1.  The City used funds from the Downtown Phoenix Hotel Corporation to buy the Sahara building.  Apparently part of this deal was the temporary use of the site as a parking lot for the Sheraton Hotel.  This is the “done deal” City Manager David Cavazos was talking about. 2.  When several community members suggested the [...]

According to the Arizona Republic article today by Emily Gersema, Ramada Inn in Downtown Phoenix Days from Demolition, the $700,000 demolition of the old Sahara Hotel, currently a defunct Ramada Inn, is scheduled to happen later this month. Before we go into why this building is important and why it’s worth saving, let’s first visit [...]

When I asked Mayor Phil Gordon at a community breakfast a year ago about the lack of bike lanes in Phoenix, he told me bikers should use the canals.  Really Mayor?  That’s your answer to why we have almost no infrastructure in place for bikes in this city?  What if bikers want to use the [...]

Below is my conversation with Carol Johnson, the Planning Manager at the City of Phoenix about what’s next in terms of codes, walkability and making our city more livable on the whole: Blooming Rock: What’s your position in the city? Carol Johnson: My title is Planning Manager.  I oversee our long range planning division, that [...]

The Beef Eaters building on 300 W. Camelback is awaiting its new destiny.  In its heyday, it was a happening dinner spot in the Valley, complete with a gorgeous bar, lots of comfortable booth seating, a community room, a huge kitchen that could serve several restaurants and a cellar basement. From the outside, it’s difficult [...]

Do you have people in your life with disabilities?  I do.  My mother, as she has aged, has experienced a considerable decline in her mobility.  She often uses a wheelchair and a walker when she is out and about.  I sometimes push my mother’s wheelchair when we are out together and whenever I do, I [...]

I sat down with Chris Nieto, the founding principal of merzproject along with Joe Herzog, last week at one of their projects, Giant Coffee.  merzproject is a premier up and coming architecture firm in the Valley.  They’ve done some excellent projects such as the After Hours Gallery, The Galleries at Turney and the Show Low [...]

This 4th of July weekend along with the independence of our country, I celebrated my niece’s wedding.  My family is originally Indian and this wedding celebration was a chance to dress up in beautiful traditional clothing over the several occasions of the wedding. On one occasion, I wore a sari for the first time.  This [...]

“Beginning in the early 1930′s, Chicago architects Fred and William Keck began a decade-long investigation of south-facing windows in residences that became the first to be called ‘solar houses’.  During this same period, two internationally reknowned modern architects, Walter Gropius and Marcel Breur, both applied climatic analysis as major design determinants, as evidenced by generous [...]