Get In The Spirit > Re-Cycle, Re-Use + Re-Imagine Books/To Give and To Share

A world of information and ideas within reach of every resident . . . Yipes! That sounds too good to be true
For you, dear readers, bargains on pulp fiction and non-fiction at the Mesa Main Public Library thanks to Janice Dell, Volunteer Coordinator, and her merry band of helpers who have selected "nearly new" books going on sale at the lowest prices in town starting today through January 3, 2016.

They're too big to stick in a stocking, but you no doubt

get the idea

 

 

 

Hours of Operation

Monday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Tuesday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Wednesday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Thursday	10:00 am - 8:00 pm
Friday	10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday	10:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday	Closed

Find out what's going on all the time and every month > http://www.mesalibrary.org/
You can even find a link to register to vote.

MACFest + Downtown Mesa Indie Fest > THE BIG WE Take-Over on Main Street

Good Ole' Kris Kringle was getting his jollies on inside the window at Gunell's Jewelry Store seeing the turnout on Main Street for Small Business Saturday, November 28, 2015.
It's not quite all merry and a winter wonderland yet, but word is getting out when MACFest adds two more days to their calendar schedule to collaborate with the Downtown Merchants Association and The City of Mesa for a big promotion November 27-Jan 3, 2016.
Valley Metro Light Rail is pitching in giving free rides on all the stops at Main Street Light Rail station platforms downtown from Country Club to Main to Mesa Drive, but of course you're more than welcome to walk or bike. See >> merrymainstreet.com

The message is: Get here for sights you might have reminisced about from days gone-by or get here for sights you never could have imagined happening in downtown Mesa.

Another Article Re:The Twilight Garden [Post here 29 October, 2015]

[Updates 02 Dec about Creative Machine] Different style, different content and different focus in another feature on The Twilight Garden located close by the Valley Metro Light Rail Station at Main Street/Country Club.

Posted: Sunday, November 29, 2015 11:26 am

Pocket park offers respite in downtown Mesa

By Shelley Ridenour Tribune

Offers what? Not too many people use or have the word "respite" in their everyday speech . . . is that spite and spite again? Like "re-think"?

As you can see from one of the stunning images taken at twilight by David Jolkovski that accompanied the article it's not a "pocket park" - it's exposed with public access on three sides, with this one looking south across Main Street. The open location with benches facing the acrylic sculpture configurations, is on the north side leading to/from a parking area, and on the east side occupies the space next to Il Viniao restaurant.

The post on this site titled "Valley Metro Public Art > The Shadow of A Memory" has images from the daytime with this longitudinal view of the streetscape looking east on Main Street and a cyclist walking his bike enjoying the scenery.

Twilight or daytime, thanks to Valley Metro and the City of Mesa, Creative Place Making and the role of an artist get highlighted in not just one but two reports.
 

Connect to and read both.
Find out more about Creative Place Making by scanning or searching this BlogSpot - there's a link to five videos

As noted in the Oct 29 post on this site, one source was Cindy Ornstein, Arts & Culture Director for The City of Mesa, who sent some details about how the design of the Valley Metro Public Art space evolved after Rob Antoniak, Valley Metro's Community Outreach go-to guy hooked us up.
The Mesa Tribune article did include those.
Your MesaZona blogger is including a link here to the artist and the company that fabricated Twilight Garden [page July 31, 2015] http://creativemachines.com/fabricating-twilight-garden

Keep your eyes out for more Interactive Public Art.

About Creative Machines = a group of visionary artists, engineers and fabricators doing world-class work for clients everywhere from their base in Tucson, AZ.
We are a multi-disciplinary firm whose abilities span exhibition design, ball machine sculptures, and monumental public art.
We create monumental and human-scaled work that is beautiful at first glance but yields deeper rewards with continued interaction.
Our work is rooted in science, perception and history.

Since 1995 we have been making dynamic experiences for museums, science centers, libraries, hospitals, university campuses, transit stops, art museums, trade shows, and public spaces across the globe. Regardless of the time of day, someone somewhere is enjoying our work.
We never stop innovating.
We make technically sophisticated projects and explore fabrication strategies that have never been tried before. Extensive research and prototyping let us create the most innovative and unique work for our clients.
In certain areas we can do things that no other firm can

Congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema helps United Food Bank

Separate from what they do on a national stage or how they might vote on international matters like refugees and emigrants from the wars in The Middle East, it's nice to see who we elect to Congress in Washington DC to represent voters' interests in the U.S. House of Representatives doing the right thing locally.

