add bike lanes to that area as well. Spanning from 7th Street to 40th Street, the initial design provides a road diet, buffered bicycle lanes and sidewalk improvements.

A road diet will be used to re-channel traffic, add bike lanes and achieve systemic improvements. While proven safer overall, diets can sometimes be a contentious issue for commuters, who don’t want lanes taken away.

But according to Dan Klocke, executive director of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership, it’s time to rethink that mentality.

“Cities originally widened roads so people could get to their far-flung neighborhoods faster,” he said. “It’s time to recapture some of the quality of life for those neighborhoods by reducing the impact of wide roads, and offering transportation solutions for local residents and employees.”

WOODLAND & EASTLAKE PARK

Using the existing roadway and curbing, a restriping project will also affect Washington and Jefferson streets — adding bike lanes to the gap between 7th Avenue and 7th Street.

Lanes currently exist just outside the “Sevens” going west toward the Woodland neighborhood, and east toward Eastlake Park. This would connect cyclists from those neighborhoods to the downtown business district, at no detriment to vehicle traffic.

“In a tight urban area, bikes get a lot of people around and cause no congestion,” Klocke said. “Bike lanes are an important quality-of-life amenity for those who enjoy it, but also a critical infrastructure piece for those who don’t have a car.”

Many of the projects impacting downtown neighborhoods are still open for public comment. For more information on how to get involved or attend a meeting, check the City of Phoenix website.

 

What Does Turn-Key REALLY Mean?

Turnkey homes Phoenix

Do you know what the REAL definition, the LITERAL meaning of “TURN KEY?

What Does Turn-Key REALLY Mean?Turnkey homes in Phoenix – Most people think it simply means that the home is ready for move-in and it’s so nicely remodeled that you don’t have to do anything but move in and enjoy! Now, this is definitely true, but here’s the REAL definition, although similar, but more accurate.

It means, you put the key in the door, turn it, open the door and you’re home with nothing to do to the house but enjoy.

Further definition states: Turnkey refers to something that is ready for immediate use, generally used in the sale or supply of goods or services. The word is a reference to the fact that the client, upon receiving the house, just needs to turn the key in the lock and walk in, or, that the key just needs to be turned over to the buyer.

I just completed helping a turn-key client remodel for a 1937 Bungalow in the Camelback Corridor at 1131 E. Fern Drive South and it’s now on the market getting TONS of attention! She’s a sweetheart of a home in a fantastic historic neighborhood!

Contact me, Laura Boyajian at 602-400-0008 for more information or to schedule a showing.