August 03, 2010

Mick Dalrymple on Interconnectedness and the Urgency of the Environmental Crisis

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet You may know Mick Dalrymple as one of the guys behind aka Green, the first-of-its-kind store that was a resource for green building materials and green education in Scottsdale. I know Mick as a leader in the local green building community. Coming from outside the building industry, Mick’s varied background has given him a wider perspective on what works and what doesn’t. Besides his unique perspective, I also appreciate Mick’s deep knowledge of green building. So many people now may go out and get a green building certification and call themselves experts while not really understanding the basics. But…

August 02, 2010

Critical Mass Phoenix Makes Room for Bikes on the Street

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet 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 roads, like everyone else? What if the canals don’t take people where they need to go? Biking has been flagrantly dismissed as a viable mode of transportation by our city ever since its modernization. Finally there’s an event in town that takes a stand…

July 28, 2010

Phoenix Planning Manager Carol Johnson Reveals the Strategy for Downtown and the Light Rail Corridor

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet 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 includes the planners that staff that Village Planning Committees. We have 15 Village Planning Committees which are like mini Planning Commissions throughout the city to help break it up into more manageable pieces because we’re over 500 square miles. There used to be one…

July 27, 2010

Dan Semenchuk’s Photographs Capture the Heyday of Beef Eaters

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet 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 to see the character of the building. I’ve been known to say that this building isn’t anything special architecturally. But when I saw these photographs by Dan Semenchuk, I got a new appreciation for the place. Dan captures the stories and the life that…

July 26, 2010

Feasting on Phoenix: Creating Community over Food and Place

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet There’s something special about sitting down over a meal and how it brings people together and forms a special bond between them. This is what happens at the Places, Spaces and Faces Community Dinner (PSF) every month. This event started about 6 months ago by some dedicated Phoenix residents who were craving community, Yuri Artibise, Kathleen Bartolomei, Jim McPherson, Marshall Shore and myself. The first one happened in February at the historic mid-century modern building of 407 W. Osborn in midtown Phoenix. Every month since, it’s evolved and grown, attracting many of the same people back and at the…

July 21, 2010

Kevin Kellogg on Preservation and What Phoenix Could Learn from Boston and San Francisco

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Yesterday, I posted part I of my conversation with Phoenix’s Urban Laureate for 2010, Kevin Kellogg. Make sure to check it out if you missed it. Today, let’s continue with part II: Kevin on why historic preservation is important: Obviously I think we should be preserving our historic buildings. It’s a travesty what’s happened so far. It just never ends. Something’s older than 10 years old and we just tear it down. It really makes it hard to be unique. We just don’t have the mentality, it’s a throw-away society. If we’re going to save buildings it’s because we…

July 20, 2010

Kevin Kellogg, the 2010 Urban Laureate, on the Delights and Challenges of Phoenix

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week, I had the pleasure of talking with Phoenix’s urban laureate for the year, Kevin Kellogg, about all sorts of things about Phoenix. He’s a native of Arizona, went to ASU’s School of Architecture, later traveled the world for six years, went to Harvard for graduate school and came back to be a faculty member and an urban designer with the Joint Urban Design Program at ASU. While at ASU in the early 90s, Kevin was a part of some pretty major visioning projects in the Valley that have now come to fruition such as the design charrettes…

July 19, 2010

Stitching Together an Urban Experience around the Phoenix Art Museum

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week I went to the Cezanne exhibit at the Phoenix Art Museum with my friend Sue Weil. We planned to eat dinner at Cheuvront’s beforehand, stop at Giant for coffee and dessert, then head over to the museum, all without a car. This is a perfect example of a walkable node in our city. We were able to make a nice evening out of this little spot in Phoenix without having to drive to every destination. This walkable node was hand-stitched by me and Sue because we’re in the know that both Cheuvront’s and Giant are within walking…

July 14, 2010

Empty Retail Stores: Turning a Plague into Opportunity

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet From the Phoenix Business Journal article “Retailers vacate 609,692 SF in first half – Phoenix Business Journal” on Tuesday July 13, 2010: Retailers continue to abandon property in the Phoenix area with a net loss of 609,692 square feet, or 0.4 percent of the market’s total space, so far this year, according to CB Richard Ellis. CBRE’s second-quarter MarketView for the Phoenix retail market shows a rise in vacancies to 12.2 percent from 11.9 percent last quarter and 10.5 percent a year ago. That’s the 13th consecutive quarterly rise. Vacancies are highest – above 14 percent – in northwest…

July 13, 2010

Why is Walking such an Alien Experience in Phoenix?

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Last week my friend Kevin Kellogg, the urban laureate at the Stardust Center, and I needed to find a place that was showing the World Cup semi-final match between the Netherlands and Uruguay. I was, as usual, officing out of Lux Coffee Bar that morning. Kevin suggested we watch the match at George & Dragon (G & D), the British pub on Central north of Indian School. It’s a classic venue to watch the World Cup. It occurred to me that Lux was close enough to G & D to walk! I know this should not have been such…