Conditional Conjunctive: Update On "A Long-Struggling Corner"



Up early per usual hitting the touch-illuminated keyboard on a Surface Pro 2 drafting a new post to update what's going on - or not - here in The New Urban Downtown Mesa while a short-lived phenomenon of bursts of lighting flash in the southern sky through the window over the home work-station.
Just a few weeks after the City's Office for Downtown Transformation inflates the spoon-fed mainstream media hype for yet another "trial-balloon" for another Pie-In-The-Sky plan by Arizona State politician-turned-private-real-estate-developer Bob Worsley for a 75-room 15-story hotel and 75 above-market rate apartments plunked down in a nondescript mixed-use proposal over a parking lot in the downtown historic area behind the south side of Main Street, let's step back to another one of those "it could happen here" Make-Over stories that has not gotten off-the-ground 17 months after getting published:

Downtown Mesa property could see $42 million makeover 
Maria Polletta, The Republic | azcentral.com Published 8:02 a.m. MT March 30, 2016 | Updated 11:41 a.m. MT March 31, 2016
"The project would inject new life into a long-struggling downtown corner, shaking up the negative image the property has had for years. . . "
Question: Just another one of those bites-the-dust things?
Tapping into the current lingo for urban planning gone-bad - or going nowhere-fast - is this just another empty "eyesore" here in the urban landscape?
Or transit-oriented development temporarily stalled?
The NWC of Country Club @ Main Street is a high-visibility location. No doubt about that for sure; but why is it still sitting empty except for one last vestige of Mesa's car-driven culture: Bailey's Brake Service.
Another Question: Did someone "put the brakes on" progress  moving this forward?
Like most of downtown Mesa's real estate and property history, this site-selection has a long and twisted story that's taken a number of detours creating drama that are detailed in the good reporting by Maria Polletta back in March 2016 about market-rate housing.
Please take the time to read the report 17 months ago for this site's history:  
Link > http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2016/03/30/proposed-market-rate-housing-project-aimed-revitalizing-long-struggling-corner-downtown-mesa/82088846/
Did this market-rate housing initiative get stopped in-the-tracks just a few months ago by an alleged demand to the developer Chicanos Por La Causa by Mayor John Giles getting into negotiations by the City to steer the financing to a Utah-based lender?
Any actions like that to specify what lender to use would no doubt, if true, cross over the line of what's acceptable practice in real estate law: it's called STEERING.