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DAM(N) THE VERDE: HOW PARADISE VALLEY’S IRRIGATION DREAMS FLAMED OUT HOLDING BACK CAVE CREEK WASH: A MULTIPLE-ARCH DAM MASTERPIECE FROM DIAMOND’S TO DILLARD’S TO DEMOLITION: RETAIL LIFE AT PV MALL BILL MARRIOTT JR. TALKS BUSINESS, FAMILY, AND THE CAMELBACK INN RESORT ROBERT T. EVANS AND HIS ADOBE CONSTRUCTION IN PARADISE VALLEY

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MARK COCKRILL CONTRACTING: A PIPELINE FOR SUCCESS IN ARIZONA

THE RESORT THAT BROUGHT LOVE TO PARADISE VALLEY: JOHN GARDINER’S TENNIS RANCH DNG CONSTRUCTION REFRESHES PHOENIX’S ROADRUNNER PARK

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Reading the Book of Betsy Bowers Luke Christmas story Ed Dobbins before opening gifts

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FAVORITE HOLIDAY TRADITION?

Brian Kassalen Luke M. Snell Doug Sydnor Tom Yount

Oyster stew on Christmas Eve

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Production Manager Laura Horner laura@arizcc.com

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CONTENTS Contributors - Betsy Bowers & Tom Yount From The Editor: Where the Mariott’s Vacation: Camelback Inn Resort - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Back When: Phoenix’s “Bahama Mama” House Douglas Towne The Resort That Brought Love to Paradise Valley: John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch - Douglas Towne Dam(n) the Verde: How Paradise Valley’s Irrigation Dreams Flamed Out - Ed Dobbins Holding Back Cave Creek Wash: A Multiple-Arch Masterpiece - Ed Dobbins From Diamond’s to Dillard’s to Demolition: Retail Life at Paradise Valley Mall - Tom Yount Mark Cockrill Contracting: A Pipeline for Success in Arizona - Billy Horner Saluting Arizona’s Builders: Ernest “Ernie” Mohamed Douglas Towne Old School Equipment: International Barber-Greene Travel Plant - Billy Horner Building on the Past: 1955 - Road Mix in Arizona - Billy Horner Architect’s Perspective - Robert T. Evans: Exploiting Adobe - Doug Sydnor, FAIA Digging Through the Archives: Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation - Billy Horner Bid Results Advertising Index

Front Cover Paradise Valley billboard, 1961.

Article on page 48 Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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BETSY BOWERS ARTICLE ON PAGE 41

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THE MISSION OF AZUCA ARIZONA CHAPTER OF NUCA IS TO BE A RESOURCE FOR THE UTILITY CONSTRUCTION AND EXCAVATION INDUSTRY IN ARIZONA; AND TO HELP IMPROVE THE OPERATIONAL PROFICIENCY AND FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF MEMBER COMPANIES THROUGH TRAINING, SAFETY, EDUCATION, INFORMATION, ADVOCACY, NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES AND SUPPORT. TEN

TOM YOUNT ARTICLE ON PAGE 62

B

etsy Bowers serves as the orn in Chicago, Tom moved Executive Director of the EPS to Scottsdale a year later Industry Alliance (EPS-IA), the and has lived in the Paradise leading North American trade Valley Village area for most of association for the expanded his life. He had little interest in polystyrene (EPS) industry, a local history until he encounrole she has held since 2012. At tered the Williams Family-Cross that time, the Alliance of Foam Cut Cemetery at Van Buren and Packaging Recyclers (AFPR) and 47th Place in 2017. Since then, the EPS Molders Association his passion for Phoenix history (EPSMA) consolidated into a has taken him from the top of joint industry trade group cov- the Luhrs Tower down to the ering a broader scope for North remains of the Joint Head Dam American EPS manufacturers. along the Salt River.

Previously, Bowers headed His younger years were the EPS Molders Association and filled with skateboarding and the Alliance of Foam Packaging drumming in local bands. Tom Recyclers, representing North is still drumming and collectAmerican manufacturers of EPS ing cymbals. He most recently insulation building systems and recorded with the local “Thrashtransport packaging. As direc- Punks” Conflict Resolution at tor of Environmental Affairs for Villain Recording, a long-estabthe Polystyrene Packaging Coun- lished Phoenix studio. cil, she focused on EPS life cycle Tom has a longtime interanalysis, toxicity evaluations, est in military aviation and baseand recycling infrastructure ball and is an avid music collecdevelopment. tor. Turning his curiosity and Bowers’ leadership has research ability in a new direcextended globally, representing tion has made him a great addiEPS-IA in 33 countries and col- tion to the Phoenix history comlaborating with corporations like munity, where he has made Samsung, SONY, and Walmart. many knowledgeable friends.

Her strategic approach, marked The group regularly meets at by careful planning and execu- local historic locations, sharing tion, has fostered collaboration information and playing spirited among industry stakeholders, games of Phoenix trivia. Tom government agencies, and envi- mainly focuses on canals, water ronmental advocates. Under systems, and historic buildings, her guidance, EPS-IA attained but he is interested in all things accreditation with the UN Valley history-related.

Environment Programme and Often, you’ll find Tom out founded the Global EPS Sustain- on the hunt for the perfect carne ability Alliance. asada tacos; his current favorite Bowers is an active member is Tacos Jalisco on 68th Street in of professional associations and Old Town Scottsdale. Or he’ll be studied Public Relations at the relaxing at home with his wife, University of South Florida. Flu- Rhonda, and their two spoiled ent in Portuguese, she resides in rotten Boston terriers.

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Image Courtesy of Pomona Library

EDITOR’S COLUMN:

WHERE THE MARIOTT’S VACATION: CAMELBACK INN RESORT DOUGLAS TOWNE

W

hen billionaire J. Willard “Bill” Marriott Jr. goes on vacation, he has his pick of more than 1,597,380 rooms in 8,785 properties in 139 countries. But each spring, when it’s time to celebrate his birthday surrounded by his large family, he chooses to return to his beloved JW Marriott Scottsdale Camelback Inn Resort & Spa, nestled within the Town of Paradise Valley. And he’s done so for the past 50 years, a testament to his enduring connection to this place.

“My family grew up vacationing at the Camelback Inn,” Mariott told me during an interview at the resort in 2018. “You just can’t duplicate our memories here, no matter how fine the hotel or how exotic the destination.”

Mariott, who is 92, is at an age when most corporate executives have opted for a permanent vacation. But he remains the executive chairman and chairman of the board of Marriott International, Inc., and travels to visit with associates and appraise facilities. In 2012, he retired as the CEO after nearly 50 years of company leadership.

During his tenure, Marriott transformed a restaurant chain into a global hotel empire.

The Camelback Inn holds a unique allure for the hotelier. Marriott first stayed TWELVE

at the resort with his parents, J. Willard and Alice Marriott, as a 16-year-old in 1948. He recalled it being a quiet place with a lot of horses. His dad loved to ride, though the equestrian enthusiasm didn’t carry over to Marriott. “I wasn’t much for horses,” he says. “I was a city boy.”

Marriott, who grew up in Washington D.C., got his thrills when he was allowed to take the family car out alone for a spin. “I remember the big dips in the road leading

to the Inn,” he said. “When you got going fast, you could get the wheels off the road with enough lift. I’d never done that before.”

A few years later, Marriott found himself back at the Camelback Inn while attending the University of Utah in the early 1950s. Despite being assigned a makeshift room, the humble accommodations didn’t hinder his fun. “The hotel was full, so they put a cot in a tiny, 8-foot-by-12-foot room by the pool that they normally used to store outdoor furniture,” Marriott said. “I had a great time here on spring break. I dated a Above: Camelback Inn, 1938.

Below: J. Willard Marriott Sr. with wife Alice and son J. Willard “Bill” Marriott Jr. (l-r) at the Camelback lnn, 1970s.

Image Courtesy of Camelback Inn

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Image Courtesy of Author

Left: J. Willard Marriott Sr. with wife Alice, daughter-in-law Donna, and son J. Willard “Bill” Marriott Jr. (l-r) at the Camelback lnn, 1970s.

Above: Author with a portrait of Bill Marriott Jr. and his father, J. Willard Mariott Sr. 2024.

Below: Camelback Inn, 1938.

Image Courtesy of Camelback Inn

Miss Phoenix, and that was a pretty good deal.”

He graduated from college and served in the Navy before joining the family business. Hot Shoppes restaurants were an outgrowth of an A&W root beer stand his parents had started in Washington, D.C., in 1927. Marriott’s introduction to the hotel industry began when his family purchased property in Arlington, Virginia, for a food preparation facility. A company executive suggested the location was better suited for lodging, and they opened the 365-room Twin Bridges Motor Hotel in 1957. Marriott succeeded his father as company president in 1964 and opened its first resort three years later.

Meanwhile, the Camelback Inn was started in 1936 by Jack Stewart and financed

by John C. Lincoln. After 30 years as a posh celebrity retreat, Stewart offered the hotel for sale in 1967. Marriott visited the resort and tried unsuccessfully to decrease the $2.7 million asking price. He phoned his father for advice, who told him not to buy it, it was too much money.

“I was having breakfast the next day at Mountain Shadows Resort, and the hostess came to the table and said that my father was on the phone,” Marriott said. “I picked up the phone, and he said, ‘Do what you damn well please!’ and hung up on me. So, I took it as that was a go, and we bought it.”

Marriott enjoyed reminiscing about his youth and the early days in the lodging industry, going as far as to describe our conversation as “a lot of fun” in the easy-going ARIZCC.COM

voice that masks his age. However, the nostalgia only goes so far. He’s similar to his beloved Camelback Inn, proud of his past but more interested in staying relevant.

When asked about the phenomenal growth of the Marriott brand during his tenure, Marriott demurred, referring to a lesson he learned long ago. He was a low-ranking Navy officer when President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited his family’s farm in Virginia in 1954. The guests were deciding whether to go quail hunting on a bone-chilling day when Eisenhower abruptly turned to him and said, “What do you think we should do, Bill?”

“Here’s a retired five-star general who is now the president asking me what we should do?” Marriott, still seemingly

incredulous, said. “And I got to thinking, that’s how we won the war. With the tremendous egos he had to work with like Montgomery, de Gaulle, and Patton, he got them on the same page by understanding what they wanted, what was important to them, and how to make it all work.”

Marriott applied the same question in his company, using it to get better information. “I found a lot of CEOs think they know it all, and they don’t get their people on the same page, and that’s not good,” he said. “You don’t make good decisions when you’re in a vacuum by yourself. You need to get the team to participate, and you do that by asking, ‘What do you think?’”

Image Courtesy of Pomona Library

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Projects . PEOPLE . PRACTICES

DNG CONSTRUCTION BRINGS NEW LIFE TO PHOENIX’S ROADRUNNER PARK ​

“T

he most unusual facet of this project was the amount of junk discovered upon draining the lake at Roadrunner Park,” says Dominic DeMark, the president of DNG Construction, about the recent renovations his company performed at the park in north Phoenix.

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Images Courtesy of DNG

Lake Mead recedes near Las Vegas. Perhaps, A ​ ccording to DeMark, Roadrunner Park that’s to be expected, however, as Roadrun- underwent significant work on its two-acre ner Park was built on a former landfill site. lake, restrooms, and parking lot. The lake ​The Phoenix-based contractor started work at the park at 3502 East Cactus Road in spring 2023, and the project held its ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 10, 2024.

Due to the added scope of work, the $4 million project ended up being $7 million.

“The most challenging part of the project was that during construction, the park remained open,” says DeMark. “It’s one of Phoenix’s most active parks, plus it has featured a local farmers market every Saturday for the last 35 years.”

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EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Zachary Taylor, Project Superintendent Experience: 1 year with DNG Construction Favorite job task: The sunrise every morning.

Most challenging job task: Keeping locals out from fishing in the lake, even though the construction fence was still up after Arizona Game and Fish indicated the lake was stocked on their website.

Most memorable day at work: When Billy Horner got the parking lot subgrade compaction test approved.

Favorite activities away from work: Spending time with family and friends, being outdoors, and playing in the shop.

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was altered to provide a more suitable environment for fish. Renovations included extending the lake depth from six feet to 15 feet and installing a new rubber lake liner.

DNC also added three new fishing docks, three new duck ramps, and a concrete sidewalk around the perimeter. Arizona Game and Fish stocks the lake with a variety of species.

The park’s restrooms were completely renovated and now conform to ADA-accessible standards. The basketball and hard volleyball courts were resurfaced, and the sand volleyball court was renovated. Additional work includes a resurfaced parking lot, a new ramada, lighting, and dozens of trees.

S​ ubcontractors on the project included Sportsman Concrete (foundations, slab

on grades, and sidewalks), Vulcan Fence (masonry), Sherwood Welding (structural steel and roofing), Wav Electric (electrician), and J.W. Clark (plumber) for the restrooms. ​DNG Construction was helped out on the lake and lighting by Buesing (earthwork), Sportsman Concrete (concrete retaining wall, sidewalks, and hardscape), Vulcan Fence (steel tube lake edge and fishing dock railing), Kimbrel Electric (site electrical), and Ancon (liner). Weems Asphalt (asphalt) and Competitive Edge (ADA Ramps) were subcontractors for the parking lot.

A bonus for DNG Construction was simply the nature of the project. “It was fun interacting and getting to know the local community at the park daily,” DeMark says.

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ISTB12 AT ASU’S POLYTECHNIC CAMPUS IN MESA REACHES CONSTRUCTION MILESTONE

T

he $185 million Interdisciplinary Science and Technology Building 12 (ISTB12) project at Arizona State University’s (ASU) Polytechnic campus in Mesa recently reached the topping-out construction milestone, marking the final beam placement.

Once completed, this new multilevel research and education building will be an innovation landmark for Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering’s new School of Manufacturing Systems and Networks.

The state-of-the-art ISTB12 builds on Polytechnic’s long-standing reputation as a solutions-focused hub for engineering and technology education, research, and collaboration.

“The ISTB12 facility will propel the advancement of the most sophisticated technologies to benefit our students, faculty, and researchers,” says Tim Smith, ASU’s Facilities Development and Management interim vice president. “The facility will allow our students to gain hands-on experience for jobs of tomorrow that will feed the advanced manufacturing taking place in the East Valley and metro Phoenix area.”

The 173,194-square-foot building consists of laboratory research, office, meeting, instructional, and collaboration spaces to support the needs of faculty and students with specific infrastructure and labs specializing in additive manufacturing, robotics for smart manufacturing and industry automation, cyber manufacturing and operations research, semiconductor manufacturing, and manufacturing systems for the energy sector.

Images Courtesy of McCarthy

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The ISTB12 building, designed by SmithGroup and constructed by McCarthy Building Companies, represents a major expansion of ASU’s growing Polytechnic campus that moves forward the university’s developing Innovation Research District adjacent to the campus.

