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