The city of Phoenix spent almost a billion bucks, $900 million to be exact on corporate welfare when they tore down Patriots Square in Phoenix and built a hotel for the RED Development Corporation. The hotel is Hotel Palomar, will be managed by Kimpton Hotels.

The Hotel Palomar is on some land that is just east of the old Patriots Square. Patriots Square was replaced by a courtyard in the middle surrounded by a CVS drug store, a Lucky Strike bowling alley, a Gold’s Gym and a number of yuppie clothing stores. It reminds me a lot of the Arizona Center over on Van Buren and 3rd Street which is another big city of Phoenix corporate welfare program that is also a dismal failure.

The government rules in the City of Phoenix are bragging that their investment of $900 million that they stole from us will generate $2 million a year in sale taxes.

Big stinking deal! That means the investment will take 400 years to pay off the $900 million invested. An 8 year old could get a better return on his money by putting it in a savings account.

Let’s face the facts. The $900 million is not an investment, but $900 million Mayor Phil Gordon and the thieves on the Phoenix City Council stole from us and gave to the rich millionaires that own RED Development Corporation, Hotel Palomar and Kimpton Hotels.

On the same day as all this mayor Phil Gordon is bragging about Air Canada offering service to Phoenix. Well that only happened after the city of Phoenix gave Air Canada $250,000 in corporate welfare.

When they build Patriots Square Park they told us it would bring people into downtown Phoenix on a 24/7 basis. Of course the only people Patriots Square brought to downtown Phoenix were the homeless people who bring their shopping carts to the park and hang out there on a 24/7 basis.

I wonder if homeless people will be allowed to use the new park at Patriots Square or CityScape as it is now called?

I doubt it. I bet the city of Phoenix will have their police thugs run the homeless folks out of the park at CityScape, even though homeless people pay taxes and own the park just as much as the rest of us own it.

Read and weep!

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Party planned for Cityscape opening in Phoenix

by Emily Gersema - Nov. 1, 2010 10:10 AM

The Arizona Republic

In four days, the $900 million CityScape development in downtown Phoenix will celebrate its grand opening.

Mayor Phil Gordon kicks off four days of festivities on Thursday with his annual State of Downtown speech, which will be followed by concerts, wine and food tastings and entertainment.

The grand opening is a milestone for this project. RED Development spent five years transforming the idea for an urban office, retail and restaurant site into concrete and steel on two blocks sandwiched by Washington and Jefferson streets, First Avenue and Second Street.

One by one, stores and restaurants have been opening.

The first tenants included Gold's Gym, CVS/pharmacy, Lucky Strike bowling lanes, Par Exsalonce salon and spa, Five Guys Burgers and Fries, plus the Designer District and West of SoHo clothing stores. Openings for 15 other restaurants and stores are scheduled through the coming months, including clothing retailer Urban Outfitters on Thursday.

The development also signed new office tenants, including law firms Squire Sanders and Dempsey, and Jennings Strouss & Salmon. Also moving in are law firms Ballard Spahr, Gust Rosenfeld and Polsinelli Shughart.

According to RED Development:

- 85 percent of its leasable 560,000 square feet of office space has been filled.

- 96 percent of its 180,000 square feet of retail space has been rented.

CityScape's capstone is the 250-room Hotel Palomar, a 34-story boutique hotel expected to be under construction until mid- to late 2011. It will be managed by Kimpton Hotels.

The development has drawn a mix of praise and criticism from residents, city officials and downtown business leaders.

Some consider it an optimistic symbol in a grim economy because RED has continued to build it and add tenants despite the recession. They appreciate the additional revenues CityScape will drum up.

But critics fear the project will boom, then bust.

Jeff Moloznik, RED's development manager, has heard some of the concerns, including one raised by a few members of downtown community groups who worry the project could become another Arizona Center, an outdoor mall at Third and Van Buren streets. It was considered a hot spot when it opened 20 years ago but has struggled to keep a full house of stores and restaurants in recent years.

"I think what separates CityScape from Arizona Center is that when you do take the wrapping paper off and our tenants are open, people will really see an engaged street front," Moloznik said. "If you want to have retail on this site, it has to be facing the street."

CityScape is closer than Arizona Center to the heart of downtown.

It is near the Renaissance Square office high-rise, Phelps Dodge, Wells Fargo, Phoenix City Hall, Maricopa County offices and US Airways Center.

"This is the densest place in all of the Valley," Moloznik said. "That didn't exist around or near Arizona Center."

The city is counting on the new development to boost sales-tax revenues.

Elliott D. Pollack & Co. prepared an economic and fiscal-impact analysis of the project in June 2006. It showed CityScape retail sales could generate up to $73.8 million in revenue for the development's two blocks once they are built out. This could provide about $2.2 million in annual sales taxes.

In addition, CityScape's office leases, once all spaces are filled, are projected to hit $24.3 million in revenues per year and generate about $722,000 in taxes.

The hotel would bring in $7.7 million a year with $461,900 in taxes, the analysis said.

More on this topic

Cityscape tenants

Businesses already open are:

- Gold's Gym - CVS/pharmacy. - Lucky Strike bowling. - Par Exsalonce salon and spa. - Five Guys Burgers and Fries. - Designer District clothing store. - West of SoHo clothing store.

Urban Outfitters will open Thursday.

Phoenix gives almost $300,000 in corporate welfare to Air Canada!

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Air Canada's non-stop Montreal flights to start today

by Emily Gersema - Nov. 6, 2010 12:00 AM

The Arizona Republic

Air Canada kicks off its first non-stop Phoenix-Montreal flights of the winter tourism season today.

Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay are traveling on the first direct flight from Montreal, which is scheduled to arrive around 10:40 a.m. today at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. The returning flight leaves over the noon hour.

Air Canada had announced this spring that it would add the direct flight, the result of about three years of talks between Phoenix and Montreal business leaders and city officials.

The Phoenix-Montreal flights will run on Saturdays and Sundays until April 30, the unofficial close of Phoenix's peak tourism season.

Air Canada's service from Sky Harbor also includes flights to Toronto and Calgary.

The airline was the first to take advantage of Phoenix's marketing subsidy for international flights, receiving about $250,000 in funds from Sky Harbor to cover the cost of marketing the flight for a year.

In addition, $10,000 in landing fees have been waived.

"Canada represents our fastest-growing international market," Gordon said.

R. Glenn Williamson, the founder and CEO of the Canada Arizona Business Council, is traveling with Gordon and Tremblay.

Williamson said about 600,000 Canadians come to Arizona each year, and many of them are looking for new homes, either to live primarily in Arizona or to avoid the harsh winters in Canada by buying seasonal homes here while they are inexpensive.

He said Canadians with homes in Florida were frustrated with the tax situation and hurricane-insurance problems.

Williamson hopes Arizona, with its warm weather, can take advantage of that frustration and lure 400,000 more Canadians to the state.

"We've found that they're not just buying small homes," Williamson said. "They're buying a lot of homes in Paradise Valley, Scottsdale. And a lot of these people aren't retirees. These are folks that are in their 30s and 40s and moving their companies down here."

He said the state's relationship with Canada began 50 years ago.

"Most of Scottsdale was built by Canadian developers," Williamson said. "And then the aerospace industry in Arizona, all of its prime contractors interface a lot with a lot of the contractors in Canada."