Back-To-The-Future > Site 17 Here in 'The Old Donut-Hole'

In the time-span of last week 'this vast scar of empty real estate' - 25 acres more or less - better known as Site 17, has somehow managed to pop-up again: not once, but at least twice.
Last year it was a public relations push in the city's Imagine Mesa project, with the results handled by a third-party group Neighborlands.
There was also a couple of public outreach get-togethers where a boisterous group from West Mesa held sway.
  

(1) RAILMesa featured Site 17 in a 'Meet The Developer' segment in a meeting on Wednesday, May 23rd.
Your MesaZona blogger has taken a break from going in-person to these meetings.
Now the city is trying to leverage the value of the long-vacant site as an offset in another real estate redevelopment scheme!

(2) What about all this additional promised revenue?
Below is a dirt field known as “site 17”. Proponents will have you believe future assumed revenues from projects like this are going to pay for ASU. To make these connections is purely speculative at best . . .
http://www.jeremywhittaker.com

it's time to re-visit a post from November 18, 2016
Here We Go Again With That "Downtown Vision Thing" 

Who wants to go here to take Mesa to the next level?
 Is this what works for Mayor John Giles or is there another direction?
At tonight's Mesa City Council Study Session for Monday, Nov 21, 2016,one item stands out on the Final Agenda, but first some background farther on to put things into perspective . . . from 1992, then flash forward to this Monday, November 21, 2016 where Director of Downtown Transformation, Jeff McVay, will be making a presentation of the results of months of online surveys and community meetings to a study session of the Mesa City Council. Real estate developers' perspectives are included also.

Years ago the City of Mesa demolition crew  bulldozed the site, with reporter Gary Nelson calling the 30 acres " a vast scar of empty real estate" in an article from 3 years ago. With the recent rejection by voters saying NO to a sales tax hike for another bogus downtown redevelopment plan, who knows if  and when another Pie-In-The-Sky plan will fly?
Looks like the time is now.

. . . It goes without saying that City officials are still debating what to do with 30 acres of land that sit vacant thanks to a failed redevelopment project that began in 1992.

.[1]  Known to the City as “Redevelopment Site 17,” the tract once contained 63 homes that the City condemned and purchased at a cost of $6 million.  A group of Canadian developers planned to build Mesa Verde, an entertainment village featuring a time-share resort, water park and ice-skating rink.
After the City had already seized the homes, financing for the project fell through.[2]  Now, 16 years later, the City is still considering possible redevelopment plans for the area.[3] . . . what's the current thinking and planning that's been put into an attempt to gather data from online surveys and two community meetings involving 1,873 people?
Results are available in a link to a  .pdf download to another Power Point presentation that you, dear readers, can access to view, show up in-person on Monday evening, for at the appointed time live-streaming on Mesa Channel 11.

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^[1] Hunter Interests Reports, “Analysis and Recommendations for Development of Sites Pursuant to the Town Center Action Plan,” Hunter Interests Inc., Sept. 12, 2002.

^[2] Paul Green, “Eminent Domain: Mesa Flexes a Tyrannous Muscle,” East Valley Tribune, Sept. 2, 2001; Robert Robb, “Count on City-Driven Project to Fail,” The Arizona Republic, Sept. 21, 2001.

^[3] Patrick Murphy (Town Center Development Specialist, City of Mesa, Town Center Development Office), Telephone Interview with Justin Gelfand, Institute for Justice, May 22, 2006.
Source: Castle Coalition.org