According to Brittany Calbert, senior project manager at McCarthy, the most challenging aspect of the ASU ISTB12 project was coordinating the specific mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) rough-in requirements for over 200 specialty research equipment, each requiring unique infrastructure needs of electrical service, ventilation, and exhaust. “Three of the labs require metal dust-proof provisions to accommodate a 3D printing environment,” she says. “This complexity demanded meticulous planning and coordination to ensure

that all systems were correctly installed and functional from day one for each research group.”

Calbert also says that the construction of ASU ISTB12 involved several innovative technologies and methods to create flexible lab and research spaces that can adapt to future programs and technological advancements. “Casting a Unistrut grid into the post-tensioned concrete deck allows for easier attachment of future MEP systems,” she says. “This method eliminates the need for scanning and complex coordination around post-tensioning cables, making it a highly efficient solution for integrating mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems as needs evolve.”

During construction, McCarthy utilized several pre-fab innovations off-site to help accelerate the schedule and decrease the on-site workforce during our peak of construction. “Some of the prefabricated systems included level one corridor racks like ductwork, chilled water piping, domestic water piping, and electrical conduit in 16-foot long by 6-foot-wide sections,” Calbert says. “Other prefabrication items included concrete table forming systems, building enclosure backer panels by E&K, unitized curtainwall systems by KT Fab, and plumbing chases by McCarthy Mechanical.”

The project is tracking on schedule, even with supply chain delays prevalent in the market, due to the project team’s strategic approach to early procurement of the electrical gear, panels, breakers, and mechanical air handling units. McCarthy’s craft workforce team completed the project’s concrete, civil, plumbing, and steel ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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work. This is the first ASU construction project to utilize several prefabrication innovations, such as multi-trade corridor racks constructed off-site and hoisted into place, prefabricated backer panels for building enclosure, and an in-deck uni-strut system cast into the slabs for future flexibility.

“Our collaborative project team, which includes four summer interns preparing to be next-generation construction professionals, has been working hard to build ASU’s next state-of-the-art facility that will serve EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Josh Carroll, Project Superintendent Experience: 14 years with McCarthy Building Companies Favorite job task: Working together as a team to solve complex issues. This industry requires the entire team to come together with the same vision to accomplish the job.

Most challenging job task: This is a tight site. It takes a lot of work and communication to keep the public safe, build on time, and coordinate deliveries.

Most memorable day at work: We recently celebrated the topping out of our structure, which was a day to celebrate all the hard work the team has put into meeting this milestone on time.

Favorite activities away from work: I love hanging out with my wife and two kids and golfing.

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as the home of industry-leading research and education of professionals in one of the world’s most critical sectors,” says Carlos Diaz, project director for McCarthy. “The topping out signifies our team safely achieving a significant milestone and the project entering its next phase. We look forward to a strong completion in late summer 2025.

We are committed to executing ASU’s vision for this project’s successful delivery.”

ISTB12 is among several Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) construction projects underway or recently completed on ASU campuses. Sustainability features include rainwater collection for site landscaping and solar-ready infrastructure. The project is expected to meet ASU sustainability goals and achieve LEED Gold certification.

Calbert says that one of this project’s most notable construction innovations was an off-site improvement for stormwater drainage. “The site footprint itself is tiny compared to the expansive building footprint, which didn’t leave much room for stormwater drainage provisions.”

Rather than building an expensive underwater storm tank, McCarthy worked with the design team and ASU to explore using a StormBrixx system. “StormBrixx is a patented plastic geocelluar stormwater management system that gets stacked like Legos inside a welded geofabric and backfilled over the top for stormwater to percolate through the cellular structure,” Calbert says. “This construction innovation was a first for our client, saved the project

time on the schedule, and allowed for the reallocation of funds from site improvements to lab programming and buildout.”

The building is on track to open for the fall semester of 2025. Trade partners on the project include Comfort Systems USA, Wilson Electric, KT Fabrication, E&K of Phoenix, Western Building Group, Climatec, MGC Millwork, and Pete King. Design consultants supporting the SmithGroup effort include in-house MEP Engineering, lab planning, and landscape architecture, Wood Patel Associates, and PK Associates.

According to Calbert, she learned a critical lesson during the groundbreaking ceremony for ISTB12, which inspired her to flex her leadership style on this project.

It reminded Calbert why she loves being a builder and what these buildings give back to our communities.

“Dr. Michael Crow made a profound statement, saying, ‘We’re advancing new solutions, ideas, technologies, new ways of solving things, new ways of making things, new ways of making our country better—better protected, more economically successful, more socially just. If you don’t have jobs for people, there’s no social justice.’”

Calbert adds that the ISTB12 project on the Polytechnic campus will be a catalyst for increasing student enrollment and driving economic development in the region.

“Whatever McCarthy can do to ensure this building exceeds industry expectations is what we strive for as a team on-site every day.

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EMERY SAPP & SONS WINS AWARD FOR I-17 PAVEMENT REHAB

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n their first project in the state, Emery Sapp & Sons (ESS) received the 2023 Arizona Transportation Partnering Excellence Award for rehabilitating Interstate 17 in Maricopa County. The work was completed in collaboration with the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). ESS certainly earned the honor, as it had to deal with difficult conditions on the job.

ESS is a heavy civil contractor founded in 1972 with 19 offices, plants, and quarry locations and more than 1,600 employee-owners serving the Midwest and beyond.

In June 2022, the company was awarded a $15.9-million I-17 pavement rehabilitation project. Rehabilitation was imperative after decades of heavy traffic deteriorated sections of I-17 in Maricopa County. As prime contractor, ESS worked with ADOT to deliver the rehabilitated roadway to its residents by October 2023.

Key features of the I-17 pavement rehabilitation project included: • Increased safety: By rehabilitating 84 lane miles of previously deteriorated asphalt rubber surface, the risk of significant potholes and debris harming commuters has been reduced.

• Reinforced roadway: The completion of 697,624 square yards of diamond grinding, 708,811 linear feet of joint seal, 3,523 square yards of concrete repairs, and 10.9 tons of asphalt overlay successfully preserved and extended the life of the improved roadway.

• Economic development: Investing in residents’ livelihood and well-being encourages community engagement and travel.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Jerry Lowes, Grinding Operations Manager Experience: 16 years with ESS Favorite job task: Definitely the people I work with. The employee-owners at Emery Sapp & Sons are the real deal.

Most challenging job task: Logistics!

ESS operations can encompass a 40mile radius, making it difficult for us to monitor all aspects of the job. Our operations are often far from one another and home base, so our crew has learned to be creative and self-reliant.

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Images Courtesy of ESS

ESS employees had to deal with some dangerous conditions while performing the job. “Given our proximity to residential and commercial areas, the location of this job site prompted multiple close encounters with inebriated or otherwise impaired drivers,” says Chris Fitzpatrick, ESS project manager. “In response to growing concerns, ADOT and ESS collaborated with local developers to create a temporary route through the Tuscany Apartment Complex [located south of Greenway Road] and surrounding areas. Before allowing civilians to travel through an active work zone, special approval was required to ensure the public’s safety. With permission from ADOT, crews worked together to construct a two-way road safely connecting residents to their neighborhoods and local shops.”

Another task was the risk of creating dust and debris along I-17, which necessitated innovative measures by ESS. “After acquiring a dust permit, our team placed dust-detecting sensors throughout the city and developed an inspection process to document debris levels by the hour,” Fitzpatrick says. “These efforts allowed our crew to complete the rehabilitation without negatively impacting the community.”

ESS gave a shout-out to their partners at ADOT, who provided the team with tremendous support by utilizing preliminary partnering meetings to familiarize their crew with the project scope and location.

“This ultimately allowed us to become proactive rather than reactive,” Fitzpatrick says.

“Additionally, ongoing partnering meetings ensured we exceeded established project

goals like building best-in-class relationships, providing high-quality products for the public, and encouraging teamwork and communication.”

Subcontractors on the project included Kimbrell Electric Inc., Louis-Company LLC, Paveco Inc., Pavement Markings LLC, WSP Inc., Southwest Barricades, Achen-Gardner Construction, MLC Services LLC, and Quality Testing LLC. ESS was presented with the transportation award at a ceremony during the 2024 Conference on Roads & Streets, held September 25-27, 2024, in Tucson. “Receiving this award is an honor for Emery Sapp & Sons as we continue to build and invest in the Arizona market,” says Fitzpatrick.

“We pride ourselves on the strength of our partnerships and look forward to future opportunities with the Arizona Department of Transportation. This work could not have been completed without the support of our concrete repair crews and diamond grinding crews traveling the country, showing clients how we perform work the ESS way.”

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NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

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SUNLAND ASPHALT DECLARES IT’S “TOUCH DOWN” TIME THIS FALL AT CHINLE AIRPORT

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unland Asphalt & Construction worked hand-in-hand with the Navajo Nation to deliver a significant infrastructure improvement that will help the tribe provide emergency services for its members.

EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT Gregory Hughes, Public Works - Project Manager Experience: 5 years with Sunland Asphalt & Construction Favorite job task: Seeing the tangible benefits of a successfully completed project is incredibly rewarding and fulfilling.

Most challenging job task: Ensuring no detail is overlooked, as even the slightest mistake can impact a project’s success.

Most memorable day at work: The final day of paving on the Formula 1 Miami Circuit track in Florida stands out. Being part of such a high-profile project was amazing and seeing our team’s hard work pay off.

Favorite activities away from work: I love to travel and hit the slopes for some snowboarding.

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Images Courtesy of Sunland Asphalt

“The Chinle Municipal Airport serves as a crucial hub for emergency medical flights, connecting the Indian Health Services Hospital with specialized medical facilities and services that are often located outside the immediate area,” says Gregory Hughes, Sunland public works project manager. “This airport is the lifeline of hospital support for the Chinle community. With this in mind, Sunland finished the project 25 days ahead of the contract time allowed.”

The company employed nearby tribal residents for the project. “Sunland Construction went beyond traditional practices for the project by hiring 33 Navajo Nation employees,” says Michael Lucarelli, Sunland public works senior project manager.

“This initiative was designed to foster a strong partnership with the Navajo Nation and provide residents with valuable job opportunities.”

The $7.7 million project brought the airport’s 60 feet-wide and 6,900 feet long runway up to modern aviation standards in 120 days. The reconstruction project involved several vital tasks to upgrade the runway to meet modern aviation standards: • Pulverize and remove the existing pavement and aggregate base course, • Cement treat the subgrade at a depth of 12 inches to stabilize and strengthen the foundation for the new runway surface,

• Import P-208 aggregate base (AB) and mix it with the native pulverized P-207 material to create a durable base for the new asphalt layer, • The application of 3 inches of P-401 asphaltic concrete to meet smoothness and elevation specifications for the runway, and • Install a new lighting system to enhance visibility and safety for pilots and ground personnel, leading to more efficient operations.

The most challenging aspect of the project, according to Lucarelli, was encountering unexpected subgrade conditions during the pulverization phase of the project. “This required immediate and effective adjustments to the construction plan,” he says. The changes included switching to a dozer for mucking out soft clay material at 24 inches and placing pulverized material at an additional 12-inch depth, which was able to stabilize the subgrade and prep for the cement treatment process.

“The team successfully addressed these challenges and continued to move forward with the project,” Lucarelli says. “These experiences highlight the importance of flexibility and problem-solving in construction practices.”

Chinle is located northwest of Window Rock and is the gateway to the nearby Canyon de Chelly National Monument.

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TWENTY EIGHT

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

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AZUCA: EMPOWERING ARIZONA’S UTILITY CONTRACTING INDUSTRY THROUGH ADVOCACY, EDUCATION, AND GROWTH CHRISTINE BARNES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AZUCA ARIZONA CHAPTER OF NUCA

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he Arizona Chapter of the National Utility Contractors Association (AZUCA) continues to make significant strides within the construction and utility contracting industries. As a chapter of the National Utility Contractors Association (NUCA), the largest trade association working solely for the underground utility construction industry, AZUCA is an integral part of a nationwide effort to support and advance the interests of utility contractors. AZUCA’s accomplishments speak volumes about the chapter’s impact on the local and national levels, from advocacy to education, community engagement, and professional development.

One of the most notable member benefits AZUCA offers is its commitment to education and safety. AZUCA provides free quarterly training to its members, ensuring that their workforce is equipped with the latest skills and industry knowledge. These training sessions keep companies and their teams competitive and emphasize the highest safety standards in utility construction.

Additionally, AZUCA offers free CPR classes and a free virtual safety roundtable for its members. The ability to provide critical life-saving skills and best practice knowledge aligns with AZUCA’s dedication to creating a safe and responsible working environment. These classes empower workers to respond effectively to emergencies, further reinforcing the safety culture within the utility contracting industry.

AZUCA has a strong commitment to giving back to the community, particularly in supporting education and workforce development. This dedication is evident in Images Courtesy of Author

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its annual spring scholarship golf tournament, a signature event designed to fund scholarships for the dependents of member employees. The event continues to grow in popularity, contributing significantly to AZUCA’s scholarship fund. AZUCA awarded ten scholarships to member dependents in 2024.

Complementing this is the “Beat the Heat” golf tournament in Flagstaff. Held to provide relief from the Arizona summer heat, this event serves a dual purpose: offering members a chance to network and unwind while supporting education and training initiatives. Proceeds from this tournament help fund the chapter’s educational programs, ensuring members have access to the tools and knowledge needed to thrive in the industry.

AZUCA’s influence extends far beyond Arizona’s borders, as the chapter actively shapes national policy through its advocacy efforts. Each May, AZUCA sends a delegation to the Washington D.C. Summit, where representatives from the chapter meet with Arizona’s congressional delegation. During these meetings, AZUCA members advocate for policies directly impacting the utility contracting industry, such as infrastructure investment, workforce development, and fair contracting policies.

Through its affiliation with the Arizonans for Fair Contracting Coalition, AZUCA strengthens its’ advocacy at the local level.

The coalition focuses on promoting fair contracting laws, ensuring that businesses in Arizona’s utility and construction sectors have an equitable playing field when competing for contracts.

AZUCA’s Third Annual Clay Shoot has quickly become a favorite event for

members, combining friendly competition with a greater purpose. Proceeds from the clay shoot benefit the chapter’s government affairs efforts, helping AZUCA continue its advocacy work in Arizona and Washington, D.C. The success of this event underscores AZUCA’s commitment to promoting the interests of the utility contracting industry and ensuring that its members have a voice in policy decisions that affect their businesses.

AZUCA continues to grow, with over 60 member companies and counting. This growth is a testament to the chapter’s value to its members, from professional development opportunities to networking events and advocacy. The chapter’s reach within Arizona’s utility contracting community is expanding, and its impact on the industry is undeniable.

