Signs of the Times: Light Rail + Arts/Culture + Real Estate

Feel like shouting the news like this downtown newsboy used to do way back when :

VALLEY METRO LIGHTRAIL ARRIVES DOWNTOWN ON SATURDAY AUGUST 22, 2015

Main Street has always been "transit-oriented" in one way or another starting with streets wide enough for a 12-mule team to turn around, horses and buggies, horse-less carriages called automobiles/cars that need parking spaces and parking lots and more roads, more highways and more freeways creating more toxic emissions and air pollution and now hi-tech no-emission light rail public transit soon to glide noiselessly in two directions on Main Street connecting en route with Tempe and Phoenix.
Find your reasons to go, get on and get off [be safe] . . . We're all connected and can get more connected.
Main Street is a free Wi-Fi Zone from Country Club Drive to Centennial Street and from First Street to First Avenue [information update thanks to reader comment noted below] . . . Next step is to get cars totally off Main Street [deliveries and convenient parking just behind the stores], convert Main Street into a pedestrian-friendly Central Park/Greenwayand and who knows how good it gets?

And don't forget the original natural way to transit: it's called walking.
That way you'll see Amy de Castillo's stencil jobs on the sidewalks #iheartMesa

Light rail operations and safety testing today, heading east from the Country Club/Main Station.
In the left background you can see the monumental public art work installation - it will look super-fantastic at night.

On a usual Sunday-of-rest with excessive high heat it wasn't understandably exactly a bee-hive of activity downtown. In between walking all-around, changing sweat-soaked shirts twice, hydration constantly and recharging a Li-Ion Nikon battery two times, a few images were uploaded and edited, a group made into a collage you can see to the left, with some individual images for emphasis.

The biggest - and you'll see why - change in the visual landscape was on the side of a pocket-park fronting the south side of Main Street next to The Bank of America Building on the SEC of Macdonald where an earlier historic building used to stand with the location marked with a small bronze plaque, The Noonan Building.[see plaque for information] - first post office and butcher shop on Main Street
You can see a whole series of these informational and directional way-finding markers all around town only if you walk - and they point you in the next direction to find the places and people that were engaged and active downtown.

Here's another one marking the location of Chandler Court - way ahead of its time as a pedestrian walk-in shop arcade but unfortunately the inner courtyard was filled in at some point in time.
The colonnades and veranda revived a territorial form of architecture frequent before Arizona became a state, to provide overhead shade, used here prominently along Main Street and in central historic Chandler.

... and what to wandering eyes appeared turning the corner onto Main Street on Sunday morning?
A bright visual surprise artwork-in-progress by Kyllan Maney on one of the filled-in archways - see what it looks like on Saturday.
According to Kyllan who's working with the Downtown Merchants Association in advance of the arrival of lightrail, this location will be one of a number of "selfie-stations" where people can do their social media thing, promote themselves and promote arts/culture.
Here's a link to Kyllan's website: kyllanmaney.com

That being said, and now having more familiarity with decades gone bye-bye, here's a work in progress now by muralist/fine artist Lauren Lee, whose design was selected from three submissions made for consideration and approval by a panel going through the usual official procedures.It was a chance encounter and a pleasure to talk with the artist and her assistant when work was just getting started. According to plans it will be finished just ahead of Saturday, August 22 when Light rail glides into downtown.Lauren started out in Mesa as a volunteer with the Summer Art Camp organized by Mesa Arts Center. You may have seen other of her on-site works at Republican Empanada or on the walls in the Mesa Urban Garden, a well as projects in Phoenix.

In the image to the left, readers of this blog can see the final design that will take days to finish, even with having to rent a hydraulic lift to get the project up on the wall before Saturday.

[Regular paper size in protective page cover]

Artist Lauren Lee in the image to the right from meeting and talking with her on Sunday with the mural just getting started.
You can see she's not shy about color.

Website: laurenleefineart.com

A subtle change in the color palette of the shaded verandas on a pathway from/to parking lots and Main Street. Colors added as part of downtown make-over to enhance the original work done in 1967 recorded on the accompanying bronze plaque.

Heading east on Main past Robson

Smile! ... hang on Humpty

Visual corridor to a blank wall looking south

. . . leading north into Main Street

Green anyone? on shaded verandas

Green like this? [almost looks like a linear park, huh?]

Follow these tracks and you run into the posterior of a dinosaur [Ooops!]

OK We have Light Rail, we have Art, and we have Real Estate, advertised for sale or for lease with signs like these in the visual landscape . . . and in the right center background we have one of Mesa's biggest attractions, The Arizona Museum of Natural History - it's quite an impressive vision to see it in this context, huh?

Hey! What about these cracked oiled-asphalt heat islands called "parking lots" ????

IN A GRID: SELECTION OF AVAILABLE COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES
All within one of two blocks of Valley Metro Light Rail Stations

Vacant Commercial Space On/Off Main Street: Available @ What Price?

Individual pictures with signs - if you want to look into the properties and call for more information, just click on or touch to open in an expanded window.