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    Phoenix's Roosevelt Row
    Phoenix's Roosevelt Row
    Phoenix's Roosevelt Row
    Ebook130 pages41 minutes

    Phoenix's Roosevelt Row

    By Nicole Underwood and Greg Esser

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    About this ebook

    The nationally recognized Roosevelt Row Artists' District in downtown Phoenix originated during the platting of the Churchill Addition in 1888, when fewer than 4,000 people called the city home. The Evans and Churchill Additions enjoyed vibrant, walkable mixed-use growth until the suburban sprawl of the 1950s pulled people and resources away from the downtown city core. Significant decline fell upon the area for decades, until artists began to imagine new possibilities in the 1990s. Few urban areas in the United States have undergone such rapid and dramatic revitalization as Roosevelt Row. In 2000, the area's affordability attracted artists who began to transform underutilized structures and vacant lots into a vibrant, diverse, welcoming community. Iconic events, live music, unique performances, and temporary public art have made it one of the largest monthly art walks in the county, and USA Today recently named Roosevelt Row "one of the ten best city arts districts" in the country.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateMar 7, 2016
    ISBN9781439655290
    Phoenix's Roosevelt Row
    Author

    Nicole Underwood

    Nicole Underwood is the Roosevelt Row CDC director of operations. Joey Robert Parks is a ghostwriter, social entrepreneur, and downtown advocate.Greg Esser is an artist and the founder of the Roosevelt Row CDC.

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      Book preview

      Phoenix's Roosevelt Row - Nicole Underwood

      book.

      INTRODUCTION

      Artists have had a dramatic impact on the evolution of downtown Phoenix.

      Many of the murals, installations, performances, and events documented here are largely ephemeral and now lost to the myths of history. Today, many artist enclaves are being lost due to a rapid infusion of new market-rate housing and echoing a trend led by artists in cities all over the world. A significant distinction in Phoenix is that a remarkably high percentage of local artists have invested in real estate ownership, rather than simply renting.

      As with many cities, suburban sprawl took a devastating toll on downtown Phoenix, as people, retailers, and finance moved to newer parts of the city. The opening of the Park Central Mall in 1957 was one of the first marks of this outward growth. Clint Eastwood’s film The Gauntlet provides cinematic views of the derelict and nearly empty downtown Phoenix of 1977.

      The form of the urban core in the city of Phoenix has been shaped over time by policy and market forces. In 1972, Mayor Margaret T. Hance established the Economic Redevelopment Area—declaring all of downtown Phoenix blight. This declaration enabled eminent domain and other economic redevelopment tools to be enacted. Arizona is now the only state without the option of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) to spur redevelopment. At the same time, a large area, from Fillmore Street north to McDowell Road, between Central Avenue and Seventh Street, was rezoned from single-story, single-family residential and mixed-use to High-Rise Infill Incentive zoning. This rezoning placed entitlements to construct 25-story structures on acres still occupied by historic bungalows and single-story, mixed-use, and office buildings. This initiated an incremental process of building demolition and increasing land assemblage. Many buildings were lost to suspicious fires, or demolished by owners who refused to maintain their properties.

      Land speculation, fueled by new high-rise zoning entitlements, drove land prices higher than the market could support. At the same time, developers were able to obtain variances that allowed higher densities north of McDowell Road, along Central Avenue, where land values were significantly more affordable. The swath of vacant land and boarded up buildings between the two higher-density areas of downtown Phoenix would become a canvas for artists in the mid-1990s, who began to envision what would become the Roosevelt Row Arts District. A key challenge, which would become an opportunity for Roosevelt Row in the 1990s, was an inventory of empty buildings and vacant land where structures were razed to make way for the promise of future development that never occurred.

      Today, the entire spine along Central Avenue is now connected by the new light rail system, which opened on December 27, 2008. According to Valley Metro, the Arts District light rail station at Central Avenue and Roosevelt Street is one of the most heavily used stations along the entire system.

      The unusually high percentage of artist property ownership in Roosevelt Row was the unintended consequence of artist displacement during the construction of two professional sports facilities. In the 1990s, Roosevelt Row was still characterized by crime and blight, and ownership was accessible to artists in need of an affordable space to create and display their work. Extensive prostitution, assaults, and open-air drug sales were a regular daily occurrence in the late 1990s. When portions of the area were targeted for demolition in 2002 to build a professional football stadium, artists and the community at large came together to advocate for the preservation of the arts in Roosevelt Row.

      This disinvestment, coupled with land speculation and lot assemblage, resulted in the checkerboard of boarded up buildings and vacant lots that attracted artists. Some owners were receptive to allowing artists to occupy their properties rather than tear them down—often to avoid the cost of demolition. Other artists elected to purchase small properties and protect their sweat equity from future loss as the area improved. The lower cost of entry allowed for risk and innovation when it otherwise would not have been possible. It also fostered the critical mass of artist ownership that continues to define the

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