Art Assets & Good Bones? It Takes More Than That To Build a Better Downtown

Comic from Build a Better Downtown

The image here is from a May 20, 2015 post "Cindy Ornstein's Love Letter to Mesa" on another blog about Mesa Build A Better Downtown Mesa.
Please hit the link and read the whole article

Cindy Ornstein is the Arts and Cultural Director for the City of Mesa and the Executive Director of the Mesa Arts Center. 
She oversees the Arizona Museum of Natural History, the I.D.E.A. Museum, the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, and cultural events in the City of Mesa.
According to the post, Cindy got the job after an interview in 2010, not having seen Mesa or been to Arizona before that.

Put Some Meat On Those Bones!

Good Bones …  

It takes more than ‘good bones’

That's a phrase I've heard and used more than once.  It is admittedly casual and ill-defined.
In real estate it's usually used in the “distressed” property market that is our reality today.

The problem with the entire notion of good bones—to draw a further anatomical analogy—is that it lacks any discussion of the viscera: the bloodstream, neurology or fascia that flesh out, protect and inhabit this skeletal system. 

Cindy is quoted saying " . . . we manage facilities that are literally owned by the public. My mission is for every citizen to feel pride, ownership and engagement with these assets and resources. . . . It is really about finding the things that are going to be most effective, . . "
[See how the names of bones are turned into a visual in the image to the left]


A city with "good bones" would be one that is well thought out and works well for the people who live there.
Or, does saying that "Mesa has good bones" mean that we have an impressive infrastructure supporting our transportation network?

 

Old Roots: The Times They Are A'Changing

HERE'S THAT APPLE AGAIN: Hover over and click-on to enlage

You all remember that episode from The Old Testament in The Bible where Adam & Eve are forced out of The Garden of Paradise for disobeying a commandment from God not to taste or eat "forbidden fruit"??
They were sinners in the eyes of God. Now a company called Apple is at the epicenter of change in a spectrum of color.
In classical art that forbidden fruit was usually an apple. For some reason your blogger cannot avoid apples in all their varieties in this lifetime. 
Latter Day Saints may have claimed the original One-Square Mile tract of land we now call Mesa [a Spanish word] but over the years the city has expanded to over 52,000 square miles. 
We have expanded from wards and parishes to metroplex, high tech corridors, aerotropolis and industrial parks, new urban downtown, and cities of the future. 
Mesa includes all of that fast and smart growth ... so why can't we be all-inclusive of our diversity?


 

Theaster Gates: How to revive a neighborhood: with imagination, beauty and

Make No Bones about it - this is an artist who has become a social activist.Watch him

About Light Rail: Benefit or Boondoggle??

Whether light-rail systems in the United States are a benefit or a boondoggle in the communities that build them has been argued for many years. 

Proponents of light rail argue that rail transit increases community well-being by creating jobs, by boosting economic development and property values, and by reducing pollution and traffic congestion—all while providing drivers with an economical alternative to the automobile** see qualifier below . 
Opponents counter that light-rail transit provides little of these benefits to citizens and that the costs of such systems greatly outweigh any potential benefits.

The facts are important for residents in cities with existing light-rail transit and in cities considering proposals for building or expanding light-rail transit.

There are six key issues surrounding light-rail transit: 

• property values and development
• job creation
• traffic congestion and urban sprawl
• citizens' preferences for car over rail,
• air pollution
• solvency

Here are the conclusions:

Citizens can pay tens of millions of dollars annually to subsidize light-rail transit in their community. If the benefits exceed these costs, then rail transit would be socially beneficial. However, many of the argued benefits of light-rail transit, such as alleviating traffic congestion and pollution, may not come to bear.

One clear benefit of rail transit, however, is higher property values for homes and businesses located near a transit station. In fact, in many cities one can see economic development occurring around transit stations, although this may not be causal evidence of the relationship between rail transit and economic development. But again, the increase in property values and economic development are subsidized benefits and may not be greater than the subsidy costs. Both citizens and local officials should have an understanding of the costs of light-rail transit relative to the potential benefits.

