Sean Sweat has been on a fast race collecting signatures asking the City of Phoenix to create a dog park on the gone-forever Ramada/Sahara Inn site.
His cause made AZCentral.com where much was mentioned about why a dog park was not feasible. Basically, the City and ASU says its the money. However, the hairs on my arms keep tingling and something just doesn’t seem right about the entire Ramada Inn land story.
The City was in a tremendous hurry to tear down a landmark. During the demolition an article came out about the lack of student housing and the need to build more. Couldn’t they have done that by simply remodeling the hotel? It already had 175 rooms, space for a cafeteria, kitchens, group areas, parking, meeting rooms and more. It seems like the 5 million they spent on purchasing the hotel, the cost of demolition and the funds needed to build a parking lot would have paid for much of the remodel.
Plus, they would have had a steady stream of rental income from ASU downtown students for years to come and lets not forget the short and long term jobs it would have created. Aren’t jobs what we need to springboard our economy? Seems like I’ve heard more than one politician talk about that. I guess they forgot that in the case of the Ramada Inn.
So, my question here on Urban Life, is “what is really going on in the background here?” Why has every option raised about this property been met with deaf ears? Do are civic leaders have some strange parking lot fetish?
Although I like Sean’s idea of a dog park for downtowners, I see little chance of success. None of the City’s power brokers seem to care about adding residential amenities to the neighborhood unless there is a taxable advantage.
So, we will probably keep hearing about a law school planned for the acreage, even when there is no plan or budget. However, the Sheraton will have overflow parking for their guests who generally do not have or rent cars when attending a downtown conference or trade show.
What scares me most is that ASU is purported to be an institute of higher learning, the City of Phoenix is one of the best run cities in America and the Sheraton is a hugely successful corporation, yet none had a bit of sense over the Ramada Inn site.
Gene Urban
The Urban Team at Realty Executives
602-234-5777
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