Robert Sarver’s involvement in a $70 million boutique hotel in downtown Phoenix is a big deal.
It means the Suns owner isn’t just here to enjoy a rich man’s toy, but might also bring the expertise that made him a major force in the downtown San Diego boom.
It shows private capital is starting to move into the core. This is essential to the region’s downtown, however helpful are government moves such as the ASU campus.
Other promising signs: the Monroe Place lofts by Grace Communities, which might turn into a 30-story high-rise, and the Summit at Copper Square condo tower by Chicago developer David Wallach.
Office space is getting tighter, too, opening the prospect for new investment. And the biosciences campus offers the prospect of yet more private capital. Still needed: retail, and expertise and capital for reuse of historic buildings. . . .
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We must begin to consider the unhappy possibility that the East Valley is insane. What else can one conclude from its elected representatives in the Legislature?
Pick a strange, destructive initiative – from the "guns in bars" bill that makes Arizona a national laughingstock, to an "anything goes" approach to speeding, to an ongoing vendetta against transit – and it comes back to the East Valley’s gang of ideologues at the Capitol.
Among the usual suspects: Sens. Jack Harper, John Huppenthal, Karen Johnson and Thayer Verschoor, and Reps. Andy Biggs and Russell Pearce. Then there are the weird utterances such as Rep. Colette Rosati’s claim that abortion leads to breast cancer.
The entertainment of this yokel grotesquerie is undeniable. But so is damage to the business climate. This is the veto elite, opposed to investing in education, universities, infrastructure; to seeding venture capital; to anything that might help Arizona help itself in the worldwide competition for talent and capital.
It makes me support one of their causes, a separate East Valley county. Of course, Tempe and Scottsdale probably wouldn’t join. And the new county would have to repay Maricopa County for infrastructure. Also, the deal would only be palatable if the Legislature gave expanded home rule to counties and cities.
Still, maybe this bunch is crazy like foxes. Their efforts repay big-money backers, such as the National Rifle Association, and the Legislative mess turns out to be very conducive to protecting the status quo.
The madness will stop when the sensible center of the East Valley decides to vote. . . .
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Another Dubious Distinction for Arizona Dept.: The state is third worst in the nation for displaced homemakers and single mothers in the workforce. This according to the new Ladders and Chutes report from Women Work!, an equity advocacy organization whose funders include a big swath of corporate America.
In Arizona, the two groups increased a combined 73 percent from 1994 to 2003. Nationally the increase was 39 percent. The report is based on U.S. Census data.
These "women in transition" often lack access to education and job training. Many end up in dead-end jobs with low pay and benefits.
They "are ‘poor’ or ‘near poor’ even though they are working," the report states. . . .
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Don’t you wish the traffic cops would provide you the same deal that Wal-Mart got from the U.S. Department of Labor?
The feds agreed to give Wal-Mart 15 days notice before investigating
Arizona Central
