Episode 3: Every Building Tells A Story > The Berge Building

With bids out and published on June 10th that are due July 12, 2018 as one piece of the emerging vision for Downtown Transformation here on Main Street for colonnade demolition and building façade improvements at 10 separate addresses estimated at a cost of $500-$600,000 for the Downtown Facade Improvement Program, here's a real-time update REALITY CHECK: How's that working out?
An up-scale retail designer showroom is now closed . . . DDG was an "experiment'.
Yes, The Berge Building has a history . . .
The two-story structure at the NEC of Robson & Main Street is the prominent before-and-after image in the City of Mesa's program to improve the facades of certain commercial properties where the stucco-and-red tile portico has been removed on Main Street.
It might be a nice cosmetic thing to do to expose the original brick-and-mortar but that doesn't guarantee the commercial success of retail on the ground-floor access - there's a framing shop that's open during limited days and limited hours only. Street traffic?

The City of Mesa Downtown Façade Improvement Program, funded through a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), is designed to assist property owners and tenants in making improvements to the appearance of their building frontages. Commercial or mixed-use properties within the Pedestrian Overlay Area (see map below) located between Country Club and Sirrine/Centennial from 1st Street to 1st Avenue in Downtown Mesa are eligible to apply for funding to complete façade architectural design and contingent upon the City receiving future grant funding up to $50,000 towards demolition and construction costs to implement the architectural design. 
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Ten (10) properties are currently participating in the program. See the Interactive Map & Photos to see preliminary designs for these properties, current images and historical photos.
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It may be interesting and informative to note that the 10 separate properties approved for the Facade Improvement Program recently had another $250,000 thrown at a group of investors who recently made deals to purchase all of them, here in The Ozone where downtown has qualified as a distressed, neglected, low-income  Opportunity Zone
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26 March 2018

Opportunity Funds > Opportunity Zones for Who?

INFORMATION PLEASE: To qualify and be eligible as 'Opportunity Zones' OZ certain criteria are required. They sound nothing like the words vibrant and exciting used by city officials to describe what used-to-be the Central Business District before the 1970's: low income, chronically poor, blighted, neglected and under-developed
PRESS RELEASE

Caliber and Habitat Metro buy eight Arizona buildings for $7.5M

February 26, 2018 By Iris Dorbian

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Caliber – The Wealth Development Company, a real estate investment, development and management firm, and project partner, Habitat Metro, have purchased eight downtown buildings for $7.5 million on Main Street in Mesa, Arizona.
(See other posts on this blog for more details)

Caliber’s $7.625 million purchase consists of eight historic buildings along Main Street between Country Club Drive and Center Street.

Investment in, and re-development plans for, the nearly 100,000 square feet of historic urban buildings are important project components to the economic strengthening and downtown transformation efforts of Arizona’s third largest city . . .

Caliber will create these attractive environments as it brings the historic vibe back to Downtown Mesa. All eight of the buildings Caliber purchased were built between 1910 and 1954.

The purchased buildings have a lot of character,???

Bade says Caliber is currently working on getting six to eight tenants to move into the buildings, and then another three to six months would be needed for tenant improvements.

“Our goal here is for people to want to stay in downtown,” Bade says. “They don’t want to come here for breakfast or lunch. They want to stay here, live here, make it their home in downtown, versus a place to visit.”

An aerial view shows the buildings that Caliber, The Wealth Development Company purchased and will redevelop in Mesa. They are outlined in red