Downtown Voices Coalition
Working for a sustainable Phoenix for everyone ~ para todos

In this October 24, 2007 column, Arizona Republic editorial writer, Richard deUriarte, encourages the City of Phoenix to preserve the 1929 Sun Mercantile Building just as it did with another city-owned property, the Phoenix Union High School buildings at 7th Street and Van Buren.

[Source: Jahna Berry, Arizona Republic] — Phoenix City Council members and their top aides may have to tell a court whether they had improper talks with the developer of a proposed $200 million W Hotel project.  Last week, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered a trial to sort through conflicting accounts about how the [...]

[Source: Jahna Berry, Arizona Republic] — A proposed $200 million boutique hotel in downtown Phoenix was on life support, but a judge’s Tuesday ruling has effectively killed the existing deal, the developer said.  Phoenix Suns majority owner Robert Sarver was poised to build a 39-story W Hotel near US Airways Center.  The development would have [...]

On the evening of March 5, 2006 Sam Chu Lin collapsed after landing at the Burbank  Airport and did not recover.  Cause of death is pending an autopsy.  Sam was one of the first and most well-known broadcast journalists of Chinese heritage. His tenure at CBS was successful and long (including a stint as anchor [...]

According to the National Park Service, responsible for maintaining the National Register of Historic Places, no property listed on the Register would stay on the Register if descrecrated as originally proposed for Phoenix’s historic Sun Mercantile. 
That doesn’t mean creative architectural design or adaptive reuse of historic properties can’t occur.  Examples exist right here in Phoenix.  [...]

The San Francisco-based Nichi Bei Times published an article in their February 23, 2006 edition about the Save SunMerc Coalition’s effort to preserve the Sun Mercantile Building and develop an Asian American Museum.  The author, Sam Chu Lin, contributes to various newspapers and reports for KTTV Fox 11 News in Los Angeles.  The same article [...]