Prizes for most prized areas-The Arizona Republic
Coveted corners are on Camelback
If metro Phoenix's development hot spots were movies, their Academy Awards would be the Arizona Chapter of the Urban Land Institute's picks for hot intersections.
The group handed out awards, minus the little gold statues, at a ceremony last week announcing its picks for the crossroads most coveted by developers, and topping the list was Camelback Road around 24th Street and around Scottsdale Road.
Life in the development limelight doesn't always equal success for existing businesses. In the tale of these two intersections, one business owner chronicles the wonders of serendipity, while the other could be called an account of the dark side. At 21, Kate Brown couldn't wait to get started. An enthusiast of all things metaphysical, she dreamed of opening a bookstore and found a space in the one-story Brook's Building on the eastern side of Scottsdale Road south of Camelback Road.
"I fell in love with the space," Brown said. So much so that when it wasn't right for a bookstore, she opened Zen, a boutique tea bar, instead.That was five years ago, before new developments redefined the area.
Now, the $250 million, 1.1 million-square-foot Waterfront project mixes retail and commercial space with mid- and high-rise residential buildings where condominiums sell up to $4 million.
To the south, the $41 million Southbridge project also melds office, retail and residential uses. Scottsdale Fashion Square is getting a Barney's department store. The $80 million W Hotel is going up behind Brown's shop, putting hotel rooms into the mix.
Retail rents have shot up as high as $45 a square foot, and the increases are rippling out farther and farther from the intersection itself.
Today, Brown said, she could not afford her space if she weren't locked into a lease that includes incremental increases.
Even though she closed her tea shop this summer, she has no plans to move out. Instead, she'll reconfigure the space into a gallery specializing in art she hopes will appeal to her new high-rise-dwelling neighbors. "It just made a lot of sense," Brown said, "to shift the space into something that will complement the area."
David Roderique, general manager of the city of Scottsdale economic vitality department, said that many downtown retailers are changing their businesses to keep up with the shifting demographics spurred by the new developments in the area.
About 3,300 housing units are built, under construction or going through the permit process, he said, and business owners are "getting away from the traditional focus on tourists, and we're starting to see more businesses catering to the residents living in downtown."
A bygone icon
The closest analogy to what's happening in Scottsdale is just a few miles to the west, at Camelback Road and 24th Street in Phoenix.
Before office rents at the intersection became the highest in the Valley, at $44 a square foot, or the Biltmore Fashion Park refreshed itself and made plans to build condominiums, offices and boutiques on the property or ultramodern office buildings gleamed on almost every corner, it was home to the Cine Capri movie theater.
The elegant cinema had attracted moviegoers for more than 20 years, but as new developments stacked up around it and land prices rose higher and higher, Cine Capri came down.
For Dan Harkins, whose family started Harkins Theatres in 1933, it was a hard blow.
When he signed a lease for the theater in 1988, "It was like getting the keys to Disneyland," he said. "It was the best movie theater anywhere. I remember taking my first date, at 16, to see Romeo and Juliet there."
Then, in 1998, the property was sold.
The local movie crowd was up in arms. About 278,000 people signed a petition to save Cine Capri. Still, at 2:14 a.m. on Jan. 5, 1998, the curtain came down for the last time.
The movie that night?
Titanic.
"I cried many tears on the day the Cine Capri closed, as did many people," Harkins said. He still bristles when remembering the hard, but ultimately futile, fight to get the theater incorporated into the building going up in its place.
"In Phoenix, something built in 1965 is a landmark," he said, but like some of the business owners facing an uncertain future at other intersections around town, he knows the only way to survive is to take his lumps and move on.
Harkins opened a new theater dubbed Cine Capri at Scottsdale Road and Loop 101 in 2003.
Christia Gibbons
http://www.azcentral.com/abgnews/articles/0906abg-intersections0906.html
