Urban Life

Radiate Phoenix to Meet at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market

Radiate Phoenix, a gathering of downtown advocates, will celebrate its two year anniversary with a special meeting. The Radiate PHX gang will gather for a special preview of the all new Phoenix Public Market Urban Grocery and Wine Bar.

Radiate Phoenix brings together architects, urban planners, City representatives, downtown residents, business owners, and an Urban real estate guy like me. The purpose is to support the urban core, learn more about the downtown region, engage with like-minded others and influence development and policy. Gatherings are held on the last Tuesday of each month.

I am especially excited about our two year anniversary. It seems like just months ago it was just a thought and now it celebrating a milestone.

The specifics on the next meeting are as follows:

WHEN:  September 29, 2009
TIME:  5:30 -- 7:30
WHERE: The Phoenix Public Market at Central and Pierce

If you love the downtown region, love to gather with friends and want to make a difference to the community, please join us. For more info, visit the Radiate Phoenix Ning site.

Gene Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777

Radiate Phoenix Meets at Switch and Talks Metro Light Rail

Radiate Phoenix, the downtown non-traditional networking group, held their May meeting last night at Switch on Central. The topic for the meeting was the Valley Metro Light Rail system.

Approximately 50 people gathered in the lounge area at 5:30 to discuss the past, present and future of the light rail system. As is usual, new and old friends chatted a bit, caught up on life/business and discussed the latest news effecting the downtown region.

Radiate co-founder, Claudia Bullmore of Sky Marketing, led the formal meeting. Attendees were asked to introduce themselves and talk about their personal light rail usage. Next, we were introduced to our two speakers for the evening... Nick Bastian, Raillife.com founder and Marty McNeil, MarCom director for Metro Light Rail.

Marty McNeil opened the discussion and described light rail as a trans-formative tool for the Valley linking people, development and future possibilities. She went on to describe the biggest lesson learned so far is that the system is far more popular than their optimistic predictions. McNeil said, "We felt the system would exceed our guarantees to the Federal Government by about 25%, but the actual numbers are over 45%." 

Next, Nick Bastian talked about his involvement. A couple years ago he started his quest to better understand how and why a light rail system could/would be used. "There wasn't much out there" he said. Thus, RailLife.com was created to explore and discuss life on the Light Rail. Today, RailLife.com offers visitors a plethora of information about happenings, dining, shopping and social events along the light rail system. As Nick says, "The Light Rail is like a 4th city within 3 others."

The conversation moved to an interactive format with attendees offering thoughts and questions. I particularly enjoyed Nancy Levinson's comments. Nancy is the director of PURL, an architect, urban planner and darn fine thinker. Nancy said, "We spend too much on an outdated transportation system (freeways) rather than the system of the future (mass transit such as light rail.)

Too much else was discussed to include in this brief post... a good reason to attend for yourself. All in all it was another great event bringing people, ideas and information together in a social mix. Thanks to Claudia Bullmore, the gang at DPJ and Switch for making this happen.

Gene Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777
Follow us @geneurban

Radiate Phoenix meets at Switch and Talks Metro Light Rail

Just a quick reminder that the Radiate Phoenix meeting for May is tonight. Details are below:

Theme/Topic: Phoenix Metro Light Rail
Speakers: Nick Bastian with RailLife.com and Marty McNeil with METRO Light Rail.
Location: Switch Restaurant & Bakery... 2603 N Central Ave  Phoenix, AZ 85004 (next to Durant's)
Time:  5:30 - 7:30

For those not familiar with Radiate Phoenix: We are a group of people interested in , committed to, intrigued by, and passionate about the downtown Phoenix region. Some of us are professionals in industries ranging from architecture, design, real estate, public policy and much more. Others are residents who love and care about their community. We are not a stuff your business card in a strangers face networking group.

If you care or would like to care about the downtown Phoenix community and don't know where to start, come Radiate with us.

Gene Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777

Another Great Radiate Phoenix Meeting at Downtown Phoenix's Turf Pub

We had a great Radiate Phoenix gathering at Turf Pub last night. As always it was a rich mixture of downtown residents, personalities and simply people who love the urban life. A few people we've been missing like Don Keuth and the boys from Make Phoenix Weird were there as well as many new faces.

After a bit of social time, Catrina Knoebl started things off by inviting urban activist, Yuri Artibise to talk a bit about Jane's Walk that is happening this weekend. Next we were introduced to Malissa Geer, our speaker for the evening.

Malissa Geer acts as a liaison between the ASU downtown campus and the community. I was immediately taken by her calm , yet strong presentation skills; Few adults have the speaking ease this young woman possesses. She clearly loves her role helping students acclimate to new surroundings and have a great social and academic experience. This is no easy task as she juggles the needs/wants of students, ASU, the downtown business community, City of Phoenix players, residents and more. She may get a job with Cirque du Soleil after this experience.

A few items of note we came away with included:

• The downtown Phoenix Campus at ASU wants to be a part of the downtown experience at a core level.
• Incredible opportunities exist for collaboration on events, services and more.
• Approximately 5400 students attend classes downtown and this number is expected to rise to the 20,000 range by 2015.
• 1300 faculty and staff currently work downtown. this will rise over time as well.
• Upon completion, the Taylor Street Dorms will house 1250 students.
• The School of Criminology is, in large part, moving from Glendale to downtown Phoenix. Several thousand students will be part of this program.
• Students play a large role in the staffing of many downtown businesses including the Sheraton.
• The ASU College of Nursing provides a variety of services available to the community and often at lower costs. Contact them to learn more.

Many of us know ASU had a lot of interplay with the community, but not not at the levels discussed. It is very exciting for the downtown community and holds great rewards for the future.

The evening ended with lots of people enjoying the digs at Turf, an Irish Pub and Restaurant on 1st Street. Many of us grabbed a bit to eat and the food was very tasty. I tried their "Paddy Melt" while others treated themselves on more traditional Irish fare. Naturally, I pulled out a pack of cards and did some close-up magic for the gang... I don't think they'd let me come if I didn't.

All in all, another great time was had. Thanks go to Catrina, Claudia and the staff at Turf for making Phoenix a better place to live.

Gene Urban
The UrbanTeam at Realty Executives
602-234-5777

P.S. Downtown Phoenix presents unique opportunities to people looking to buy rental properties. ASU's growth in the region suggests rental housing will be in demand. Let us know if you'd like to explore this thought.