Smart Growth Here + Now ReSource > (Re)Building The New Urban DTMesa

Why would anyone want to live in downtown Mesa?
Smart Growth America finds that more and more Americans want to live in walkable, downtown neighborhoods, and companies want to locate in these places too.
These neighborhoods generate strong tax revenues and have lower municipal costs per capita. And they are the often the heart of a town or region’s economic activity.
. . .  one big question remains in your mind. HOW can center city Mesa do it?
Read more >> Comments are invited!

Canyon Winds Forecast For The Las Sendas Area

According to a report by Roland Murphy from Arizona Business Exchange on November 17, 2015, a new 261,380SF "Senior Community" [is there ever going to be a junior community??] is getting proposed with plans and zoning requests to the City of Mesa at the northwest corner of McDowell Road and Ridgecrest in the city’s Las Sendas area.

A Not-So-Ordinary Property With A History + A Lot of Stories

Welcome to Nana'sGardena, or "Grandma's House", a Queen Ann-style brick home originally  built in 1901 that fills the northwest corner of Sirrine Street at 2nd Avenue.
Your MesaZona blogger was stunned at the sight of this historic property while walking around the block and neighborhood with Augie Gastelum, head of NEDCO the Neighborhood Economic Development Corporation, a couple of months ago.

We strolled and talked for two hours on both sides of the east-west expanse of 2nd Avenue from Mesa Drive to Center Street in a district called Southside Heights [Los Altos].
Augie and his wife Jennifer purchased their own home, built in 1935, here about a year ago, welcoming a new addition to their family about the same time.
2nd Avenue is regenerating with both the old and the new side-by-side, improving all the time into a very livable and diverse neighborhood.
There are single-family homes nestled in with multi-family units, at least one group home/service organization, Community Bridges, a recovery treatment center, Riversource, and directly across Sirrine is Nana's Garden.

Here you'll find  a welcoming trellis arbor and a white picket fence, flowering shrubs, metal and stone sculptures,low-impact desert  landscaping, two pelapas, citrus trees, extensive plantings and gardens with benches, stone walkways, a grandchildren play area, and a surprising Koi Pond, with a close-up view in the image to the left.
Just the other day, "Grandma" Margaret Lambert and yours truly chatted under the shade of a tree enjoying the pleasant serenity by the water feature.
I apologized for maybe intruding on private property, after walking by a few times, but after seeing the welcome sign at the top of the arbor on a Sunday morning, ventured in.

Grandma, recently-divorced in 1979 decided to move to downtown Mesa with her two kids in 1979 buying this old house after looking at others.
It needed a lot of work thirty-five years inside and outside in the bare yard. Today it's  a work-in-progress.
Nana invited me into her office where's she's occupied with plans for the future and gathering historic photographs and documentation about the property and people who lived here starting in the last century . . . one of whom, Mrs. Wingar was married to an owner of The Mesa Ice Company.
Plans are underway with the City of Mesa Historic Preservation Board getting all the paperwork, approvals and research in place to establish the South Side Heights Historic District.



Update > Merry Main Street Holiday Tree PopsUp Out-of-the-Boxes

Here it is in all its glory [almost looks real] ... just an "un-intended" consequence for corporate branding - how many times can you see the Bank of America logo?

The 3-story high installation at the southeast intersection of Main/MacDonald Street is dwarfed by the real palm trees and the visual clutter all around this chosen location.

Take  an after-sunset walk all along Main Street - it's an illuminating pedestrian-friendly and welcoming experience.

The switch to throw on the electrified tree is scheduled to happen tonight @ 5:45.

Temporary Suspension of Valley Metro Light Rail Service

. . . in Tempe and Mesa > get up-to-the-minute updates on Twitter https://twitter.com/valleymetro

Another Big Weekend in DTMesa Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday

The BIG WE [that catchy phrase from Natalie Lewis in the City Manager's office]  is all-hands-on in a public relations campaign regenerating The New Urban DT Mesa.          Public and private partnership forces are re-turning and targeting their interests to the heart and central core of Main Street. Make your mark and plan your time to be here.    Read more >>

Right Out-of-the-Box Today : The Merry Main Street Winter Holiday Tree



Many hands - and two hydraulic lift trucks -  are right at work now unpacking, assembling, and lifting the pieces of a totally wired and decorated artificial tree into place, rising  today on the SE corner of Macdonald & Main Streets on the west side of The Bank of America Building.