Looking ahead, AZUCA’s annual meeting and holiday party at State Farm Stadium, scheduled for January 16, 2025, promises to be a highlight for the chapter’s members. This event provides an opportunity to reflect on the year’s accomplishments, discuss future goals, and celebrate the success of AZUCA and its members.

AZUCA’s achievements in advocacy, education, and member services demonstrate its vital role in supporting Arizona’s utility contractors. As the chapter continues to grow and expand its offerings, AZUCA is positioned as a leader within the industry, ensuring its members have the resources, representation, and training they need to succeed.

The chapter website, azuca.org, provides additional information on the chapter, including meetings, training, events, and activities.

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TALIESIN WEST: AT HOME WITH FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT DOUGLAS TOWNE

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ongtime Phoenix journalist Nora Burba Trulsson recently authored a book about life at the famed Taliesin West in Scottsdale. Trulsson’s background as a former resident there gives her a unique perspective to write about one of Arizona’s most famous places. The stunning book also features historical images and current photography by Andrew Pielage. Here are some of Trulsson’s insights into what elements make the place so unique; for the full story, the book is available at rizzoliusa.com/ book/9780847835911/. ge

Piela Image Courtesy of Andrew

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Image Courtesy of Scott Baxter

Q: How did the book come about?

A: The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and Rizzoli publishers approached me about writing a book on Taliesin West. Since hundreds of books have been written about Wright and his architecture, I suggested a book about the life that went on within his fabled architectural spaces at Taliesin West.

Q: What was your background with TW? A: I have been writing about Taliesin West and Wright’s architecture for years. In fact, I was writing a feature on Taliesin West for Phoenix Home & Garden magazine when I met my husband, Jorgen Trulsson, there.

He was an apprentice from Sweden who had come to study. We married, lived there, and I was part of the Taliesin Fellowship from 1985 to 1993.

Q: What was your favorite discovery while writing the book?

A: There were so many— that thousands of Fellowship members (apprentices) called Taliesin West home for months or years during its nearly nine decades of existence; that Wright’s wife, Olgivanna, had a penchant for colorful Pucci dresses; that so many notable people in the arts, culture, and politics came to visit Taliesin West; that dinner during the lean years of the Depression was sometimes simply roasted parsnips.

Image Courtesy of Taliesin West

Top left: Nora Trulsson at Taliesin West.

Above: Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin West.

Q: What was the biggest challenge writing the book?

A: Knowing that there were hundreds, if not thousands, of other stories, memories, and anecdotes about life at Taliesin West, time, logistics, and page counts forced me to whittle things down. Also, so many of the Fellowship members who worked with Wright (who died in 1959) have passed on. I was fortunate to interview a few who knew him.

Q: Do you view FLW differently after writing the book?

A: I came to realize that Wright could not have become the great architect that he was without the support of his wife, Olgivanna, who oversaw the day-to-day details of life at Taliesin West and the talents and labor of the Fellowship, whose members did everything from constructing the buildings and cleaning the toilets to playing chamber music and creating hand-drawn renderings of Wright’s greatest works.

Q: What is your favorite location at TW? A: There are so many great places, but oddly enough, mine is the kitchen. It’s not very glamorous architecturally, but it’s a place where everyone gathered to make and share food.

Q: What do Arizonans overlook about TW? A: I don’t think many people know that Taliesin West, along with Grand Canyon National Park, is a UNESCO World Heritage ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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Site. The public can also attend yoga classes, come for happy hour, catch a jazz concert on site, or enjoy other activities besides taking a tour of the compound.

Q: What was the impact of the departure of the FLW Architecture School in 2020?

A: I know the school’s departure was challenging and made headlines around the country, but the School of Architecture (as it is now called) has landed at the Cattle Track Arts Compound in Scottsdale.

Since 2022, the Taliesin Institute has been offering university students and design professionals on-site learning opportunities at both Taliesin West and the Taliesin location in Wisconsin.

Q: How did this intentional community differ from others?

A: First, I believe it lasted longer than most, and its focus was always more than just architecture. It was always about art and culture, learning life skills, and educating “whole humans,” as Wright was known to say.

Q: I love the shelters; do you have a favorite and why?

A: My favorite has always been the simple white canvas tent. I love that Wright copied what Basque shepherds of Arizona

Images Courtesy of Taliesin West

Right: Fellowship members rebuilding the Pavilion building, 1963.

Below: The rebuilt Pavilion building.

slept in during the 1930s as they moved their sheep between winter pastures in the desert and summer grazing grounds up north.

Q: What aspect of TW do you think has changed the most?

A: Taliesin West has always been a place of experimentation and forward movement, and that still exists today. Still, it makes me a little sad that only a handful of Fellowship members live there, but how many people in today’s world would commit 24/7 to an arts community? Not many.

Q: What’s your favorite memory at TW? A: Having our wedding reception at Taliesin West on a beautiful April night. And the joy of having made life-long friends from my years there.

Q: What else should readers know about TW? A: Taliesin West is more than just an important piece of Arizona’s history. It’s still a vibrant, engaging place. Go visit.

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DOUGLAS TOWNE

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hose in the construction industry often have fascinating prior lives, and Kevin Woudenberg is a classic case. Since 1962, he’s worked for Star-Lite Barricade & Sign, Woudenberg Enterprises, and this spring retired from the Engineering Testing Lab industry. But Woudenberg also excelled as a defensive tackle on the famed Frank Kushcoached Arizona State University teams.

The 1971 football squad went 11-1 to become the second, top-ten-ranked ASU team in the final poll after the Sun Devils defeated Florida State University 45-38 in the first Fiesta Bowl. At the time, there were only 12 bowl games. The team earned the bowl berth by winning the Western Athletic Conference for the third consecutive year.

Woudenberg recently had a chance to relive his glory days as the master of ceremonies at a banquet celebrating the 100th birthday of the defensive coordinator on that team, Coach Larry Kentera. He spent countless hours helping organize the event for one of Woudenberg’s favorite people in the sport. The football gridiron wizard came to ASU in 1966 under unusual circumstances.

“Coach Kush was recruiting legendary wide receiver J.D. Hill in Stockton, CA, but his grandmother called the shots for the football standout,” Woudenberg says.

“She wanted J.D. to go to nearby Stockton Junior College to play because she respected Kentera, their ‘nice’ head coach. So, Kush recruited J.D. and Coach Kentera in a package deal to come to ASU.”

Arizona was a state Kentera knew well.

A first-generation citizen from Serbia, he grew up in the copper-mining town of Globe and was a star high school athlete. After graduating in 1943, Kentera enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II and served as a deck gunner on the USS Sangamon (CVE26), an escort carrier in the Pacific, helping fend off Japanese Kamikaze planes.

After the war, Kentera enrolled at Arizona State College in Tempe. He was a two-way player as a center and linebacker on the gridiron from 1947-49. “Back then, you played football going both ways, none of that sissy platoon football stuff,” says Woudenberg with a laugh. During Kentera’s senior year, the squad had All-American halfback Wilford “ Whizzer” White, and they thumped their Tucson archrivals, the University of Arizona, 34-7 at Goodwin Stadium in Tempe.

In 1951, Kentera started his football coaching career at Palo Verde Junior College along the Colorado River in Blythe, CA. He later took over Stockton Junior College’s team from 1959 to 1965. There, he had a famous volunteer assistant coach: 98-yearold football legend Amos Alonzo Stagg, the winningest coach in college history at that time.

“Then, Kentera became the greatest Defensive Coordinator in ASU history for 13 years [1966-1978], only losing to the UofA once, and coaching two future NFL Hall of Famers and five College Hall of Famers,” Woudenberg declares.

This defensive success later opened the door for Kentera to become head football coach at Northern Arizona University from 1984-1989. Amazingly, on his staff were four coaches who would later become NFL head Left: Kevin Woudenberg and Larry Kentera, 2023.

Below: Coach Larry Kentera’s football path.

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FROM SHEDDING BLOCKERS TO DIRECTING TRAFFIC: WOUDENBERG HELPS HONOR FORMER ASU FOOTBALL COACH

Images Courtesy of Kevin Woudenberg

Above: Kevin Woudenberg at ASU, 1971.

coaches, including Andy Reid, a three-time Super Bowl winner with the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, Bill Calihan (Oakland Raiders), Joe Childress (Minnesota Vikings), and Marty Mornigweg (Detroit Lions).

For his 100th birthday party banquet last spring where Woudenberg was the master of ceremonies, Coach Kentera was honored in the San Tan Ford Club Room at Sun Devil Stadium by 400 people, including many ex-players and coaches. Noteworthy among the 27 speakers were current ASU head football coach Kenny Dillingham and Kansas City head coach Andy Reid, who told an incredible story about meeting Kentera, according to Woudenberg. He says that in 1986, Reid was looking for a Division 1 coaching job, and his former BYU head coach, Lavell Edwards, who he played for, told him to meet his friend, Larry Kentera.

“So, Andy called up asking for an interview. Coach Kentera said he would call him back to set something up when he returned from a recruiting trip to Sacramento. Somehow, Andy got Kentera’s flight schedule and met him at the gate when he landed in Sacramento.

Andy started badgering him about the offensive line coaching job for his staff.

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Images Courtesy of Kevin Woudenberg

Above: Andy Reid, Patrick Mahomes, and Larry Kentera.

Right: Kevin Woudenberg helps tackle a University of New Mexico tailback during an away game in Albuquerque, 1971.

the job at NAU without a formal interview.”

Woudenberg recalls having lunch with Coach Kentera two weeks before the banquet, during which he described his defensive game plan for the first meeting of USC and ASU in 1978. That was the year ASU entered the then-Pacific 10 conference, and USC went on to win the National Championship with Heisman Trophy winner Charles White. But that night in Tempe, USC lost 20-7 and almost were shut out until scoring a touchdown with 30 seconds left in the game.

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“The defensive game plan key was flip-flopping ASU All-American defensive end Al Harris to line up with the USC tight end to the strong side, no matter what side of the line of scrimmage the tight end positioned himself before each play,” Woudenberg says. “By doing this, Harris could stuff the legendary USC running play called “student body right or left” with White. The other ASU defensive end, Bob Kohrs, who played six years in the NFL for the Pittsburgh Steelers, could come in from the backside and clean up. And Coach

Kentera replayed the defensive scheme in detail at 99 years of age, as if it were right before kick-off in 1978!”

The goodwill and respect Coach Kentera’s former players hold for him is evident.

That reverence doesn’t always extend to former opponents. Woudenberg says he contacted former USC Head Coach John Robinson before the banquet and asked him if he could do a birthday video congratulating Coach Kentera on his 100th birthday.

“He turned me down, saying he was still frustrated from that loss years ago!”

Woudenberg is amazed at how his hero has aged so gracefully over the years.

“Coach Kentera still plays golf, rides a bike, drives, walks, and has a smoking hot 87-year-old girlfriend!” he says.

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BRIAN KASSALEN, CPA, CFF

A

s the construction industry continues to boom, builders are looking for new ways to keep up with increased demand, labor shortages, and shrinking margins. The field, steeped in tradition and craftsmanship, is sometimes known for its resistance to change, but today’s technological innovations may be the key to sustaining the industry. Here’s the second of a two-part overview.

Modular Construction Once associated with cheap prefab homes, modular construction has matured in the last decade and is now a valuable tool in many large-scale projects. When large modules of a building project are completed in a controlled environment (and later moved to a job site), weather becomes less of a factor in delays.

Like other innovative construction technologies, modular construction increases worker safety. When the modules are constructed, most of the work is performed at ground level, decreasing the need for builders to climb dangerous heights.

Today’s modular construction uses the same materials and design as the codes of conventionally built facilities, but often in half the time. The Modular Building å reports that the industry topped $12 billion in 2022, accounting for 6 percent of all new construction starts.

Cloud Technologies The advantages of cloud computing technologies in construction are similar to those of other industries. The cloud allows builders and contractors access to applications and real-time data from anywhere, including the construction site. This results

security, and data loss protection.

The cloud also allows builders and developers to quickly scale resources up or down as needed, allowing better management of fluctuating workloads. Cloud storage also allows compliance with legislation and regulations for storing sensitive data, archives, and backup data.

“Smart” Building Materials A final area of exciting innovation is “smart” building materials. These materials often respond to environmental changes – adapting, changing shape, and altering properties – to repair themselves. Smart building materials can react to mechanical strain, changes in magnetic or electrical fields, temperatures, pH, light, and moisture.

Self-healing concrete, for example, is durable and lasts longer than regular concrete. Self-healing concrete contains repair breaking solutions, like the automatic healing of wounds in a human body by secretion of some kind of material. When a crack appears in self-healing concrete, the capsules break, and the liquid within them spreads and “heals” the crack simultaneously. Some limitations exist; self-healing concrete is most effective when water is available. It’s also more expensive than traditional concrete, but self-healing concrete fans say it lasts four times longer than regular concrete and is friendlier toward the environment because of this.

Other smart materials include shape memory alloys, which can be used in seismic isolation structure design (think structure vibration control, reinforcement, and structure detection), and piezoelectric materials (materials that generate electricity when mechanical stress is applied). These materials can also be used to construct bridges,

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in better collaboration, more synchronized CONSTRUCTION INNOVATIONS: THE FUTURE IS HERE, BUT ARE WE READY? task coordinating and scheduling, advanced

pavements, and sidewalks. In general, smart building materials enhance structural resilience and are more sustainable.

The future is here – are you ready?

The future is here, and in the next decade, we expect to see more and more integration of these robotic, digital, and material innovations in construction as they gradually expand beyond large firms to middle-market contractors.

We don’t expect human workers to be replaced by technology. Instead, their roles will continue to be redefined, and they will benefit in the long term with increased efficiency and safety. Indeed, innovation is a critical key for the construction industry to move beyond its persistent labor shortage and continue to support the demands of a vibrant, growing economy.

Brian Kassalen is a CPA, CFF, and a principle and construction industry leader at Baker Tilly.

Images Courtesy of Unsplash

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Practices

BUILDING THE FUTURE: THE ROLE OF EPS IN INSULATING CONCRETE FORMS BETSY BOWERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE EPS INDUSTRY ALLIANCE (EPS-IA)

I

nsulating Concrete Forms (ICFs) are revolutionizing construction, offering energy efficiency, durability, and sustainability. As Arizona’s building industry looks toward greener methods, ICFs stand out. At the heart of this innovation is expanded polystyrene (EPS), a material that enhances ICF performance and aligns with the industry’s emphasis on sustainability.

The Basics of Insulating Concrete Forms ICFs typically consist of molded forms made from expanded polystyrene (EPS) that are filled with reinforced concrete. This combination forms a highly insulated and structurally sound wall. Unlike traditional wood-frame construction, ICFs provide superior thermal insulation and strength, making them ideal for residential and commercial buildings.

