[Source: J. Craig Anderson, Arizona Republic] — The Mill Avenue commercial district in downtown Tempe has a history of leading the way for other local downtown areas when it comes to embracing the next business or real-estate trend. The downside to having such high visibility is that people are more likely to notice when you stumble and fall. A decade after the high-tech office boom and bust, in which downtown Tempe was a major player, Mill Avenue is facing new economic challenges in the form of stalled development projects and the departure of major retailers, including Borders Books & Music, eclectic home furnishings and art seller Z Gallerie, and Coffee Plantation coffee house.
Much of the negative attention has been focused on Centerpoint, a large office-and-retail complex on the downtown Tempe promenade’s southern end. But business owners, real-estate brokers, and economic-development officials in the area, north and west of the main campus of Arizona State University, say that recent reports of the district’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Though they acknowledged problems such as high rent and the departure of beloved merchants, area leaders said customer traffic was as strong or stronger on Mill Avenue than anywhere else in the Valley.
New projects have risen from the ashes of the old ones, they said, such as a multistage music-and-theater venue called the Mill Avenue District Community Arts Project — MADCAP for short — at the former Harkins Centerpoint multiplex, and a mini-office complex for startups that offers small, inexpensive suites that share centralized meeting and research space.
Harkins moved its theater about 2 miles east, to Vestar Development Co.’s Tempe Marketplace, which opened in 2007. While it was a major loss, Nancy Hormann, executive director of Downtown Tempe Community Inc., said an upside exists. “Fun things are happening, almost like silver linings that never would have happened if the bottom hadn’t dropped out of the real-estate market,” said Hormann, whose group represents area merchants. She said that Harkins was the only Mill Avenue merchant to relocate to “that place.”
Perhaps the most noticeable and talked-about signs of the recession on Mill are the unfinished Centerpoint condominium towers, casting long shadows across the outdoor mall’s concrete and stone walkways. [Note: To read the full article and online comments, click here.]
Downtown Voices Coalition 