Comments are welcome from readers on the choice of an artificial tree - "a one-time investment" - here in The New Urban Downtown Mesa, a living green city.
[anybody wanna make a bet if it's Made in China?]

Central Mesa Hot-Spot @ Baseline & Val Vista Drive?

 



Yours truly is "hot" to promote and highlight investments and developments in Mesa all over the place with a focus on The New Urban Downtown Mesa - that is central on this BlogSpot.
Arizona Republic's reporter Maria Polletta published an article today about south-central Mesa
Central Mesa emerging as development hotspot
Proposed projects range from small-scale infill developments and academic facilities to lavish housing complexes — all welcome in District 2, a sector oft overlooked in favor of downtown's storied history or the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway area's tech-heavy allure.

Image from mesaaz.gov

Let's - for the sake of engaging readers - start with being open and transparent.
The reporter takes more than a few clues from Mesa City Council member Alex Finter who represents District 2 generally bounded by Baseline, Gilbert, Brown, and Power Roads.
[Image shown at left is from his webpage on the official City of Mesa website.] 
He served as Mesa’s Mayor until September 18, 2014, when he resumed his role as the District 2 Councilmember. Finter’s term on Council runs until January of 2017.
In the private-sector, Finter is a businessman and partner at Worldwide Investments LLC., a domestic LLC registered in Graham County - not here in Maricopa County - dealing in agricultural lands in Mesa and Australia.
http://www.mesaaz.gov/city-hall/mayor-council/councilmember-alex-finter

City Councilmember Alex Finter pointed to chic shopping center Dana Park Village Square, the future Gilbert Road light rail extension and a blossoming rental market for young professionals as catalysts.

He is directly quoted saying: "These [development] folks are smart . . . they don't spend $100 million here, $25 million there, unless the support is going to be there".
It's a parallel universe of BIG MONEY who want to invest in real estate.
So, readers might wonder how that support - it boils down to a change in the City of Mesa's General Plan - is going to get "there"? . . . no doubt it helps to point out certain proposed actions to the media who in a perfect world are fair and balanced.
The article starts with "Enviable demographics and a few key amenities have helped south-central Mesa quietly catch the eyes of deep-pocketed developers, prompting a recent surge of investment that will likely top $200 million . . . Some of the sites in question have been vacant for decades, and there are plenty of others that could benefit from some TLC . . ."
Huh?? Tender Loving Care from "deep-pocketed developers" -that would be refreshing.
The article goes on to feature "some of the bigger-ticket items" [identified to the reporter] that are or could be on the way - readers will please notice the choice of words taking note that it's one thing to cite an example of a real estate  development success [Dana Park and adjacent "green apartments"] and another thing to advocate for a real estate development proposal [the Mark Taylor "posh apartments"] whose progress will depend on approval of an amendment and change in the General Plan for the City of Mesa to convert 21.85 acres from employment to mixed-use activity.
No mention of the pending public hearing on December 1, 2015 to approve/disapprove a significant change in the city's General Plan was made in the Arizona Republic report on Monday, November 23, 2015 @ 06:02 a.m.
Two days later - yesterday -
What does this change, if approved - it's not a small matter to amend the city's General Plan and must be done in a public hearing with The City Council whose members will vote on the issue after public discussion in favor or against it - mean?
A PUBLIC HEARING
In the example of Dana Park it's always been a highly-admired and successful suburban shopping center right on the borderline with the City of Gilbert that has one of the highest per-capita incomes in Arizona [location and demographics]. It has never been short on "amenities". Whitestone REIT is a real estate investment trust taking the 63-year old concept of shopping malls to the next level.
READERS PLEASE NOTE: The article does a great job covering all the council districts in Mesa in KNOW YOUR MESA DISTRICTS

 

MISS PIGGY: Official Diva for Small Business Saturday | American Express

And now for a très importante message from the fabulous Miss Piggy, official diva of Small Business Saturday®.
#SmallBizSat is Nov 28. Get up, get out, and #ShopSmall.
AND HERE A LOCAL DTMESA OFFICIAL NEWS RELEASE from Cori Garcia, Communications & Marketing Manager @ Downtown Merchants Association . . . [she's not a diva]