EPS plays a crucial role in ICF effectiveness. Known for its lightweight and robust insulating properties, EPS provides a continuous insulation layer that significantly

reduces thermal bridging, resulting in more energy-efficient structures and reduced heating and cooling costs.

Advantages of Using ICFs with EPS One significant benefit of using ICFs is energy efficiency. EPS’ superior insulation properties ensure that buildings maintain stable indoor temperatures regardless of external conditions. Studies show that ICF buildings can significantly reduce energy consumption, translating into considerable savings on heating and cooling bills.

Moreover, ICFs are incredibly durable and resilient. The combination of EPS and Image Courtesy of EPS Industry

Above: San Francisco de Asis Church in Flagstaff.

Right: EPS Insulating Concrete Forms (ICFs).

Below: ICF cross-section.

Image Courtesy of Kent Baxter

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Practices

Images Courtesy of EPS Industry

Above: EPS insulation used below grade.

Below: Exterior Insulating Finishing Systems (EIFS).

concrete creates a structure that withstands extreme weather conditions, including hurricanes and earthquakes. This durability extends building lifespans and reduces maintenance costs, adding to the long-term economic benefits.

Environmentally, EPS is a sustainable choice. It is recyclable and has a lower environmental impact than other insulation materials. The energy savings achieved through ICFs also significantly reduce buildings’ carbon footprint, making them a greener option.

Applications Across Various Sectors ICFs with EPS are versatile and used in various construction projects. In residential construction, they are ideal for single-family homes and multi-family dwellings. Homeowners benefit from enhanced comfort and reduced energy bills, while developers appreciate the ease of construction and long-term durability.

Commercial applications of ICFs are equally impressive. Office buildings, retail spaces, and specialty structures like safe rooms and soundproof buildings can all be constructed using ICFs. The ability of ICFs to meet and exceed building codes makes them a preferred choice for many developers.

Real-World Success Stories Across Arizona and beyond, numerous projects have successfully utilized ICFs with EPS, demonstrating their practical ARIZCC.COM

benefits. For instance, a residence in Phoenix reported a 40 percent reduction in energy costs due to construction using ICFs. The homeowners praised the increased comfort and quieter living environment.

In Flagstaff, the San Francisco de Asis Church and an adjacent private school were constructed using more than 50,000 square feet of ICF, which contributed to their energy efficiency and durability.

Addressing Common Challenges Despite their benefits, ICFs are sometimes met with misconceptions. One common concern is the perceived complexity and cost of installation. However, advancements in ICF technology and

improved installation techniques have made the process more straightforward and cost-effective. Additionally, long-term savings on energy and maintenance often outweigh the initial investment.

Looking Ahead: The Future of ICFs and EPS The future of ICFs, especially those incorporating EPS, looks promising.

Construction trends indicate a growing preference for sustainable and energy-efficient methods. Innovations in EPS manufacturing further enhance its performance, making it an attractive option for builders and developers.

As the industry continues to evolve, the adoption rates of ICFs are expected to increase. Builders and developers in Arizona and across the country recognize the long-term benefits of this innovative system, from cost savings to environmental sustainability.

Conclusion ICFs with EPS represent a forward-thinking approach to construction. They offer unparalleled benefits in energy efficiency, durability, and environmental impact.

Incorporating ICFs is an innovative and sustainable choice for builders and developers looking to stay ahead of the curve. The EPS Industry Alliance supports this transition, providing resources and information to help professionals embrace the future of building with ICFs and EPS. As Arizona’s building industry looks to the future, it’s clear that ICFs with EPS are more than just a trend—they are the foundation of a sustainable and resilient construction revolution.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

FORTY FOUR

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

LUKE M. SNELL, P.E.

H

aving been called upon to review numerous core compressive strength results over the years, I’ve often encountered reports that can be perplexing. It’s of utmost importance to grasp and adhere to the procedures to steer clear of any confusion when interpreting the results. Here, I share some of my insights into the issues that can lead to complications when coring is employed to ascertain concrete strength. #1 - Not all concrete compressive cylinder test reports below the strength of the concrete that is given in the specifications require additional investigation The code states that a licensed design professional (LDP) or building official (BO) should only consider additional investigation if the compressive strength of concrete test results is 500 psi below ƒ’c (or less than 0.1 ƒ’c if ƒ’c exceeds 5,000). The notation ƒ’c is the strength of the concrete that is given in the specifications. A cylinder test result or a single cylinder being below ƒ’c may not by itself require additional investigation of the concrete strength. Only when the strength is below 500 psi (or 0.1 f’c if over 5,000 psi) would an evaluation of the concrete strength be needed. This may require a review and adjustments to batching, handling, and/or testing procedures so that potentially low-strength concrete does not continue to be placed.

The American Concrete Institute (ACI) provides a free publication that explains how to evaluate concrete compressive strength test results and determine whether additional testing is required. See “Designing Concrete Structures: Acceptance of

Concrete Compressive Test Results according to ACI 318-19” (E702.3-21) for details. #2 - Coring is not the first step when there are low concrete cylinder test results Once it has been established that an additional investigation is needed, the LDP or BO should thoroughly evaluate if coring is required. Both are responsible for the structural safety of the building and have a responsibility for the concrete. If the cylinder report indicates that there is a possibility that low-strength concrete was placed in part of the structure, it cannot be ignored.

The LDP or BO is encouraged to determine if the area where the low-strength concrete might have been placed, as indicated by the cylinder test report, would be structurally adequate with that reported concrete strength. If so, then coring would not be needed. #3 - The LDP or BO should determine the location of the cores The LDP and BO must ultimately determine whether the concrete is structurally adequate. They need to know that the cores were taken in the correct places so they can make a decision. Personnel from the laboratory, batch plant, or contractor often determine the coring locations. The LDP or BO should know that the cores were removed from the suspected area of lowstrength concrete and that they achieved a sensible coring pattern. #4 - Three cores are used to determine if the concrete is structurally adequate The building code (ACI 318) requires three cores to evaluate concrete strength when coring is needed. There is no statement in the building code to allow taking more cores and selecting the best or worst three cores for testing. It does not allow a core with a low strength to be substituted with another core strength result. #5 - Coring should follow an exact procedure The building code requires that ASTM C42/C42M be used when coring is required.

This code gives the required diameter and length of the core, along with removal, handling, and testing procedures. The LDP or BO can modify these procedures when necessary, but they should be in writing so that everyone understands what variations were allowed. Someone familiar with ASTM C42/ Images Courtesy of Author

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CONSTRUCTION AROUND ARIZONA Practices

ASSESSING CONCRETE CORE REPORTS

Image Courtesy of NRMCA

C42M procedures should witness the coring operation to ensure they are followed.

The coring process is expensive, and the LDP or BO must make decisions based on the result. The core test results should not be doubted because of improper coring procedures. #6 - Storing and testing of the cores must follow an exact procedure Cores should be stored and tested using the procedures given in ASTM C42/C42M or modified by the LDP or BO. Unless the procedures have been modified, the cores are to be towel dried, stored at room temperature in a sealed plastic bag for 5-7 days, and then tested. #7 - Evaluation of the cores should follow the procedures in the Building Code (ACI 318) This procedure for evaluating core test results has several steps. The American Concrete Institute (ACI) provides a free publication that guides people through the process of evaluating concrete core test results. #8 - Final thoughts When coring is needed, nerves are often frayed as the project is delayed. It is imperative to follow the process correctly so everyone is confident about the results in the core test report. This procedure will allow the LDP and BO to have the correct information to determine if the concrete is structurally adequate or if more investigations are necessary.

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Back When

PHOENIX’S “BAHAMA MAMA” HOUSE DOUGLAS TOWNE

I

n the spring of 1963, a unique group of 21 “congresswomen” from Phoenix gathered, not in Washington, D.C., but at the Lantern Inn, a well-appointed restaurant and cocktail lounge in Maryvale Shopping City.

They embarked on a collaborative journey to create a woman’s “dream home.”

The “Phoenix Congress on Better Living,” a pioneering event sponsored by McCall’s Magazine and John F. Long Homes, marked a shift in the male-dominated field of architecture. Long provided a platform for women to shape a home, from the floor plan to the materials, design, and lighting.

Local architect J. Frederick Fleenor then brought their vision to life in a home that Long’s company built.

The “Bahama” home, located at 30th Street and Topaz Circle north of Dreamy

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Draw, was completed in July 1963 for $14,990. Long’s construction team was often under the critical eye of these “congresswomen,” who regularly stopped by to inspect their progress.

“This is a house with romantic quality: the handsome pierced concrete screen shielding the entrance court and doorway creates a secret garden,” read a McCall’s article in the April 1963 issue. “Front porches were fine in horse-and-buggy days when lots were wide and streets treeshaded, but now it’s nice to have protection from the buzz and sound of traffic.”

It’s unknown if this Bahama model home survives, but its legacy lives on. Long used many of its features in his Candlelight houses, including those at 59th Avenue and Indian School Road. The company, now called John F. Long Properties, continues in commercial and residential development in the West Valley. Meanwhile, McCalls, which

was the third most popular magazine after Reader’s Digest and TV Guide in 1963, ceased publication in 2002 after 129 years.

Image Courtesy of The Arizo na

Republic

Above: McCall’s feature on the “Bahama” house along with Long’s Moon Valley Gardens and Paradise Valley Oasis residential tracts, 1963.

Below: John F. Long with McCall’s “Phoenix Congress on Better Living” at the “Bahama” house construction site at 30th Street and Topaz Circle in Paradise Valley Oasis, 1963.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

FORTY EIGHT

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

THE RESORT THAT BROUGHT LOVE TO PARADISE VALLEY: JOHN GARDINER’S TENNIS RANCH DOUGLAS TOWNE

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hile the resort now caters to a different clientele, with artisan cocktails replacing wooden racquets and a luxurious infinity swimming pool gracing the once-famed center court, the view from the Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain resort still holds the same allure it did in 1967 when tennis legend John Gardiner first set foot in Paradise Valley. The entrepreneur, renowned for his creation of the first tennis-themed resort in California, was enticed to the Valley by local investors who saw the potential for his operations to expand to the north slope of Camelback Mountain. The mild winter climate and breathtaking views of the Praying Monk and Mummy Mountain were simply irresistible. Thus, John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch was born in 1970, marking the beginning of a new era in luxury resorts.

The sport ’s skyrocketing popularity helped make the resort an immediate smash. Professionals like Aussie Ken Rosewall taught Hollywood luminaries such as Johnny Carson, Clint Eastwood, and Liza Minnelli how to hit a topspin backhand.

Athletes learning when to poach at the net ranged in stature from jockey Willie Shoemaker to hoopster Wilt Chamberlain.

Eventually, however, the popularity of tennis waned, Gardiner sold his interest in the business, and the resort changed its focus.

Despite the changes, the essence of Gardiner’s vision to provide an unforgettable experience still permeates the property.

“The sunset view from the former clubhouse, now home to the Sanctuary’s Elements Restaurant and Jade Bar, still has the power to leave you breathless,” reminisced Tricia McKnight, Gardiner’s eldest daughter. “The original wood slats in the ceiling, if they could speak, would regale you with tales of the many special people who have graced this place.” This testament to the past is a constant reminder of the rich history and the many stories that have unfolded within these walls.

Left: Tony Trabert, Ken Rosewall, and Billie Jean King at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch.

Right: Paradise Valley Racquet Club match cover.

Below: John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch.

Image Courtesy of Gardiner Family

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Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Images Courtesy of Gardiner Family

Above: John Gardiner, Burt Bacharach, and Billy Shoemaker at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch.

Right: John Gardiner teaching youth tennis.

Below: John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch with a tennis court atop Ken Rosewall’s house.

The man who Sports Illustrated saluted in 1970 as the originator of the tennis resort grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia. Gardiner attended nearby West Chester State College courtesy of football and tennis scholarships and graduated in 1942. After military service during World War II, he briefly taught English and coached

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football and tennis at Monterey High School in California.

“His 1948 football team, nicknamed ‘The Big Green Shirt,’ went undefeated and was named ‘The Team of the Century’ by the Monterey Herald,” McKnight said. Gardiner left to become a tennis professional at the prestigious Del Monte Lodge in nearby

Pebble Beach. When the lodge decided to focus on golf, he left to start John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch in nearby Carmel Valley.

Gardiner exhausted his savings to create his dream facility but still came up short.

“When we opened in 1957, we were a tennis ranch without tennis courts,” Gardiner told Arizona Highways in 1974. With additional financing provided by friends and his wife, Barbara, cooking at the resort, the business eventually prospered, helped along by revenue generated by its associated condominiums. Bing Crosby, Doris Day, Clark Gable, and Dinah Shore became regular guests and close friends.

In 1967, Gardiner was brought to Phoenix as a consultant by Vik Jackson, his father Russell Jackson, and William O’Brien, who had purchased 53 acres on Camelback Mountain. Their holdings included the defunct Paradise Valley Racquet Club that actor John Ireland, actress Joanne Dru, Sydney Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin’s son, and tennis legend Don Budge had opened in 1957. The club consisted of five tennis courts and a clubhouse designed by architect Hiram Hudson Benedict, a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright.

“Sam Kitchell recommended we talk to Gardiner, as his kids had attended the

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Gardiner Family

Left: Elton John playing “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” at Center Court.

Carmel Valley tennis ranch,” Vik Jackson said. “As part of the Jack Kramer Tennis Tour, Gardiner had visited Paradise Valley Racquet Club in the 1950s and remembered the beautiful setting. We were lucky that Gardiner wanted to pursue new business opportunities at the time.”

John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch opened on Camelback Mountain two winters later with its namesake as partner-president.

Both a resort and membership club, the complex featured 41 casitas, 12 casas, 21 tennis courts, including one on the roof of a house, and beautiful landscaped grounds.

What really set the resort apart, though, was its unique atmosphere. “Everyone was there for one purpose: tennis,” Tenise Kyger, Gardiner’s youngest daughter, emphasized. “At the instructional clinics and in the clubhouse, there was great mixing as passion about the sport broke down barriers between guests.”

The Tennis Ranch featured over 25 professionals on staff. The resort’s tennis focus had one exception: there were no lighted courts, so the competition ended at sunset. “John Gardiner’s philosophy was to make tennis fun,” Horst Falger, the Austrian-born teaching professional, explained.

“But he was also fond of saying that there’s plenty of time during the day to play tennis. Evenings are meant to be civilized, have a cocktail, a good meal, and enjoy friends.”

Tennis was already taking off when the resort opened, and Gardiner capitalized on the game’s skyrocketing appeal. With a big lock of grey hair, dressed in a nice shirt, jacket, pants, and tennis shoes, the ARIZCC.COM

friendly Gardiner loved socializing. “Enjoying guests and making them feel welcome was my father’s gift,” Tom Gardiner, his son, said. “He also realized that unless the staff was well treated, the patrons wouldn’t be happy.”

