24 August 2018

Wait-and-See Here In The Ozone On Main Street Mesa

If a stroll-in-the-shade provided by the storefront colonnades on Main Street yesterday afternoon in the high-heat is any way to measure visible progress by eye-sight evidence, the old LeBaron Building is getting gutted-out to make space for a comedy club, and two new businesses are in-place joining a line-up west of Macdonald Street on the north side -  a gamer's lounge, a tattoo parlor, and a leather shop to add to 'the eclectic mix' of downtown attractions.
Readers of this blog might like to notice that towering way above and dominating all the one-story buildings is the tallest building in the historic downtown heritage area, the 15-story Courtyard Towers, an assisted-living facility on Robson Street. That's not even the top of the building in the image from yesterday, but it clearly shows how out-of-scale and out-of-proportion to the surrounding streetscape a building of that size really is . . .more than two years ago it was sold for $21,000,000. 
The LeBaron Building, sold last year, has a lot of history to tell how early Mormon business owners expanded into real estate speculation here in downtown. You can find out in the following official historic preservation sources: 
1 https://www.mesaaz.gov/residents/historic-preservation/robson-historic-district

2. https://www.mesaaz.gov/residents/historic-preservation/evergreen-historic-district 
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Here at 138 W Main Street, next to Pomeroy's Men's Store & Mission Outfitters where ReVived had a short one-year life, is Buckhorn Village that opened on August 4, 2018








Here next door at 140 W Main Street is Atomic Age Modern, planning to open tomorrow





If that doesn't make you beyond-thrilled and beyond-excited, there's one new development Off Main Street located at 155 S Hibbert Street that might. It's been in-the-works for three years, built on top of a long-vacant unused tract of city-owned land that fills-in open space inside The Old Donut-Hole . . . there's a lot of history there, some unknown.
More on that in a later post