by bryan | Jun 4, 2011 | Light Rail Business, light rail corridor, light rail expansion, News & Information
by Jim Walsh – Jun. 3, 2011 The Arizona Republic A new $20 million investment fund to jump-start transit-oriented development along the Metro light-rail line couldn’t come at a better time for Mesa as it prepares for an extension to Mesa Drive. Although the new Sustainable Communities Development Fund probably won’t be tapped until sometime this fall, four developers already have approached the Local Initiatives Support Corp. with potential projects, said Teresa Brice, executive director of LISC’s Phoenix office. “The timing is perfect for us,” Mesa Mayor Scott Smith said about the fund. “It’s what I call a statement investment. When they invest, others will follow.” Smith also said the city is completing the Central Main Street Plan, which will chart redevelopment along the light-rail extension scheduled to open in 2016. The plan calls for higher-density development to capitalize on light rail. Mike James, Mesa’s transit services director, said the fund could be used to help build affordable housing along the First Avenue corridor near downtown Mesa, or to replace trailer parks in poor condition along Main Street with better housing. “It provides opportunities for a whole range of people to live and work with transportation,” he said. “They don’t need to have a car.” Although light rail has generated plenty of ridership in Mesa, the economic impact has been muted. The line opened during the recession and extends only about a mile into the city. In contrast, Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said the light-rail line has lured $2.5 billion in investment and helped the city redevelop Apache Boulevard, a longtime trouble spot. LISC and the Raza Development Fund, with...
by bryan | May 8, 2011 | light rail expansion, News & Information, Real Estate Development
by Jim Walsh – Jan. 20, 2011 The Arizona Republic A planned investment fund may help create a taste of urban living similar to that of Boston or New York without leaving the Arizona sunshine. The $30 million Sustainable Communities Development Fund would create incentives to build affordable housing along the Metro light-rail line in Mesa, Tempe and Phoenix. Projects funded by the incentives would feature transportation-oriented development, a high-density concept that generally features retail and commercial development on the lower floors with residential units on the upper floors. “We want to work with our non-profit partners to create a pipeline of projects,” said Teresa Brice, a Mesa native and former mayoral candidate who is among the fund’s chief sponsors as executive director of the Local Initiatives Support Corp. “We call this inventing a Plan B for the Valley of Sun,” she said, offering residents an alternative to the urban sprawl that has contributed to poor air quality and long commutes on jammed freeways. The fund would help Mesa capitalize on the extension of Metro’s light-rail line and potentially aid in redevelopment efforts near the city’s only station at Sycamore and Main Street. With the exception of Mekong Plaza, an Asian-themed shopping center that is barely visible to light-rail riders, redevelopment has lagged near the Mesa station, which still has several boarded-up buildings nearby. Mesa has only 1 mile of light rail, but a 3.1-mile extension is scheduled to open along Main Street through downtown in 2016. It would end near the Mormon Temple east of Mesa Drive. Other new stops are planned at Alma School Road, Center Street and Country Club...
by bryan | Apr 29, 2011 | light rail corridor, light rail expansion, News & Information, Valley Metro
First phase of airport’s train to begin operations in early 2013 by Emily Gersema – Apr. 29, 2011 The Arizona Republic Dozens of workers have erected 10,000 tons of steel and 11,000 yards of concrete over recent months to make the pedestrian walkway that bridges Washington Street and the platform for the 44th Street PHX Sky Train station. Commuters who use Washington Street and the Metro light rail have watched the structure develop into a towering bridge near the Grand Canal and 44th Street. The platform where passengers will wait for the unmanned train to take them to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is about 40 feet from the ground. Photos of PHX Sky Train construction he ceiling and roof for the platform have not been built yet, but workers recently installed 17 elliptical steel arches, which will support the roof. Each arch weighs about 35,000 pounds. The platform’s emergence is a milestone for the $1.5 billion project, which crews began building more than a year ago. Media members were invited to take a look at the platform Thursday before workers closed it off for further construction. The interior will be finished, and workers will add moving walkways, escalators and elevators. Construction of the rail is expected to wrap up sometime early next year, said Dave Benjamin, the project superintendent for builder Hensel Phelps. Steve Grubbs, a Phoenix Aviation Department special-projects administrator, told the Aviation Advisory Board last week that workers at a Bombardier plant in Pittsburgh are piecing together 18 rail cars for thetrains, which will be opened to passengers in early 2013 after about a year of testing. Sometime next year...
