Posts Tagged ‘asu’

August 16, 2010

Downtown ASU Students are the Accidental Urban Pioneers

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Today I gave a presentation at the Barrett Urban Experience, a 4-day intensive introduction to the downtown Phoenix urban environment for Barrett Honors College freshmen, a brainchild of Nan Ellin. Overall, the program is very well designed, including a public art tour, a trip to the Downtown Public Market, a discussion about community food by Maya Daily of Maya’s Farm, a lecture on Local First, plus a tour of the Roosevelt Row arts district among other things. (Conspicuously missing was a tour of the Grand Avenue arts district because ASU officials thought it was too dangerous for students. This…

August 09, 2010

Saving the Sahara: Calling the Community to Undo a “Done Deal”

by: Taz Loomans

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…

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 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 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…

April 27, 2010

What you need to know about ‘Energize Phoenix’

by: Taz Loomans

Tweet Have you heard about the $25 mil grant the City of Phoenix received in partnership with ASU and APS as part of the Stimulus Bill? You need to know about this! This grant is intended to make the Green Rail Corridor into a model of energy efficiency and sustainability. Now what part of town is this Corridor? Here’s a map of the area that they’re including in the Green Rail Corridor: (As an aside, this map provided by the City of Phoenix Planning Department is pretty cryptic and you have to work hard to figure it out. I’m looking…