The resort’s biggest fan may have been Elton John. The English piano player showed up soon after the resort opened to improve his tennis game. “I remember my dad calling me up and saying, ‘There’s this guy here named Elton John who wears really big glasses and wants to rent a casa. Have you heard of him?” laughed Thomas Gardiner.

The musician returned on many occasions, including in 1975 when he brought an entourage including bandmates, a chef, and, one suspects, a few groupies. “The whole time he was staying at our resort, his personalized ‘Elton Rocks the Westies’ 707 jet was parked at Sky Harbor for everyone to gawk at,” Gardiner recalled.

“Elton John was just crazy about tennis,” Horst Falger said. “He spent lots of time here, and when he was later interviewed on the TV show 60 Minutes, he was wearing our logo on his jacket. Our phone rang off the hook for a week.”

The resort’s most iconic moment may have been when Elton John had staff lug an upright piano from the clubhouse down to Center Court. Graduates of the week-long instructional clinic probably suspected they wouldn’t be treated to a traditional rendering of “Pomp and Circumstance.” As his fellow alumni sipped champagne, the musician performed “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting,” perhaps to get competitive juices

flowing for the afternoon’s matches.

Gardiner’s feature event was the annual Senator’s Cup, a charity tournament between prominent Democratic and Republican congressmen back in the day when ideologically different politicians socialized together. Merv Griffin served as master of ceremonies, and the festivities included an auction of items donated by celebrities.

The $4 million raised over 20 years went to Hospice of the Valley because of their compassionate assistance when Gardiner’s wife died in 1977.

Everything tennis-related turned to gold for Gardiner. He offered clinics at a dozen resorts across the country and also opened the Enchantment Resort in Sedona.

Gardiner eventually scaled back his commitments and sold his portion of the Paradise Valley resort in 1993. The property went through several name changes until, after a complete renovation, it reopened as the Sanctuary on Camelback Mountain in 2001.

Gardiner passed away in 2000 at the age of 82, but his kindness and impact are not forgotten. He was posthumously inducted into the U.S. Tennis Association Southwest Hall of Fame in 2013.

“We had a great turnout, and you could feel the weight of Gardiner’s reputation at the ceremony, listening to all he’d done and the many people he’d touched,” said Jeff Sykes, USTA Communications Manager.

“He really was one of the true pioneers of the tennis resort concept, and his name was synonymous with the sport, especially here in Arizona.”

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

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See your Treasury Management Officer or Relationship Manager for additional details and to obtain a copy for the latest Commercial Card Master Agreement, Schedule of Fees, and Visa Commercial Guide to Benefits. 4) Please refer to the Deposit Account Agreement, Account Disclosure, Deposit Rate Sheet and the applicable schedule of fees, or speak with a banker for more details. 5) Treasury Management products and services may be subject to applicable contracts, agreements, or credit approval. Fees may apply. Terms and conditions apply. See banker for details. 6) Merchant Services products and services are provided by Clover affiliate First Data Merchant Services LLC and not by National Bank of Arizona, a division of Zions Bancorporation, N.A. Member FDIC. NBAZ.COM | A division of Zions Bancorporation, N.A. Member FDIC

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DAM(N) THE VERDE:

HOW PARADISE VALLEY’S IRRIGATION DREAMS FLAMED OUT ED DOBBINS

P

aradise Valley is Arizona’s wealthiest municipality, renowned for its highend resorts and expensive real estate.

But this posh community might have turned out quite different if its pioneer settlers had been able to execute their grand design.

For almost 50 years, they pursued an extensive development scheme for the large valley between the McDowell and Phoenix Mountains north of the Arizona Canal. When

the plan ultimately failed, they burned three effigies, including two of Arizona’s leading politicians, along East Cactus Road on a Sunday night in 1934. What transpired to inspire such anger in what would become a community synonymous with affluence?

Early promoters were convinced Paradise Valley lacked only water to become as agriculturally rich as the neighboring Salt River Valley. Plans to irrigate were first

made in 1889 when the basin was given its aspirational and very marketable Paradise Valley name. Today, the area includes parts of Phoenix, Scottsdale, and the incorporated Town of Paradise Valley.

The original Rio Verde Canal Project was a grand vision, an elaborate plan to transport water from the Verde River west through Paradise Valley, extending beyond the White Tank Mountains. Construction on this monumental irrigation scheme commenced in April 1895, but funds dried up after just a year.

The work was carried out at two locations: the future Horseshoe Dam site on the Verde River and on the plains of Paradise Valley. For the first phase of building a dam,

Above: Keystone Drilling Co., from Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, drilling a well in Paradise Valley.

Right: Paradise Valley, 1917.

Below: Paradise-Verde Reclamation Project’s proposed dam site on the Verde River, 1917.

Images Courtesy of Author

FIFTY FOUR

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Author

a 730-foot-long, 14-foot-diameter diversion tunnel was completed by mid-1896.

But work was halted before construction started on the actual dam. When the present Horseshoe Dam was built in the 1940s, the original tunnel, which had been unused for 50 years, was meticulously cleaned out, lined with concrete, and incorporated into the design, a testament to the grandeur of the original project.

About 20 miles of the Rio Verde Canal were excavated across Paradise Valley from Taliesin West to Cave Creek Wash. Almost 80 years later, the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) followed a similar alignment, leaving few traces of the earlier channel west of Scottsdale Road.

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To the east several stretches of the Rio Verde are still visible once the canal route emerges from beneath the Tournament Players Club Champions Golf Course. The 30-foot-wide canal bed is densely vegetated, and the downslope bank retains much of its original 10-foot height. It appears even taller in places where palo verde and mesquite trees grow along the top edge.

Although the old and new canals shared a common contour, they differed in the direction of water flow. If it had ever been used, water in the gravity-aided Rio Verde Canal would have headed northwest across the valley. CAP water, helped by pumps and siphons along its route, travels southeast to the Salt River.

Top left: The world’s largest saguaro cactus in Paradise Valley, 1936.

Above: Paradise-Verde Reclamation Project’s workers researching the irrigation project.

Below: The U.S. Post Office in Cactus, Arizona.

After fieldwork was abandoned, administrators reorganized and marketed a modified version of the Rio Verde project. By 1903, government agencies in Arizona were receiving inquiries about John G. Hudson, the sales agent for the canal company. Hudson was promoting irrigation subscriptions for an all-Christian, predominately Mennonite, Rio Verde colony in Paradise Valley. His exaggerations of the progress of the project were questioned by many of the brethren.

The U.S. Reclamation Service’s chief engineer called Hudson’s sales brochure “outrageous and sacrilegious” and urged official action to discredit the scheme. Hudson was investigated, but not indicted, for mail fraud three times between 1905 and 1912. By the final investigation, progress on irrigating the valley had come to a standstill.

Meanwhile, development slowly occurred in Paradise Valley. The first post office and stage stop was opened in 1913 below Shadow Mountain near 28th Street and Sweetwater Avenue. It was named Montgomery after the family that owned the land and its postmistress, Mrs. Lillian Montgomery. A second post office, Cactus, was opened in 1918 at Cave Creek and Cactus Roads with William C. Hyatt as postmaster. Hyatt’s store and health camp ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Images Courtesy of Douglas Towne

Salt River Project’s Horseshoe Dam releasing Verde River water, 2019.

replaced Montgomery as the hub for social and political activities in the area.

By 1914, Paradise Valley was home to several hundred homesteaders. Most were recent arrivals who were convinced irrigation water would soon arrive. Among them were Harvey Bell and James Shea, for whom major streets would later be named.

When a groundwater survey found that the local aquifers would not support large-scale irrigation, residents hired William Bartlett to develop a new plan to bring Verde River water. Bartlett devised a geographically scaled-down version of the first Rio Verde Project that added much-needed power generating and flood control capabilities. The Paradise-Verde Reclamation Project encompassed 95,000 acres in Paradise Valley, Deer Valley, and the community of Valley Heights, located west of 19th Avenue near Shaw Butte.

For almost two decades, Paradise-Verde Irrigation District representatives lobbied the Department of Interior with their plan to turn the desert valley into lush agricultural fields. Their efforts were consistently challenged by the Salt River Project, which claimed the exclusive right to all Verde River water for projects within its own irrigation district.

Despite SRP’s opposition, Paradise-Verde Irrigation District twice received permission to proceed with its plans. In 1920, the Department of Interior’s approval made newspaper headlines in Phoenix and was celebrated at a picnic attended by 2,000 supporters. There was a catch, though, as the final go-ahead required Paradise-Verde to secure its own funding within three FIFTY SIX

years. The district was unable to meet the twice-extended deadline and forfeited its authorization to build dams and canals in January 1926.

Four years later, the Department of Interior reversed its decision and granted the Paradise Valley group more time to find financing for its project. This goal was achieved when the Public Works Administration offered the reorganized Verde River Irrigation and Power District a $19 million loan. Unfortunately, Verde River Irrigation had yet to receive the money when SRP disrupted the entire scheme by obtaining permission to build Bartlett Dam on the Verde River for its own use. SRP had won the struggle between the rival districts for political influence, and the cancellation of Verde River Irrigation’s multimillion-dollar loan soon followed.

The Paradise Valley community was incensed by the loss of the money and angry

at the three officials believed to be responsible for the betrayal: Congresswoman Isabella Greenway, Governor Benjamin Moeur, and Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes. They displayed their disappointment by hanging effigies of the individuals to the cheers of locals. The next evening at dusk, a crowd of 400 gathered east of Hyatt’s Camp and watched the suspended figures set afire and consumed by flames.

Without irrigation, Paradise Valley’s goal of an agriculturally based economy was unattainable. By the early 1930s, however, the beginnings of tourism and resort businesses in the southern part of the Valley were evident. Cowboy artist Lon Megarge was renting rooms in his Casa Hermosa home, and construction had begun on the Camelback Inn. One of the popular attractions close to the Inn was the 43-foot tall “world’s largest” saguaro cactus located near 60th Street north of Camelback Mountain.

The tourism industry continued to thrive after World War II and is a huge part of the Valley’s economy today. Most other areas of Paradise Valley did not begin to grow in earnest until the late 1950s, when population and development increased following annexations by Phoenix and Scottsdale.

A grid pattern of roads has replaced the early plans for canals and laterals. The fiery demonstration that took place when hopes of irrigation were dashed is seldom remembered. It may have been a blessing in disguise since the astronomical real estate prices in Paradise Valley reflect the low-density and unspoiled desert mountain vistas.

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

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ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Images Courtesy of Author

HOLDING BACK CAVE CREEK WASH: A MULTIPLE-ARCH MASTERPIECE ED DOBBINS

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wollen with water and debris by the second storm in two days, Cave Creek Wash broke through the Arizona Canal at 15th Avenue on the morning of August 21, 1921. A few hours later, its mile-wide swath topped the Grand Canal on its way to submerging the State Fairgrounds at McDowell Road and Grand Avenue. The flood reached the Arizona State Capitol building after sunset, entering the first floor and cascading to the basement storage areas. It undercut the Santa Fe Railroad tracks near Jackson Street on its final approach to the Salt River.

The 1921 Cave Creek flood was not an isolated occurrence. The Capitol also flooded in 1905, and newspapers reported Cave Creek breaching the Arizona Canal in six of the 20 years between 1901 and 1921.

Just two years earlier, in 1919, the wash scoured a channel south of the Arizona Canal that observers believed helped direct the next flood to the Capitol. Efforts to stem the flooding date to 1923, when the first of two dams on the wash was completed.

Cave Creek Wash originates in the mountains north of the town of Cave Creek, Arizona. It travels south across the Paradise Valley desert for 19 miles before entering the Salt River Valley at Moon Mountain near FIFTY EIGHT

19th Avenue and Greenway Road. The passage between valleys was once a landfill but is now home to the Cave Creek Municipal Golf Course. About a mile further, the wash exits its channel and broadens to flow over a wide area.

Before the Arizona Canal was built in 1885, Cave Creek Wash continued this dispersed pattern of drainage south toward the Salt River. Its delta stretched 15 miles from Phoenix to Peoria and created habitat for a dense thicket of mesquite that once grew adjacent to the 1870 Phoenix townsite. While providing a ready supply of fuel for the pioneers, this bosque restricted the town’s early growth west of Seventh Avenue until the area was cleared of trees.

The Capitol building was only four years old when it first flooded in 1905. Phoenix residents had not anticipated the site would be engulfed by water from the north and were uncertain about what had happened to cause Cave Creek Wash to flood.

Some blamed J. G. Harden, a rancher near the 19th Avenue bridge over the Arizona Canal, who was accused of cutting an irrigation ditch that enabled runoff to break through the canal. Deep wagon wheel ruts in the Black Canyon Road along 19th Avenue were also suspected of funneling excess

water towards the Capitol. A third proposal denied Cave Creek Wash as a major factor in the flood and suggested most of the floodwater had been collected and released by the abandoned 1896 Rio Verde Canal as it crossed Paradise Valley.

Plans for financing a dam on Cave Creek Wash in the Union Hills were started in earnest after the 1919 flood. By March 1921, months before the flood of that year, a cooperative funding agreement between several public and private entities had been reached. Each of the parties was regularly damaged by the flooding and was eager to contribute to a project that would cut their recurrent losses.

Four governments were in the group: the State of Arizona, Maricopa County, and the cities of Phoenix and Glendale. The largest contributor was the Salt River Valley Water Users Association (SRVWUA), whose members suffered the most from flood damage and disruption to the irrigation system. Other parties included two railroads, two oil companies, and proponents of the Paradise-Verde Irrigation District, who were considering using the dam in their project.

Greenway Cemetery also committed funds as part of its promise to provide long-term care for the interred.

Top left: “Chow-Time” at Paradise Valley Project Camp #2, 1920.

Top right: “Come and Get It” at Paradise Valley Project Camp #2, 1920.

Above: Charley’s Ideal Kitchen at Paradise Valley Project Camp #3, 1919.

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Author

The contract to build the Cave Creek Dam at the confluence of Cave Creek and Apache washes 20 miles north of downtown Phoenix was awarded to the Lynn S. Atkinson Jr. Construction Company in December 1921. Atkinson proposed to build a multiple arch design by John S. Eastwood, which he favored over an earthen dam design. The final construction cost for the multiple-arch dam was $555,000.

Eastwood was the leading proponent of multiple arch dams in the country at that time, and 17 of his designs were built between 1908 and his death in 1924.

The strength of the dam resulted from the transfer of stress from the arched shield-like fronts to the bedrock-anchored buttresses supporting the arches. Both components were constructed of thin reinforced concrete that used substantially less material than gravity dams requiring massive amounts of concrete.

