Posts Tagged ‘Sahara Hotel’

October 25, 2010

Craving Green Breathing Space in a Fast-Paced City

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today’s post is a continuation of my series Learning from European Cities and I’d like to talk about the role of green space in urban life.  In my past visits to European and South American cities, I’ve always been impressed by the green space embedded in their urban fabric in the form of beautiful, lush city parks.  On my recent trip to Europe, I was particularly impressed with the green spaces in Brussels.  This may partially be due to the fact that Paul and I stayed next to the Botanique, a beautiful and very old botanical garden right in…

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Tweet While I’m traipsing through Brussels, Bruges, and Berlin this week, the Blooming Rock blog will be featuring guest posts from some of my favorites writers and thinkers in Phoenix.  Today’s post is by Victoria Vargas.  Victoria is a writer, historic preservationist, archaeologist, and lover of small dwellings. She blogs at Smaller Living about the adventure of living small in a (very) big city. “There is probably no action authorized by local governments more singularly fiscally irresponsible than the demolition of a historic building for a surface parking lot.” Donovan Rykema in The Economics of Historic Preservation (2008, revised edition)…

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Tweet 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 lot become a park or a green space, Jeremy Legg, the City applicant for the parking use permit, mentioned the Civic Space Park is just a block away.  Wait, so we can have TOO MANY green spaces, but never enough parking lots? 3.  The…

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Tweet 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 the reason why it’s being demolished: The City of Phoenix is planning a $700,000 demolition to make room for overflow parking for the Sheraton Downtown Hotel while there are loads of empty lots all around downtown that would work just as well, not to…

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