As the public has been reacting to plans announced last week to incorporate his landmark downtown Tempe restaurant beneath a 24-story high-rise building, Michael Monti told us Friday he’s been feeling the shockwaves.
But, he said, he believes the plans will allow both his establishment to thrive as a business as well as for the historic structure in which it is housed to survive.
The owner of Monti’s La Casa Vieja restaurant — a steakhouse located in Maricopa County’s oldest occupied structure, built in 1873 at today’s Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway — has seen his customer base slowly diminishing in recent years. In the spring he agreed to sell his property to Scottsdale-based 3W Cos., which amassed it and land adjacent to it for high-rise development.
The deal was for the newer wings of Monti’s, added several decades later to the original adobe building in front, to be demolished. But the old adobe (“la casa vieja” means “the old house” in Spanish), originally built by Tempe founder Charles Trumbull Hayden as his residence, would be preserved and continue to be a restaurant. Monti would lease the adobe from its new owner.
The Tribune’s Garin Groff reported on Wednesday 3W’s preliminary designs for its structure, which took by surprise many longtime Tempeans. It calls for one of two high-rise towers, a 24-story building, to be built over the adobe restaurant. To many, and to us at first blush, this plan didn’t give the impression of maintaining a historic structure.
But, as Monti argues, the historic value of Monti’s is inside it, not outside it: the old floors and walls, its ocotillo ceilings and the historic artifacts preserved within it. “The plan is to save the fabric of those walls. That’s where the historic integrity is,” Monti said.
With respect for the sensitivities of those who revere this one-of-a-kind building, we challenge the preservation-minded and Tempe city officials: If the idea of a skyscraper built above and around Monti’s is so unpalatable, then the city should entertain the idea of buying the property and adobe building and leasing the structure to Monti, thus giving it an assured future in public hands and having the developer produce a design that don’t encroach on the space above it.
“I struggle with all this,” Monti told us. “I considered at one point deeding (the restaurant) to the city. But the city doesn’t want another museum.” He pointed out that the city bought the historic Eisendrath House in Papago Park with the idea of restoring it, but years after the purchase little money has been raised to do so.
If the city does not buy Monti’s, neither Monti nor the developer should suffer pressure to change their plans simply because they don’t set well with some with different views of preservation. As Monti has stated previously, for his business to survive, change is necessary — he plans a two-deck lounge area along its outside to attract a younger clientele.
At least his and 3W’s plans would keep the 1873 building intact, even if it is to be beneath a towering symbol of the 21st century that, admittedly, some would always squint at in wonder.
Tribune Editorial