by bryan | Apr 24, 2011 | light rail expansion, News & Information
by Gary Nelson – Apr. 21, 2011 Arizona Business Gazette A Mesa business leader said last week that residents and merchants need to begin paying heed to an emerging plan that will govern redevelopment in a large swath of the central city. Otto Shill, president of the public-policy committee for the Mesa Chamber of Commerce, said language in the plan will eventually gel into rules affecting everyone in the area. He made his comments to a chamber-sponsored community forum on April 13, the first of several that the business coalition will hold around town to raise awareness of key Mesa policy issues. The plan in question is called the Central Main Street Neighborhood Area Plan. A citizens committee has been working on it for 16 months in hopes of a public rollout by summer and City Council adoption in the fall. Several public meetings will be held before the plan is final. It will govern land use and building design in a nearly 4-square-mile area straddling Main Street from Extension Road to east of Gilbert Road. A sibling plan was adopted for the western part of Mesa’s light-rail corridor several years ago. Jeff McVay, a city planner, told the small audience Wednesday that the plan aims to transform the corridor into a pedestrian-friendly urban center with at least 4,000 more dwelling units than at present. Many would be in mixed-use buildings within arm’s length of the rail tracks. Redevelopment probably would be most intense through downtown, with infill projects more likely east of Mesa Drive, McVay said. “If the city does achieve even half the development potential here, we’re going to have a real...
by bryan | Apr 24, 2011 | light rail expansion, News & Information, Valley Metro
Project is in planning stage, does not yet have price tag by Sadie Jo Smokey – Apr. 21, 2011 The Arizona Republic This fall, north-central Phoenix may get a bike-lane connection between the Arizona Canal and the Uptown Metro light-rail station. But it will require cutting out two lanes for vehicles on Central Avenue between Bethany Home and Camelback roads. “My primary goal is to provide a link between riders who use the canal and the Metro station,” city traffic engineer Kerry Wilcoxon said. “Right now, they don’t have access between Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street.” The project, which is in the planning stage and therefore does not have a price tag, would add one bike lane northbound and one southbound on the southern stretch of the route, providing cyclists a route between the start of the Murphy Bridle Path (at Bethany Home Road) and Camelback Road. Read...
by bryan | Apr 17, 2011 | light rail corridor, light rail expansion
by Gary Nelson – Apr. 14, 2011 The Arizona Republic Mesa Mayor Scott Smith told a room full of Arizona transit experts Monday that the state needs to get over its border problem. No, not that border. He was talking about the borders that separate one city from another on maps that barely make a difference to residents who move among communities to work, shop and recreate. Unless politicians and transit planners get over their parochialism, Smith said, the Valley will be stuck with a “hodgepodge system that is not meeting our needs and . . . is a detriment to our future.” Smith made his comments at an Arizona Transit Association conference at the Phoenix Marriott Mesa that continued into Tuesday afternoon. Returning to the theme of regionalism that has been a cornerstone of his nearly three years in office, Smith said civic narrow-mindedness is an even bigger threat than public transit’s chronic lack of money. He used the proposed extension of light rail to Gilbert Road as an example. Mesa wants to push the line 2 miles farther east of its scheduled terminus near Mesa Drive. Only last week the City Council approved an initial study of the idea, which has no funding and no timetable. Light-rail planners believe Gilbert Road is a more logical collection point for passengers than is the eastern edge of downtown. It’s not that Mesa thinks those 2 miles of Main Street will be a gold mine of redevelopment if the trains go through. It doesn’t. “But from a system standpoint, that’s a huge game-changer,” Smith said. “It will benefit the entire system a lot more than it...
