Public art leader / P. 10
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
Inside This Week
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‘Road diet’ rage over plan to shrink city streets BY TOM SCANLON Progress Managing Editor
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NEWS...........................2 DUI suspect went Erin Go Bang in Scottsdale on St. Patty's weekend
The Sustainability Plan presented by Lisa McNeilly, the city’s sustainability director, was hammered by citizens and council members, mainly for its “road diet” ideas. (City of Scotts-
dale)
NEIGHBORS ....... 28 Memorial golf tourney helps kids with cancer.
ARTS ........................34 Cycles and art on tap. KIDS CAMP .................................. 27 NEIGHBORS ................................28 BUSINESS ....................................30 ARTS..............................................34 CLASSIFIEDS ..............................38
Sunday, March 26, 2023
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF SCOTTSDALE) | scottsdale.org
ant to start a fight in Scottsdale? Just say three words: shrink the roads. Bikers, pedestrians, safety advocates will gush in favor of the idea. Others – drivers, businesses, people who can’t picture another construction project – will fly into a rage over “road diets.” Two Scottsdale City Council meetings this month showed how intensely emotional people get over the idea of trading in car
Huge complex rises from dead BY TOM SCANLON Progress Managing Editor
A
long-comatose development in Scottsdale may be rising from the dead. The Artesia project started construction in 2006, building around 90 condos of a planned total of 546. Then, the Great Recession knocked it off the rails and into seeming oblivion, with no activity in the last decade. The unfinished project, called an “eyesore” by one review board member, is now cleared to come back to life. The Scottsdale Development Review Board rolled out the red carpet for the Arte-
Andrew Bloom REALTOR®, Senior Partner Andrew@BVOLuxury.com VOTED #1 SCOTTSDALE TEAM FOR FOR2022 2018 VOTED #1 SCOTTSDALE REAL REAL ESTATE ESTATE TEAM
sia project, which in its revised stage could bring more than 1,000 people to the city. Without referring to the years the project has been out-to-lunch, David Breen, an architect representing Artesia Development Partners, gave a presentation to the board. Hebreezed through the Artesia plan for 546 condos and townhomes – a combined million square feet – on 23 acres three miles north of Old Town. On the east side of Scottsdale Road, the project is just north of Indian Bend Road and south of McCormick Ranch Golf Club. In a March 10 letter, the Artesia Homeowners Association gave a big thumbs up for the “many
see COMPLEX page 6
lanes for bike lanes. While the March 21 meeting centered on refiguring a stretch of 68th Street featured a fairly equal verbal battle, a general road diet philosophy presented two weeks before was pummeled. If the energy produced in debate over the city’s in-progress “Sustainability Plan” could have been harnessed, it probably would have been enough to run the city for a few days. At the March 7 Scottsdale City Council meeting, the plan sustained a public beating
see ROAD page 4
Felled By Rent
High rent is forcing artist Jeff Zischke on April 1 to do something that rarely happens among the galleries on Main Street in Scottsdale. He’s closing shop less than eight months after opening. You can read about him on page 28. (David Minton/Progress Staff Photographer)
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