For Immediate Release 

November 19, 2015

2nd Annual Small Business Saturday Indie Fest in Downtown Mesa

Downtown Mesa embraces and celebrates the fact that a majority of it's businesses are locally and independently owned. Support the mom and pops and other small businesses from around the valley at the 2nd Annual Indie Fest, on Small Business Saturday, November 28th from 11am to 5pm. In addition to 50+ Main Street businesses opening their doors and offering specials, over 75 small businesses from across the valley will be participating in a vendor fair, accompanied by live music, art demonstrations and lots of prizes to be given away! Spend $35 at brick and mortar downtown businesses and redeem $5 in Downtown Dollars. 

Did you know that for every $100 spent at an independently owned business, $73 goes back to the local economy, versus only $42 when spending at a chain? Support your community by shopping small this holiday season. 

Another benefit to shopping downtown this season – any purchase at a participating business grants customers a $2 off coupon for the new ice skating rink at City Plaza! Be sure to check out all the Merry Main events at www.merrymainst.com.

For more Indie Fest information please visit https://www.facebook.com/events/511132042378871/. 

Cori Garcia

Marketing and Communications Manager

Downtown Mesa Association 501 c(6)
Ultimate Imaginations Inc. 501 c(3)
p 480.890.2613

c 619.980.2674

Cori@DowntownMesa.com 

www.DowntownMesa.com 

All-New Residential Treatment Program @ River Source on 2nd Avenue



According to a press release
Mesa, AZ (PRWEB) October 29, 2015.
One of Arizona’s leading drug and alcohol addiction recovery centers, The River Source, has announced the creation of an all-new residential treatment program that specifically caters to women. The new program will be located in downtown Mesa, Arizona, the third-largest city in the state.

In addition to integrative medical detox and holistic therapy services, the new program for women 18 years and older will include accommodations for pregnant mothers, as well as couples treatment and family therapy sessions. The women-only compound in Mesa features such amenities as a yoga ramada, dry sauna, basketball hoop, outdoor fire pit, lounge area with television, quiet seating areas and beautiful desert landscaping.

“We chose the Mesa location because of its year-round warm weather, sunny skies and great views of the nearby mountains,” Westbrooks said. “Hiking excursions will be offered as part of our holistic therapy services, since exercise is a key component of healing and recovery."

The River Source accepts clients who live in Arizona and all over the nation, offering customized recovery plans and the ability to treat co-occurring disorders. Located roughly 20 minutes from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, the new women’s program will house clients for up to 90 days. The River Source also offers a recovery guarantee, meaning if any client completes 90 consecutive days of inpatient treatment or the Full Continuum of Care and relapses within one year, they can return to The River Source for additional treatment free of charge.

See This > Live Action/Time-Lapse Video: Creative Place Making

Jesse Perry @ MrDowntownPhx does The New Urban DTMesa BIG TIME in a self-produced You Tube upload. He told your MesaZona blogger about it late-day yesterday.
[More background details to follow, with thanks to Cori Garcia, Communications & Marketing Manager for Downtown Mesa]

Completed Mural in Downtown Mesa right off the light rail on the Surf and Ski shop at 137 w Main St. Dedicated to the destroyed signs of historic mesa, this image is a compilation of two vintage neon signs of the Chicken & Waffles Marquee Drive-in the was once along Main Street in Mesa, AZ. Wall is done in spray paint and measures 14' wide by 9' high.

• Category People & Blogs

LISC Phoenix 2015 Annual Celebration & Awards Event

Yours truly took up the invitation from Terry Benelli [posted on this site 30 Sept 2015], Executive Director of Local Initiatives for Sustainable Communities LISC/Phoenix, for yesterday's well-attended breakfast at The Phoenix Art Museum presented by BBVA Compass with featured guest John Graham, President of Sunbelt Holdings, in an interview with Mark Sapp.
The program was opened by Bryce Lloyd with opening remarks by Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton and Brad Parker, BBVA Compass.

The Awards Program featured exemplary citations for
- The Caterpillar Foundation's partnership and commitment to neighborhood revitalization. This is the first time the foundation has invested in the Phoenix area where LISC will use that investment to help expand employment and financial security for low-income families, as well as to turn blighted land into vibrant community space that adds value to the surrounding area.