The Cave Creek Dam design had 38 arches that were each 44 feet wide and measured 12 inches thick at the top and four feet thick at the bottom. The 39 buttresses that tapered from 10 feet wide at the bottom to 1 foot wide at the top supported the arches. Eastwood’s designs were built in several Western states, with the majority in California. Cave Creek Dam was the only Eastwood dam in Arizona, although other multiple arch dams near Phoenix included Waddell Dam on the Agua Fria River, Bartlett Dam on the Verde River, and Gillespie Dam on the Gila River.

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Multiple arch dams were not universally held in high regard by contemporary engineers, and some disparaged Eastwood’s work. As a result, few multiple arch dams were built in the East, and their popularity waned after Eastwood’s death despite the design’s excellent safety record and relatively low construction costs. Most dams on federally funded flood control and water storage projects were gravity or earthen construction, which gave the visual appearance of being stronger than the graceful multiple-arched style.

When completed in February 1923, Cave Creek Dam measured almost 1,700 feet long with a maximum height of 120 feet. Eastwood’s design was tested immediately and successfully prevented flooding

from a storm that occurred only a day after the dam’s completion. Over the next 60 years, waters from Cave Creek Wash rarely breached the Arizona Canal.

From the late 1970s into the early 1990s, additional flood measures were enacted along Cave Creek Wash to protect the growing Phoenix urban area. A second dam, the earthen Cave Buttes Dam, was built less than a mile downstream from Cave Creek Dam. Further south after crossing 19th Avenue, the wash channel below Sweetwater Park was lined with concrete and directed to the Arizona Canal Diversion Channel (ACDC) that parallels the north side of the Arizona Canal. Flood waters from Cave Creek Wash today never reach the canal and spill into the ACDC near 23rd Avenue in Rose Mofford Sports Complex.

Although the initial Cave Buttes Dam environmental impact statement called for the demolition of Cave Creek Dam in 1976, an inspection just prior to construction determined that the earlier dam should be saved because it was eligible for nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.

The dam was left intact and protected from damage by a 400-foot-wide channel that routes flood waters around the old dam to the Cave Buttes Reservoir.

A draft nomination form for National Register consideration was prepared but apparently never completed or submitted for final listing. Despite its importance to Phoenix’s growth, innovative design, and architectural beauty, Cave Creek Dam is not currently an officially designated historic place.

Top left: Cave Creek Dam, 1924.

Below: Cave Creek Dam.

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Image Courtesy of Ed Dobbins

Images Courtesy of Rafique Islam

Top left: The Boston Store in Downtown Phoenix, circa 1900.

Above: Diamond’s entrance at Paradise Valley Mall showing the Gazebo restaurant above the Diamond’s logo.

Left: Dillard’s store under construction at Paradise Valley Mall, 1984.

Below: Diamond’s entrance at Paradise Valley Mall included living trees and plants in the seating area, along with a large ashtray.

Image Courtesy of Author

FROM DIAMOND’S TO DILLARD’S TO DEMOLITION: RETAIL LIFE AT PARADISE VALLEY MALL TOM YOUNT

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n 2021, a wave of mixed-use developments swept across the Valley, including the demolition of the Dillard’s department store at Paradise Valley Mall in north Phoenix. This event, steeped in personal nostalgia, drew my mom, Kathy Yount, and me as regular visitors. Dillard’s and a related store at the mall, Diamond’s, with its rich history dating back to the 1890s, held special places not just in the retail landscape of Phoenix but also in Kathy’s 40-plus-year career in the industry.

Delving into the past, the store is connected to the entrepreneurial journey of the Diamond brothers, Isaac and Nathan, immigrants from Belarus, who established their first Diamond’s store in El Paso, Texas, in 1891. This was the birthplace of the “New York Store,” a dry-goods business. Notably, they employed Sam Korrick, a Jewish immigrant from New York City, who would later SIXTY TWO

carve his own path with Korricks department store in Phoenix.

Korrick left El Paso for the West Coast but ended up settling in Phoenix in 1895, where he opened his version of the “New York Store” on Washington Street, between Second and Third streets in Downtown Phoenix. After hearing of the success of their former employee, the Diamond brothers packed up and headed out to Phoenix to try their own luck. Seeing as Korrick had conveniently borrowed their original store name, the brothers chose the name the “Boston Store” and opened in 1897 across the street from Korricks on the southeast corner of Washington and Second streets.

The Boston Store’s extensive advertisements in The Arizona Republican newspaper (now The Arizona Republic) promoted a wide range of products, from “Fabrics, Housewares, Hats, Men’s and Women’s Clothing,

Shoes” to mail-order items. A devastating fire in 1907 consumed over half the store, but the brothers’ resilience shone through as an insurance adjustment enabled them to rebuild in the same location.

In 1918, the Diamond brothers ushered in a new era with a “fireproof” concrete and brick building for the Boston Store.

The 1920s witnessed the expansion of the business, with more family members joining, propelling its growth. By 1931, the store boasted 40,000 square feet of retail space, and a major draw for shoppers was the installation of air conditioning. In a 1932 promotional event, they even raffled off a new V-8 Ford, among nine other prizes, showcasing their innovative marketing strategies.

In 1947, in honor of their 50th anniversary, the Boston Store was renamed “Diamond’s” after the founding brothers.

The original Diamond’s company was sold in 1957 to the Roberts brothers of Portland, Oregon, shortly before the second Diamond’s store opened at Park Central Mall in Phoenix. Soon after, in 1968, the Roberts brothers sold the company to the Dayton Corp. of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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My mom’s history in retail began at Dayton Hudson’s in Rochester, Minnesota, in 1972. After my parents relocated to Chicago in 1974, Kathy worked at Marshall Field’s and had me in 1977. Soon after my dad’s job had us moving to Scottsdale in 1978.

In 1979, with the family settled, my mom applied for a job at Diamond’s in Paradise Valley Mall, a brand-new Westcor development with Rafique Islam as the architect.

After completing her training at Diamond’s Fashion Square Mall in south Scottsdale, she started in the Housewares Department at the new location on February 1, 1979, the day it opened.

That opening weekend Diamond’s hosted a “70 Hot Air Balloon Regatta,” billed as the largest in Arizona history. The balloons lifted off from the mall parking lot and portions of both Tatum and Cactus roads. Also in attendance were camels and belly dancers as part of their new Diamond’s department, “The Ancient Art of Desert Living,” which featured “exotic” Mediterranean and Middle Eastern themes. Architect Benny M. Gonzales, a native Arizonan, was the designer of the Diamond’s building, which had an interesting feature. The Gazebo restaurant on the second floor had a large window that allowed diners to look down at the shoppers below in the mall.

In 1984, the Dayton Hudson Corp. sold its Diamond’s stores to Dillard’s,

headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Then, in the late 1980s, the shopping center, which locals quickly started calling “PV Mall,” began renovation and expansion with a 1,700-space parking garage, new northeast and northwest mall wings, and a new 200,000-square-foot Dillard’s store. Meanwhile, the former Diamond’s/Dillard’s store reopened as Sears, which closed in 2019 and remained vacant afterward.

It’s this new Dillard’s that holds the best memories for our family. While most of our friends would meet up in the mall food court, the first stop for me and my younger brother, Jim, was always Dillard’s, where we would interrupt Mom’s work day to harass her for spending money. Her work ethic and friendly attitude endeared her to many of her employees and co-workers, whom I still run into locally and with whom Kathy keeps in touch.

It wasn’t uncommon for coworkers and their families to show up at our house during one of my parent’s epic neighborhood pool parties. One particularly brave and trustworthy employee of Mom’s took me to my first metal concert in 1991. Our first family dog, a Samoyed husky named Fairbanks, was found by one of her coworkers. Mom’s dedication to the company did not go unnoticed as she was able to fly on the Dillard’s corporate jet in support of the opening of the Dillard’s Las Vegas location, and she

opened new stores in Reno, Nevada, El Centro, California, and Arizona locations in Lake Havasu, Prescott, San Tan Valley, and Yuma.

In the 2000s, at Dillard’s annual holiday event, my dad, Gary, appeared as Santa Claus, and my brother, Jim, who worked the event in housewares, served hors d’oeuvres.

Kathy retired in 2013, but after a couple of years off, she made one last round and worked a year at Dillard’s Fashion Square location, where she originally trained 30 years earlier, before finally retiring for good.

When PV Mall started coming down in 2021, Kathy, Jim, and I were invited into the near-empty Dillard’s for one last walkthrough. We laughed about old stories, especially when my brother and I would stop by at closing time. The guys she managed in the Electronics Department would let me play my metal tapes on the store’s latest and greatest stereos. I don’t think the rest of the employees were thrilled with this music blasting as they were trying to close out their registers.

We were amazed at what the store looked like without merchandise. After the building’s demolition began, we repeatedly visited until the last of the structure was hauled away. While it might be a stretch to connect the Diamond Brothers to my family, I can say that my family’s lives would be a lot different without that first Boston Store and its evolution and growth in Arizona.

Images Courtesy of Author

Left: Underground construction at Paradise Valley Mall, 1980s.

Above: Cabrillo Crane Corp. loading air conditioning units onto the roof during construction, 1980s.

Right above: Razing of the Dillard’s building by Dickens Quality Demolition. The exposed steel frame of the bridge connecting the parking garage to the Dillard’s building can be seen on the left, 2021.

Right: The last arch coming down on the north entrance of the Dillard’s building, 2021.

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Image Courtesy of Steve Cockrill

MARK COCKRILL CONTRACTING:

In 1941, Bethel Mark Cockrill was installing new water and sewer pipes for hospitals on the East Coast. While working at a hospital, he was asked to retrieve an engagement ring from a sink P-trap. The nurse who dropped the ring had a roommate named Virginia Hibbard, who hit it off Mark Cockrill, Bethel Mark Cockrill’s oldest with Bethel and they were soon married. son. “One day, the monkey bit Dad on the While returning to Tennessee after comshoulder, and after that, he never cared for pleting his contract nine months later, his the monkey.”

A PIPELINE FOR SUCCESS IN ARIZONA BILLY HORNER

O

ne of Arizona’s most talented mid-century piping contractors, Bethel Mark Cockrill, was born in 1898 in Jackson, a Tennessee railroad hub located about halfway between the Mississippi River blues city of Memphis and Nashville, the country music capital. “We celebrated his birthday in July, although the exact birthdate was unknown,” Steve Cockrill, his younger son, recalls.

Bethel Mark Cockrill was a World War I veteran who earned an engineering degree from Mississippi A&M, now Mississippi State. His contracting career began when he learned plumbing and water systems in his Jackson hometown, where his father opened the Mark R. Cockrill Plumbing Co., a business with an unusual mascot.

“Dad’s father owned a monkey that hung around the back part of the plumbing shop,” said SIXTY SIX

Image Courtesy of Steve Cockrill

Below: Bethel Mark with his father Mark R. Cockrill (l-r), in Jackson Tennessee, 1917.

Right: Steve Cockrill standing next to a Mark Cockrill Contracting company car, 1950.

Image Courtesy of The Plumber’s Trade

Journal.

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Steve Cockrill

Left: Mark Cockrill with a Link-Belt Speeder on transport, early 1950s Above: Bethel Mark Cockrill.

Right: Power line installation, 1950.

Below: Mark Cockrill in the office on Watkins Road.

Bottom right: Mark Cockrill Contracting advertisement, 1948.

pregnant wife, Virginia, said that he should find a nearby hospital, which turned out to be in Harrisonburg, Virginia. Their first son, Mark, was born there just before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing the U.S. into World War II. His son, Mark, explained what brought his father to Arizona. “Somehow, the J.H. Welsh Company had heard about Dad and wanted him to come to Phoenix and run

their pipeline division. The Welsh firm was one of Arizona’s largest pipe and underground contractors. When he moved to Phoenix, they requested that he drop his first name, Bethel, because another worker shared the same name. Cockrill would stick with “Mark” throughout the rest of his career.

According to Arizona Builder & Contractor magazine, Cockrill opened the Mark

Cockrill Contracting Company in Phoenix at 1917 West Grant Street in 1948. He later moved to a larger office building and equipment yard at 1322 West Watkins Road. The company specialized in water systems, sewers, water mains, sprinkler systems, and industrial piping and was an early adopter of technology. In January 1948, his company purchased one of Arizona’s first HydroCranes for pipe construction.

Image Courtesy of Arizona Contractor

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Left: Contractor Mark Cockrill with his company car during construction of Turf Paradise, 1954.

Below: Cockrill’s 7707 East Third Street home in the Peaceful Valley subdivision still displayed the rooster stencil on the mailbox before being demolished in 2021.

Bottom: Mark Cockrill Co. building at 217 South Hinton in Scottsdale, 1959.

Before officially launching his new firm, Cockrill bid on and was awarded several projects around Arizona. They included a $25,191 contract for the installation of sewer tile and fittings, manholes, and cleanouts in Prescott’s Donnybrook Estates; a $29,838 contract for a sewer system in Kingman’s Hilltop neighborhood; $14,999 for laying 8-inch sewer mains in the Woodlawn Park Improvement District in Central Phoenix; and $150,393 for the construction of a sewerage system in Tolleson.

While attending Brophy Prep, Cockrill’s son, Mark, worked every weekend at the Watkins location, cleaning the shop and construction lot. Mark recalled working on a summer job in Tucson in 1958, where he quickly learned not to ride in the front of the truck and always get in last. He’d often trade his roast beef sandwich for Mexican food brought by Amador Lucero, a company foreman.

“During the summers, Dad would take a house trailer to wherever he was working so his family could be with him,” Steve says. “One summer, we would be in Fort Huachuca and another in Fort Tuthill near Flagstaff. When he moved the house trailer to Fort Tuthill, the only route from Phoenix to Flagstaff was through Wickenburg, Yarnell Hill, and Prescott. That trip took all day to tow the house trailer up there, especially because of Yarnell Hill, which was very narrow and winding.”

Cockrill’s influence extended beyond his own company. He was the state representative for the Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Company, which installed fire protection SIXTY EIGHT

systems across Arizona. His firm undertook projects, including laying a concrete pipe pressure line for Flagstaff and contributing to underground work at Prescott’s airport terminal.

Along with pipework, Cockrill’s firm also installed powerlines. In 1950, Cockrill built a 41-mile section of aluminum steel tower erection between Coolidge and Mesa as part of the new project to supply Arizona with electricity from the Hoover and Davis dams generating plants for the U.S. Reclamation Service.

In 1955, Cockrill won contracts from the Phoenix City Commission to install 8-inch clay sewer mains along 17th Avenue, including the Eggerth Homes, Carton Estates, and Long Estates neighborhoods.

Cockrill helped modernize Phoenix’s 23rd Avenue sewage treatment plant in the 1950s. When he returned from a vacation,

Cockrill was surprised to learn that his foreman had unexpectedly died. Cockrill paid for his employee’s funeral, a testament to his character.