Given the size of costs relative to the benefits, the creation of light-rail transit systems or the expansion of existing systems in American cities may be difficult to justify. Go to this link to read the entire details: Light Rail Publication from St. Louis Federal Reserve

**In a previous post about light rail there was a graph with Valley Metro's own statistics that only 5% of the population use public transportation - for the 3.1 Mile Central Mesa Light Rail extension there was an staggering investment of over $340 Million Dollars!
Who says we don't have "Million Dollar-Miles" in the New Urban Downtown Mesa???
 . . . and keep in mind that annual operating expenses  for lightrail will be paid by the City of Mesa with sales/use/consumption taxes to cover anticipated losses. 

Reality Check for The Mayor: We Don't Live in TV Fictional Town

Maybe we could learn a lot from the President of the Boy Scouts of America whose motto is "Be Prepared".

Robert Gates, serving for over 16 years in the two successive Presidential administrations of both George Bush and Barak Obama as Secretary of Defense and Director of the Central Intelligence, called on Thursday, May 21st to end the scouts' ban on gay adult leaders, warning the executives that  

"we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.”
You can watch and read the whole address from the BSA National Convention on May 20 by going to this link: http://scoutingnewsroom.org/blog/watch-and-read-bsa-president-dr-robert-m-gates-addresses-boy-scouts-of-america-national-annual-meeting/

He said recent events "have confronted us with urgent challenges I did not foresee and which we cannot ignore."
Dr. Gates cited the recent defiant announcement by the BSA's New York chapter in early April that it had hired the nation's first openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader. He also cited broader developments related to gay rights.

Here in Mesa there is continuing forward momentum on the approval of an anti-discrimination and anti-bias ordinance, despite some media reports that it is "on hold" while Mayor Giles appears to wobble on exercising the necessary leadership to support the strong feelings for all-inclusive values and justice some people like Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, openly support.
 
Gates goes on: "I remind you of the recent debates we have seen in places like Indiana and Arkansas over discrimination based on sexual orientation, not to mention the impending U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer. . . "

A Million Bucks For An Old Meeting House + A Restaurant With A Salad Bar: Whoa!

Historic Landmark Restaurant to Close May 31st  
Just 9 hours ago, The Arizona Republic published online that one of Mesa's historic properties that began as a Mormon meeting house, then an insurance office, then a college campus, and then a restaurant for the last forty years - great history of "adaptive re-use"  Huh? . . . It has been sold for $975,000, according to the report http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/mesa/2015/05/20/historic-landmark-restaurant-closing-mesa/27651717/

Perhaps the first sign of escalating property values along the Light Rail Central Mesa Extension Project?
Are the new owners - a catering company moving into a small downtown area that already has 12 long-established catering establishments - banking on "flipping" this?

The article is a very nice reporting about the current owners with details over the years and their reasons for selling the business and the property. Please take the time to hover over the link to get redirected to the whole post.
It was purchased by Aldea Catering in Peoria.

Just what downtown Mesa needs - another location for catering - there are already 12!
The source of that information comes from a talk a couple of months ago with Ray Hart, owner-operator with his wife Michele, of another historic property on the National Register built by one of the early Mormon pioneer families here in Mesa: the James A. Macdonald House Antique Wedding House . . . 
What's the context? Read more >>>

The Mayor's May 19 Media Briefing was .....Hmm, brief

Image from mayor's Facebook account

Your blogger appreciated receiving an invitation for the media briefing in City Hall scheduled for 2 o'clock.
Somewhat out of character for my punctuality usually arriving before time, I didn't get to City Hall until about 2:25 where the security station in the lobby told me the briefing was already over. Whoa! That was fast.
I had done my hours-long research on the topics ahead of time, looking forward to the Q&A, but had to settle for audio downloads from Mesa Channel 11 that were later provided @ 4:18 p.m. on the Mesa Now City Newsroom [hit the following link Mayor's Media Briefing 05.19.2015