Michael Trailor, in the image to left, for six years Director of the Arizona Department of Housing, exemplary advocate to understand housing issues and targeting resources and joining with other community leaders in an effort to end homelessness and build more sustainable communities
- Cloubreak Communities Victory Place 5-acre development that supports and creates transitional and permanent supportive housing for vets.
It's a four-phase project that will provide 273 residential units in a campus dedicated to both veterans' housing and service partners US VETS, Community Bridges, AZ Behavioral Health Corps, Phoenix VA, and Bethesda Community Baptist Church.

Due to limitations of space and time and high-tech equipment, your blogger will leave it to the able LISC video staff for a more complete professional presentation of the annual celebration and awards event with details of what said when the program started exactly on time @ 08:55 a.m. closing at 09:50 with Terry Benelli acknowledging thanks to LISC's community leaders and partners, community developer sponsors, community builder sponsors, and community planner sponsors.
The big roster includes BBVA Compass, AZ Community Foundation, Banks Nordstrom, State Farm, JP Morgan Chase, National Bank of Arizona, BMO Harris Bank, Northern Trust, Bank of America, US Bank, Alliance Bank of Arizona, AmTrust Bank, Cardinal Cap Management, and Wells Fargo.
27 Community Sponsors are featured in the awards program, among them the cities of Phoenix, Mesa and Tempe, Valley Metro, Friends of Transit, Gorman & Company [who built Escobedo @ Verde Vista here in DT Mesa], Community Development Partners + Perlman Architects who built El Rancho del Arte, Urban Development Partners with both Charles Huellmantel and Todd Marshall who built Encore on First in attendance.

Keep an eye out for a transcript and video of the whole interview with John Graham, seen in the image to the left.
To be brief and get to the point, recently Sunbelt Holdings has diversified away from suburban into new urban downtown infill development, currently on Marina Heights in Tempe and Portland Place in central downtown Phoenix - both transit-oriented along Valley Metro Light Rail.

There's plenty of potential for new urban DTMesa infill development - or as Mesa mayor John Giles puts it "20 acres of vacant City-owned properties" that can be connected to city-owned utilities - most notably the centrally-located on Main Street whole square block where Brown & Brown Chevrolet operated an autodealership for 85 years purchased a short time ago by John Graham and Sunbelt Holdings, who will be joining the other developers mentioned here investing and planning Mesa's future.
Site 17, part of where Rendezvous Park was the center of city life, remains the biggest piece of vacant real estate in the central urban core regeneration puzzle, after being demolished and cleared for a time-share development that didn't happen.


Plans for Phase 2 of Rancho del Arte were on view at yesterday's event

Bicycle-Friendly?? + A Silver Designation from The League of American Bicyclists

Way, to go Mesa! . . . a long way to go for "moving up" from Bronze in 2003 - 12 years.
WTFark is this? All about getting an award?
Via email @ 2:01 pm today from City of Mesa Newsroom
Mesa Earns Silver Award as a Bicycle Friendly Community
The League of American Bicyclists [LAB, logo to left] announced earlier this week that Mesa has earned the Silver designation as a Bicycle Friendly Community, moving up from the previous Bronze designation awarded in 2003.
Mesa’s designation was upped to Silver as a result of the great strides achieved . . . "

OK. That's all to the good, but what's totally ignored are some of the issues brought into focus by a post here on Nov 13 ... and -- speaking of strides --  the fact is that more people walk than bike.
As readers can see in the map to the right,
"bicycle commuting" has increased all over the country since 2003.
For everyday people using bikes it's not  a Silver Award, a one-day event like CycloMesa or short-term Bike2Work and School Day events that grab headlines and hype in emails and press releases - Bikes are survival.
The

Winners of Gold Awards had this to say: 'any city can be a great cycling city as long as there’s commitment from a broad range of city leaders and the population as a whole...The lesson we learned is that it has to be a broad-based effort, it can’t just come from the top.” -- Dave Cieslewicz, executive director of the Wisconsin Bike Fed and former mayor of Madison, a city that earned top designation in the same announcement. [link below].

Tucson and Scottsdale have received top designation. Flagstaff, Sedona and Tempe were recognized as well in other categories as well as Gilbert and Phoenix.
An image snapped in Phoenix today while waiting at a Valley Metro Light Right station to return to DT Mesa after attending the LISC annual event at the Phoenix Art Museum shows full racks of the rideshare Grid Bike program not being used, but available.
Original planning in Mesa was for 250 in 2015 that was reduced to100 for next year.