Cockrill also tried to develop a mine about 40 miles south of Salome in western Arizona. His partner, Ray Hovatter, homesteaded nearby with his family. The Hovatter Road and its interchange on Interstate 10 are a legacy of this project.

In 1957, Cockrill moved to a larger Scottsdale location at 217 South Hinton Road, designated using the city’s former address system. He adorned the facility with Western-themed decorations mimicking the style of Old Town. “The building had an authentic horse-drawn wagon and a large mining barrel on the roof, among many other Western items,” Steve says. “Tourists would often stop thinking his building was a museum. Inside the building, his largest Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

room was filled with Western and Indian artifacts, which he would let the tourists browse.” All the buildings built along this strip have been demolished for new developments at the southeast corner of 75th and Second streets.

Cockrill owned the building that housed his contracting office and tenants, such as Peaceful Valley Realty, which was named after the nearby subdivision where he resided. His company’s equipment yard was in the rear.

“My father had a stylized stencil of a rooster, which he used to mark all his equipment. Sometimes people might not recognize the name Mark Cockrill Contracting, but everybody locally recognized the rooster,” Steve says. “He even put the rooster on our family cars. I remember going to Nogales, Mexico, on vacation, and the kids ran alongside our car, yelling, “El Pollo, El Pollo!”

When Cockrill was winding down his construction career, he formed Pueblo Development. The company designed a small community on the Salt River Indian Reservation. Cockrill spent several years on the project, but it was never built. At the time, the federal government forbade Indian reservation land from being leased for over 25 years, and banks would not finance projects unless a 30-year or longer lease could be established. Neither side would budge.

In 1958, Cockrill leased land in Apache Junction for a trailer development project and shopping center just north of Apache Trail and Phelps Drive, which is currently vacant.

Away from work, Cockrill chaired fundraising for the Scottsdale Boys Club and served as president of the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce in 1959. However, a heart attack slowed him down in 1959, though he eventually recovered, resumed work, and ran for Scottsdale mayor.

One of Cockrill’s last major projects involved installing an underground utility line near Yuma. His company encountered significant challenges with sand, leading to financial difficulties. Despite these setbacks, Cockrill refused to declare bankruptcy and persisted in paying off his debts until he died from cancer in 1967 at the age of 68.

Throughout his life, Cockrill could be counted on to build quality infrastructure for development. “He was an old-school guy in the sense of a Southern gentleman,” Mark says. “He was proper and always dressed well, and, incidentally, was president of the Dad’s Club, my senior year at Brophy.”

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SALUTING ARIZONA’S BUILDERS: ERNEST “ERNIE” MOHAMED DOUGLAS TOWNE

N

o one ever accused earthmover Ernest C. “Ernie” Mohamed of being “duller than dirt.” When not transporting material or paving streets, the Phoenix contractor was a colorful figure who had a side hustle promoting events, including auto racing, wrestling, and roller derby after World War II. “Ernie was a bit of a carny and had his hand in many different types of events,” recalled former race car driver Jimmy Blanton.

Besides his unusual Afghan-German heritage, Mohamed, or “Big Mo” as SEVENTY

newspapers sometimes called him, had an unforgettable personal trait. “He had a grip like a bear; he could bring you to your knees with a handshake,” said Blanton. “That’s the way he conducted business, with a handshake. If he said he was going to do something, he did it. His word meant something, and he didn’t need a contract.”

Mohamad was born to Fatha and Purna Mohamed in Tempe in 1920. “Fatha immigrated to San Francisco from Kabul, Afghanistan, and met his German wife, Purna, in Calexico, California, along the

Mexican border,” said Larry Myers, a longtime blade operator, of his uncle. The couple were married in Yuma and worked as farm laborers, relocating to Chandler, Tempe, and eventually Phoenix.

“Although Ernie was born in Tempe, he grew up at 1708 South First Street, near the old Phoenix Municipal Stadium at the corner of Central Avenue and Mohave Street south of Downtown. This was the spring training home of the New York Giants from 1947-1963,” said Myers. He adds that Mohamed’s sister, Virginia, married his father, Bob Myers, in the 1930s. Sadly, Mohamed’s father died in the 1920s, and his younger brother, Bobby, died in an industrial accident in 1942.

Ernie Mohamed launched his eponymous Earth Moving and Construction company with an old dump truck. “Ernie NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Left: Ernie Mohamed demonstrating his new equipment radio system, 1958.

Above: Two Ernie Mohamed concrete stamps.

Right: Ernie Mohamed with his hand on the Bobby Ball Memorial Trophy as winner Jimmy Bryan drinks a soda pop at the State Fairgrounds, 1955.

Below: Wrestling advertisement for Casa Grande Gardens, 1966.

started filling it by hand with a shovel and selling dirt to those who needed it around Phoenix,” said Myers. “Ernie used the adjacent vacant lot to park his vehicles and later had an office near 24th Street and the Salt River.”

His company grew into a bigger operation, which included paving during the 1950s. “My parents lived in the Townsend Park development near Central Avenue and Roeser Road,” Blanton said. “In 1952, Ernie’s company paved the subdivision and put in curb and gutters.”

Mohamed’s company worked around the Valley. In 1954, they graded and paved a portion of Baseline Road, completed the Grand Avenue–Black Canyon Highway Interchange in 1957, and improved a “truck route” through Downtown Phoenix along Grand and Lincoln Street in 1959.

However, a project on Interstate 10 near Quartzsite bankrupted Mohamed’s company in the early 1960s. “Someone sabotaged all of his equipment, and he had to buy new engines for them to finish the job,” Myers said. “Ernie was never able to recover from that vandalism.” Liquidators sold the company’s assets in December 1962.

Mohamed is best remembered for building the South Mountain Speedway at the end of Central in 1948. Construction took place on 100 acres his mother, Purna Mohamed, a nurse at Maricopa County Hospital, purchased around 1942.

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Mohamed also had a construction shop, equipment, a crusher, and employees living on-site in trailers.

Mohamed promoted races featuring jalopies, midgets, motorcycles, sprint cars, and go-karts at his mountainside track through 1954, but most racing ended after 1957. He later brought roller derby, wrestling, boxing, and even the Shrine Circus to the venue, which is currently closed and will likely be demolished in the near future. “Ernie wasn’t a fancy dresser and always seemed to have his shirt untucked,” recalled Blanton. “He never looked the part of a big-time promoter, but he sure put on a lot of events.”

The Arizona Republic noted, “Ernie has a sound measure of promotional skill and a battery of hot dog machines and beer coolers he’d like to keep busy.” As head of Arizona Sports Enterprises, Mohamed also promoted events at Madison Square Garden at 120 North Seventh Avenue, the Sportatorium Arena at 1717 East McDowell Road, and Casa Grande Gardens at 111 North Sacaton in Casa Grande.

Politics was about the only thing Mohamed didn’t succeed at. In 1960, he ran unsuccessfully for the Maricopa County Supervisor seat in District 1 and for the Phoenix City Council in 1965. His last endeavor was with his wife, Edith, running the T-Bone Steakhouse for more than 30 years. The steakhouse was located near their home on 19th Avenue, south of

Dobbins Road. “After Edie retired, it went to hell,” Blanton opines. “She went in every morning and cooked the most delicious pinto beans with onion.”

Mohamed died in 1996 at age 76, and Edie passed away at age 83 in 2003. The couple is buried at Double Butte Cemetery in Tempe.

“Ernie was hard working, very straightforward, could talk to anyone, and had a fun personality,” recalled Larry Myers, reflecting on Mohamed’s keys to success. “He could speak Spanish as well as English, which came in handy in both construction and event promotion.”

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SEVENTY TWO

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OLD SCHOOL EQUIPMENT: BARBER-GREENE TRAVEL PLANT BILLY HORNER

T

he Road-Mix method, renowned for its cost-effectiveness in material mixing for early road construction, was frequently used in infrastructure development (see page 78). In line with their commitment to speed, efficiency, and excellence, the engineers at Barber-Greene Manufacturing Company, headquartered in Aurora, Illinois, pioneered innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of contractors and industry paving specifications.

The Arizona distributor for Barber-Greene was Brown-Bevis Equipment Co. at 610 West Jefferson Street. Together, they used advertising campaigns in the early 1940s to connect with contractors and showcase the capabilities of the new Travel Plant in enhancing road construction projects.

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Barber-Greene engineered the Travel Plant to improve road construction by ensuring uniform mixing results over extensive distances. This machine significantly boosted productivity in road-building endeavors while optimizing costs.

The operation consisted of creating a well-defined windrow of aggregate material

using a blade. Then came the Travel Plant, comprised of two interconnected Barber-Greene units. The track bucket loader led the operation, positioned to straddle the aggregate windrow. This loader, equipped with conveyor buckets, efficiently scooped up the material, readying it for processing.

Subsequently, the lifted aggregate material was fed into the hopper of the Model 848 Heavy Duty Mixer. Connected to the Model 848 was a truck containing hot oil, essential for mixing. The oil and aggregate material was meticulously blended, ensuring a uniform mixture. This material was dispensed from the back end of the unit, forming a consistent, jet-black windrow.

The resulting material could either be loaded into dump trucks for transportation or directly laid out by a blade, ready to be compacted into place with rollers. The Travel Plant’s efficiency and reliability revolutionized road construction practices throughout the 1940s, setting new standards in the paving industry.

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Geoff Nowak

Top right: Barber-Greene Travel Plant brochure, 1950.

Top left: Barber-Greene 848 Heavy Duty Mixer, 1950.

Above: Brown-Bevis Equipment Co. ad featuring the Barber-Greene Travel Plant, 1946.

Left and right: Capitol Construction Co., based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, used a Barber-Greene Travel Plant to construct an airfield near Casa Grande in 1942.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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SEVENTY SIX

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

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BUILDING ON THE PAST

1955 – ROAD MIX IN ARIZONA BILLY HORNER

B

efore mix designs for asphalt became standardized, engineers, builders, municipalities, and contractors throughout the U.S. tried different road improvement solutions for smoother rides and dust control. One popular method, plant mix, created a high-quality asphalt material composed of aggregate and bitumen batched offsite at an asphalt mix plant, trucked in, and dumped into paving machines for constructing durable and smooth roads.

Contractors also used another less-expensive process called road mix, which they created on-site. Road mix was a combination of aggregate and bituminous binder

rolled down to provide a road surface. The road-mix process involved several steps and hinged on the expertise of the motor grader or blade operator. Their skill in blending the material correctly was crucial for achieving the desired results.

First, the native material or imported aggregate base course (ABC) was leveled.

Then, a boot truck would shoot hot oil over the leveled material. The blade operator’s task was to mix or turn the material with the moldboard, simulating the finished product of an offsite batching plant. The operator’s visual assessment of the road mix’s consistency was key, ensuring it was ready for compaction. It was the experienced blade

operators who consistently produced the highest quality road mixes, a testament to their invaluable expertise. The finished material would then be laid flat, and rollers would compact it.

Alternatively, elevating bucket loaders could be used for asphalt work. As a grader mixed a windrow of ABC and hot oil, buckets absorbed the road mix material, which was then taken up in a chute. The material could then be shot into a dump truck or hopper for paving applications.

Today, the road-mix process for applying asphalt has been replaced with modern techniques. This transition marked a significant evolution in construction methods.

However, experienced blade operators still use the mixing technique for subgrade base preparation, a testament to the enduring value of their expertise.

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Above: Caterpillar No. 12 blade and a boot truck creating road-mix in California, 1958.

Top right: Two Caterpillar No. 12 blades rolling material back and forth to ensure proper mixing, 1958.

Right: A San Xavier Rock & Sand Co. blade performing a road-mix operation near the Mazatzal Mountains northeast of Phoenix, 1954.

Far right: Two track-driven blades were used by El Paso contractor Veater & Davis, who applied road-mix to a highway linking Douglas, Arizona, to Rodeo, New Mexico, in 1929.

Bottom right: James Bond operating a boot truck for J.D. Williams Trucking during road construction at Jacobs Lake, Arizona, in 1937.

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Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

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T

he Town of Paradise Valley, defined by Camelback and Mummy mountains, was an undeveloped desert until the construction of some homes before World War II. Phoenix and Scottsdale eventually surrounded Paradise Valley, and the fear of being annexed inspired the town’s incorporation in 1961. A zoning ordinance created a community with one home per 1 to 5 acres, which preserved the town’s quiet lifestyle and unique character that continues to this day.

The first homes in Paradise Valley were mainly constructed of local adobe bricks, given the soil often found on the project

Architect’s Perspective: Robert T. Evans: Exploiting Adobe Doug Sydnor, FAIA Doug_sydnor@outlook.com site, the availability of labor, and affordability. Adobe can be made here with relative ease, as the natural materials are readily available, including clay, sand, silt, water, chopped straw, and dung. For more stabilization, asphalt, cement, or lime can be added.

Many Paradise Valley adobe homes and inns from the 1920s to the 1940s were designed and constructed by architect Robert Thomas “R.T.” Evans. He was born June 24, 1888, in Chicago, Illinois, and was an only child to Denver Evans, a wealthy produce importer, and Jessie Benton Evans, a renowned artist. In his youth, he attended Chicago Manual Training School and traveled throughout Europe with his mother.

Evans attended the Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology), where he received his Bachelor of Science degree. He then studied Left: Robert T. Evans.

Below: Jokake Inn, Phoenix.

Bottom right: Paradise Inn, Phoenix.

Images Courtesy of Scottsdale Historical Society

EIGHTY TWO

architecture at the University of Freiburg in Germany and returned to work as an engineer at various Chicago-area businesses.

Evans later reenrolled at Armour and earned a Masters degree in Engineering. In 1912, he married Sylvia Gates, and they had three children: Marjorie, Denver, and Barbara. The family later moved to Hudson, Ohio, where Evans served as executive director for the International Harvester Co.’s Motor Truck Division.

Evans became ill with tuberculosis, and a doctor advised him to move to a warmer, dry climate. His parents had already established Scottsdale as their winter residence in 1913. In 1915, they purchased 40 acres on the southern slope of Camelback Mountain and built their residence, Casa del Desierto.

Evans arrived in 1923 with his family, and his mother gave them 12 acres on which to live.

While recuperating, Evans was a photographer for Tempe Normal School (now Arizona State University). He also studied local adobe building methods and the blending of architectural revival styles, such as Spanish Colonial, Mediterranean, and Pueblo. Evans built his family home in 1926, founded the Evans Construction Company, which later had a monthly publication, Adobe: A Magazine of Arizona Architecture, and began designing and building client projects.

One of his first projects was the Jokake Inn in 1927. Wealthy guests asked Evans to expand the tea room and accommodate overnight guests. His additions included the Hopi House, Pima House, and a pair of bell towers. Evan’s reputation grew, and he received many architectural and construction commissions, including the Jokake

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Scottsdale Historical Society

Left: Donald Kellogg residence, Paradise Valley.

Above: Borg-Warner residence, former Donald Kellogg residence, Paradise Valley, 1932.

Below: Casa Blanca Estates, former Donald Kellogg residence, Paradise Valley, 1982.

School for Girls, finished in 1933 adjacent to the Inn, which his daughter and son-inlaw managed.

The couple divorced in 1943, and Evans sold his interest in Jokake Inn to Sylvia and her partners. In 1945, he built the Paradise Inn just east of Jokake and managed it until selling it to Charles Alberding in 1949.

Jokake and Paradise Inns were jointly purchased in 1979 and demolished (except for part of the Jokake Inn) for The Phoenician resort.

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Evans was active in the community, including Trinity Cathedral, Phoenix Country Club, Arizona Club, Valley Club, Rotary, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Society of Automotive Engineers.

He retired in 1958 and died in 1962 at 74.

He was married four times and was survived by his wife, Mary Clark, whom he married in 1956.

During his productive career, Evans designed and built about 35 residences, often winter homes for the rich before and

after World War II. From 1924 to 1947, he was a hotelier, architect, and homebuilder.

Evans is credited with bringing attention to reestablishing adobe as a viable construction material and the various revival styles that it encouraged, thereby earning the nickname “Adobe Bob.” Here are two of his Paradise Valley adobe residences.

In 1924, Evans completed the design and construction of the Douglas Kellogg residence. The 20-acre parcel on North 66th Street accommodated a sprawling home in the Pueblo Revival style. He constructed this one and two-story home with plastered adobe walls and integrated a series of patios.

In 1932, George Borg of Borg-Warner Company in Delavan, Wisconsin, purchased the home and constructed a private airstrip, stables, swimming pool, putting green, shuffleboard, and tennis court. In 1946, Borg expanded the building into the 30-room Casa Blanca Inn, which included distinctive Moroccan domes. In 1948, 18 additional rooms were added, and in 1952, Royal Treadway started leasing it from Borg and bought it in 1961.

In 1982, the architectural firm Christensen, Roberts, and Jones transformed the Inn into the Casa Blanca Estates. This award-winning adaptive reuse included 72 casitas and an added 57 luxury condominiums. The project preserved original features such as wood beams, adobe walls, and a swimming pool. This addition and renovation captured the original’s scale, intimate character, and pleasant ambiance.

ARIZONA CONTRACTOR & COMMUNITY

Image Courtesy of Scottsdale Historical Society

Image Courtesy of Diane Gonzales

Top left and right: Glaus residence, Paradise Valley, 1930s.

Above: Kitchen in the Gonzales residence, Paradise Valley.

Below: Rose Eisendrath residence, Tempe.

The 1931 Glaus residence is located at the northwest corner of Invergordon Road and McDonald Drive. Louise E. Glaus, Evans, Neil Gates, and Duncan MacDonald jointly designed and constructed this large adobe estate in a Spanish Colonial and Pueblo Revival style. The home is a cluster

Image Courtesy of Earl Eisenhower, Elsa J. Rector

of one—and two-story adobe structures, organically placed and rotated in relation to the streets. Supposedly, the floor plan was dictated by the desired interior furniture arrangement.

Around 1967, architect Bennie Gonzales, FAIA, purchased, renovated, and enlarged the home. He streamlined the aesthetics with larger windows, reworking all interior and exterior finishes, and added rooms and site walls. Gonzales lived there until the mid-1970s.

Recently, John Pappas acquired the residence and refurbished it with the assistance of architect Gene Kniaz. They wanted to restore, reconstruct, and rediscover the original features, details, and architectural character. This vision was reflected in simulating the original living area fireplace, unveiling a stair and wood-framed porch, adding a new detached casita, and upgrading the site’s landscaping. The transformation earned the project an Arizona Heritage Preservation Honor Award.

Image Courtesy of Mark Vinson, FAIA

A SAMPLING OF OTHER ROBERT T. EVANS PROJECTS: • 1925 La Casa Vieja/Charles Hayden house renovation, Tempe (remodeled) • 1929 Hacienda Alta, Phoenix (demolished) • 1929 Horace Newhall residence, Phoenix (demolished) • 1930 Rose Eisendrath residence, Tempe (restored) • c.1930s Mildred and Bertha Pringle residence, Paradise Valley • c.1930s Arizona Biltmore Hotel Swimming Pool & Facility, Phoenix (demolished) • 1933 Our Lady of Perpetual Help Mission Church, Scottsdale (restored) • 1935 Phoenix Homesteads Tract, Phoenix Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect + Associates, Inc., and author of four architecture books.

EIGHTY FOUR

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Above: A 1929 Caterpillar Model 10 tractor, 2024.

Below: A 1969 FMC Model 2000 Cascade tomato harvester, 2024.

DIGGING THROUGH THE ARCHIVES: HENRY FORD MUSEUM OF AMERICAN INNOVATION BILLY HORNER

M

y wife and I revisited the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation during our recent trip to Detroit. I remembered several exhibits from our previous visit, but this time, we explored more extensively and gained a deeper appreciation for Ford’s remarkable efforts and innovations.

Amidst Ford’s bustling auto production in the 1920s, he began collecting items from his favorite era, America’s great industrialist age. Initially stored at his Highland Park plant, these early acquisitions included small clocks and watches whose mechanical intricacies had fascinated him since his farm upbringing.

The inspiration for Ford’s museum came in 1916 during a legal dispute with the Chicago Tribune, which had labeled Ford “an anarchist” and “an ignorant idealist” in a series of articles, as noted on the museum’s webpage. Although Ford won the case and received a nominal sum of six cents, he did not believe that “history is bunk.” Instead, he criticized the type of history taught in schools for glorifying kings and generals while overlooking everyday people and their tools.

EIGHTY SIX

Over the next 13 years, Ford scoured the globe for artifacts, machinery, and inventions of the post-Civil War period, striking deals to secure rare items for a permanent display. He opened the new

museum on October 21, 1929, eight days before the Stock Market Crash.

The museum’s indoor collection features many themes, but we’ll focus on topics frequently discussed in Arizona Contractor & Community magazine, such as machinery, equipment, and neon.

Caterpillar Model 10: Introduced in 1925, this tracked machine revolutionized heavy-duty tasks with its ability to handle wet soil and tight spaces, using continuous tracks invented by Benjamin Holt in 1904.

(FMC) 2000 Cascade: This tomato harvester, which took nearly 30 years of

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

Images Courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

Left: A 1917-1918 Fordson tractor, 2024.

Above: A 1914 Allis-Chalmers 10-18 tractor, 2024.

Below: An 1870 Westinghouse Thresher Separator, 2024.

Bottom left: McDonald’s neon sign, 2024.

tinkering to perfect, was used from 1983 to 1990 by an Illinois farm family. It mechanized the challenging task of tomato harvesting, reducing labor and increasing efficiency.

Fordson: This tractor was instrumental in transitioning from draft animals to affordable fossil-fuel agriculture; its U.S. production ceased in 1928.

Allis-Chalmers 10-18: This 1914 threewheel tractor, known for its maneuverability, enabled sharp turns in fields, reflecting early efforts to improve the efficiency of internal combustion-powered machines.

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Westinghouse Thresher Separator: Built by George Westinghouse & Company around 1870, this portable combined thresher separator simplified the separation of kernels from straw and chaff during an era when most farmers couldn’t afford their own steam-powered threshers.

Walking through the 178,000-squarefoot building, visitors encounter two memorable food purveyors showcased within the Automobile in American Life exhibit. Lamy’s Diner, built in 1946 by the Worcester Lunch Car Company, serves historically accurate diner fare, which is not

reflected in the prices. Nearby, a life-sized McDonald’s franchise sign is brightly illuminated in original-style neon. Initially located in Madison Heights, Michigan, the McDonald’s sign shows visitors the scale of a once unfettered sign and neon creation that graced the American roadside.

Detroit has made significant strides in revitalizing itself, offering a welcoming environment for tourists and businesses. Beyond the Henry Ford Museum, the city boasts hidden gems like the Motown Museum, the Home of Hitsville U.S.A., and beautifully refurbished old brick buildings set against lush green scenery. While the weather during our visit was ideal for us Phoenicians, local Uber drivers noted the city’s vastly different winters.

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BID RESULTS SEPTEMBER OCTOBER 2024

BID AWARDS NOVEMBER DECEMBER 1989

(CMAR) Capitol Extension Sundt Companies 9/4/24 $60,000,000

Express Oil Tire Engineers Surprise Westmoreland Builders 9/12/24 $2,000,000

Residence Inn Cotton Center Phoenix NGC Group 9/26/24 $31,000,000

G&M Services, Phoenix $49,956 Waterline, Septic Work Supai Camp

Dam Drainage Parcel Wash Maintenance Top Leaf Tree Service 9/5/24 $392,500

Nobella Phase 1A Residential Rhino Contracting 9/12/24 $4,000,000

HWY 69 169 Roundabout Waterline Earth Resources Corporation 9/30/24 $914,381

Tri-Con, Tucson $35,945 Water Main Installation Davis Monthan

Fort Whipple Apartments Gorman & Company Inc 9/5/24 $16,000,000

Glendale 67th Ave AJP Electric 9/13/24 $441,768

Richards Street Alleys Waterline PAP 10/2/24 $340,461

Surface Contracting, Glendale $66,500 New Parking Lot Navy & Marine Corps Reserve Center

Lake Havasu McCulloch Blvd Jamaica Blvd Combs Construction Co. 9/6/24 $1,252,101

San Simon Santa Rosa Day School Phoenix Fabricators Erectors 9/18/24 $3,824,209

Off Streets Facility Refurbishment Concord General Contracting 10/3/24 $4,555,368

CS&W Contracting, Phoenix $286,269 Street Paving Van Buren St., 2nd- 7th St.

Harvest Station Queen Creek Campbell Development 10/3/24 $11,000,000

Pulice Const., Phoenix $1.23 Million New Storm Drain 31st Ave., Camelback- Maryland Ave.

State Route 95 Merrill Avenue Improvements Border Street Improvements Mountain States Contractors MSC Perco Rock Co. 9/19/24 9/6/24 $206,806 $3,334,273 Kingman Ash Fork Rancho Santa Fe Pulice Construction 9/6/24 $43,950,204

Sierra Sunset Sewer Repairs Gutierrez Canales Engineering GCE 9/19/24 $325,197

Pump Station Connectivity Granite Construction 10/4/24 $1,967,267

Carnes Const., Tucson $4.78 Million New Building Pima Community College

Ave 2E Co 15 1/2 Street DPE Construction Don Peterson Engineers 9/9/24 $370,000

Zone 41 Mingus Pump Station Tank Pipeline Technology Construction 9/19/24 $10,147,605

Nogales Tucson Hwy I19 Port Entry William Charles Construction 10/4/24 $6,194,028

The Tanner Co., Phoenix $99,099 Waste Water Treatment Plant Yuma County Board

4th Street Drainage Improvements Asphalt Paving & Supply 9/9/24 $549,206

State Route 95 Thunderstruck McCormick Construction 9/20/24 $348,359

Wickenburg Kingman FNF Construction 10/4/24 $48,750,981

Totem Const., Phoenix $1.07 Million Six-Lane Bowling Center U.S. Air Force

Lake Pleasant Parkway Improvements Haydon Companies 9/9/24 $75,500,000

Santa Cruz River Pedestrian Bridge KE&G Construction 9/25/24 $3,127,540

Hilton Dual Brand Tempo Homewood Suites Porter Brothers 10/10/24 $36,000,000

Sletten Const., Tempe $13.60 Million New Building for Tempe Tempe South Treatment Plant

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P. 9

Insurica 602-273-1625 insurica.com

P. 24

Reliable Portable Bathrooms P. 5 602-601-2222 reliableportablebathrooms.com

Vermeer Mountain West P. 38 480-785-4800 vermeermountainwest.com

Cemex 602-416-2652 cemexusa.com

P. 46

JS Cole 602-633-0990 jscole.com

P. 92-93

Reuter Fabrication 602-415-0449 reuterequipment.com

P. 9

Westroc 480-550-1815

P. 40

Core Machinery 800-989-7121 coremachinery.com

P. 28

KE&G 520-748-0188 kegtus.com

P. 7

RT Underground 602-622-6789

P. 11

WillScot 800-782-1500 willscot.com

P. 61

Curry Fluid Power 602-661-6596 curryfluidpower.com

P. 32

Keystone Concrete 480-835-1579 keystoneconcretellc.com

P. 6

S&S Paving 602-437-0818 sspaving.com

P. 77

WSM 623-936-3300 wsmauctioneers.com

P. 42

Curry Supply 800-345-2829 currysupply.com

P. 32

KinKaid Construction 480-646-4438 kinkaidcivil.com

P. 30

Salt River Materials 480-850-5757 srmaterials.com

P. 76

Custom Truck 602-527-4088 customtruck.com

P. 89

Landco Power 480-788-1333 landcorental.com

P. 11

Shanes Grading & Paving 602-992-2201 shanespaving.com

P. 26

DCS Contracting 480-732-9238 dcscontracting.com

P. 9

Lang, Thal, King & Hanson 480-534-4900 lang.law

P. 88

Shanes Hauling 602-992-2201 shanespaving.com

P. 28

DitchWitch 602-437-0351 ditchwitchwest.com

P. 91

Madco Rentals 480-280-0364 madcorentals.com

P. 64

Sharp Creek Contracting 602-437-3040 sharpcreek.com

P. 11

NINETY FOUR

FOR ADVERTISING INQUIRIES CONTACT BILLY HORNER 602-931-0069 | BILLY@ARIZCC.COM

NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2024

YOUR LOCAL SHORING SOLUTIONS PARTNER

Phoenix, Tucson and Prescott

(833) 384-1176

ALUMINUM HYDRAULIC SHORING | ALUMINUM HYDRAULIC MULTI-SHORES | ALUMINUM BUILD-A-BOX | STEEL FRAMED ALUMINUM SHIELDS | ALUMINUM END SHORES | TRENCH SHIELDS | MANHOLE BOXES | TRENCH BOX ACCESSORIES | STEEL CROSSING PLATES | CONCRETE BARRIER WALL | BLOWERS AND SIFTER SCREENS | CONFINED SPACE AND PIPE TESTING EQUIPMENT | CRANE TRUCK OR FLATBED DELIVERY AVAILABLE

PRSRT STD US Postage PAID Permit #1662 Phoenix, AZ

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602-276-2040

Providing Rentals and Service in AZ, since 1998

Frank Alvarez

Operations Manager O: 602-276-2040 C: 602-769-6725

Ryan King

Service Manager O: 602-276-2040 C: 480-356-1275

Jeff Hightower

franka@eccoequipment.com

ryank@eccoequipment.com

jeffh@eccoequipment.com

Outside Sales O: 602-276-2040 C: 602-725-1123