Granted that 'winning' a Bicycle Friendly Community designation shows a community's dedication to creating safer and better places to ride your bike, everyday people using bikes for years as a necessary low-cost self-empowering  way to get around - not "for fun" or to "save the planet" - have needed the same assurances getting attention now with increasing urban gentrification and the focus on recreation and physical fitness.
Street vandalism is not infrequent.
Some retail workers remove seats on bikes so they can't  get stolen.
Bikes need to be secured with locks to prevent theft. At the Mesa Main Public Library locks are available at the inside information desk for bikes parked in front.
Curious readers might wonder looking at the sign on Main Street to the right if the City is planning to continue being a Bicycle Friendly Community after this year . . .

Some information about The League of American Bicyclists (LAB) located in Washington DC is a non-profit membership organization which promotes cycling for fun, fitness and transportation through advocacy and education
The League was a prominent advocacy group for the improvement of roads and highways in the United States^[5] long before the advent of the automobile. The Good Roads Movement in the late 19th century was founded and led by the League, which began publishing Good Roads magazine in 1892.
In 1894 the League voted to prohibit membership by non-white people.^[6] Since the League was the governing body for bicycle racing at that time, the League's action effectively banned non-white people from most races in the United States.^[7] It was not until 1999 - more than ten years after the Civil Rights Act became the law of the land - the League disavowed the 1894 action.^[8]
At its height in 1898, the League had over 103,000 members.^[9] Early members included three of the wealthiest men of the Gilded Age: Newport socialites John Jacob Astor, Diamond Jim Brady, and John D. Rockefeller.^[9]
The World War II contributed to the success of the League through rationing of motor vehicle fuel and tires. Membership was 614 in 1945, with 200 honorary members in the armed services. However, in the late 1940s, the League went into decline. Factors included the increasing availability of motor vehicles; the "baby boom", which made for difficulties in pursuing recreational cycling; narrow highways; and conformist social attitudes, with a perception of bicycling as a children's activity.
Through the end of the 20th century, the League existed as a national clearinghouse for cycling advocacy, but more so as a social organization, holding three or more regional rallies each year, usually in June, centered on public college campuses in various parts of the USA. Each of these rallies featured mapped rides of various lengths, dormitory housing and meals, a variety of cycling-related lectures, and vendors selling products.
In the late 20th century, the League was criticized for its name: League of American Wheelmen. Also, the term Wheelmen was becoming increasingly obscure. In response, the League began doing business as the League of American Bicyclists in 1994.^[13]
The League reached a peak of 24,000 paid memberships in 1997, then declined to around 20,000, where it has remained since
A major change in the direction of the League occurred in 1997 when it moved its offices from Baltimore, Maryland to Washington, D.C., and focused increasingly on advocacy at the federal level
The League has continued to play a leading role in cycling issues into the 21st century. Its  Bicycle Friendly America program distributes awards to communities which have adopted measures to accommodate and encourage bicycle use.
http://www.bikeleague.org/

Green Build Gains Ground > Get A Buzz On!

Greenbuild International Conference and Expo
Greenbuild is the world's largest conference and expo dedicated to green building. The green building community gathers to share ideals and mutual passion at Greenbuild, sparking a contagious buzz throughout the week. 
. . . When industry leaders, experts and frontline professionals dedicated to sustainable building in their everyday work come together, the result is a unique and palpable energy. Participants are invigorated and inspired. They find themselves equipped to return to their jobs with a renewed sense of purpose.
Greenbuild features three groundbreaking days of inspiring speakers, invaluable networking opportunities, industry showcases, LEED workshops and tours of the host city's green buildings. Join thousands of other people who agree that green building is a good idea and good for business. 
More 4 >> http://www.greenbuildexpo.com/Attendee/ShowInfo

Centrica Hits The News Big Time

This just in four hours ago
Centrica signs global banking giant to 10 year deal

Posted November 17, 2015 by AZRE

In one of the largest Arizona real estate transactions of 2015, Centrica, an adaptive reuse project by Phoenix Rising Investments, LLC (PRI) signed a 10-year lease for their entire 117,000 square foot project. Banco Santander’s US Consumer group subsidiary, Santander Consumer USA Holdings, Inc, will move into Centrica in the New Year, netting Mesa’s Fiesta District almost 1,000 new jobs. Banco Santander is a retail and commercial global bank, with a presence in 10 main markets, 102 million customers, and approximately 14,700 branches—more than any other international bank—and 193,000 employees. Santander Consumer USA Holdings, Inc (NYSE: SC, “Santander Consumer USA”) is a publicly traded, full-service, technology-driven consumer finance company, specializing in auto finance and unsecured consumer lending products.

report from AZRE

Fast real estate deal: The City of Mesa made this announcement in June

 

Why? The area’s walkability, mass transit access, abundant freeway accessibility, redundant fiber network, and proximity to a workforce of more than 1.7 million people within a 20-minute drive, make it an ideal location for high-tech and multinational companies such as Santander,” said Michael Hsiung, Principal of Phoenix Rising Investments, LLC the developer and owner of Centrica.

 

How? PRI, along with Legacy Equity Partners, collaborated with an award winning team to develop the back office facility located in the heart of the Southeast Valley, with excellent transportation access, including seven bus stops within a quarter mile and two bus stops within 50 feet of the property.

Who? Willmeng Construction Inc. and Nelsen Partners designed the environmentally conscious state-of-the-art project with abundant parking and redundant fiber optic backbone connectivity.

More than a million people reside within a 10-mile radius of Centrica. With the addition of Centrica, and a $25.3 million investment by the City of Mesa into the Streetscape along Southern Avenue, adjacent to Centrica, The Fiesta District has become a target destination for major companies.

Creative Place Making > Re/Generating The New Urban DTMesa

Another "arts-inspired" initiative here in "downtown" - readers of this blog will note a change in that reference: nuttin' down about town with new works going UP all over the place and at least one new business opening the doors or soon-to-open the doors [see recent posts on this site] and another one expanding with a move to Main Street.
Here's Jesse Perry today during a quick-chat while he's in the middle of creating a new eye-popping neon-inspired visual on the west side of what-used-to-be in Mesa history the O.S. Stapley Store.
[See other posts on this site about Creative Place Making]





Finishing touches Wed 18 Nov

UPDATE:  A day later the work is done or with just one more "finishing touch" applied by Jesse standing on his tip-toes to do it. Another chance opportunity came up today when yours truly happened to walk east on Main Street from the Country Club/Main Light Rail, seeing a change from the day before and no artist . . . stopping to take a look. Seconds later Jesse drives into the alley; we talked again with him saying the mural was now done, then noticing one little line he gets right to making the change he wanted. Turns out he made a time-lapse video of the work-in-progress that will get uploaded to his website + social media.

Jesse Perry Art

www.jesseperryart.com

 

Getting' down signing the work and applying the copyright symbol

 

It Ain't Rockefeller Center > Wanna Call It "A Winter Wonderland"?? or Rinky Dink?

Got an email | Subject: RE: Holiday Plans . . . sending it along, but don't know about the words it's BACK & BIGGER THAN EVER EVENT! But . . .                                       

[. . . maybe the Festival of Lights across from Pioneer Park that usually attracts 500,000 to 1,000,000 but nobody knows for sure how many?]
Now that Valley Metro Light Rail is gliding down the middle of Main Street the whole New Urban DTMesa is making a wish

Winter Wonderland Ice Rink?
Winter Wonderland Ice Rink is located on the east side of Mesa City Plaza at 20 E. Main Street
Open Nov. 27 – Jan. 3
Monday – Friday 5 – 10 p.m.
Saturday – Sunday 10 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Rink holds 125 people at one time.
Price: $10 for one hour (includes skate rental)
No discount for personal skates
Keep an eye-out for affiliated tie-in when you shop on Main Street: Another benefit to shopping downtown this season – any purchase at a participating business grants customers a $2 off coupon for the new ice skating rink at City Plaza!

The rented rink is getting some strands of overhead lights and the sides getting hung with green garlands.
In the image to the left you can get a fix on the human scale of things installed on the parking lot next to City Hall.
If you sit in the upper levels of the bleachers you might be able to watch the skating or stand long the sides like these people inspecting the rink installation on Thursday
Imagine if you can 125 people all at the same time - of all skating skills - going round-and-round synchronized at the same speed skating along inside the rink . . . ya better watch out and ya better not pout if ya fall down or have wobbly ankles or lose your balance.

At full capacity [125 people per hour] each weekday will have 625 people, or $6,250 income.
For weekends, at full capacity, 2500 people for both days, or $25,000 income