Volume 4 Issue 1
• Phoenix's "Towering" Confusion • "Psycho" Building's New Role • Karl Eller's Billboard Empire • Courtesy Chevy Turns 60 $4.99 Spring 2015 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community
• Tucson's Neon Heritage • Huber Road Maintainer • Gunsight's Doug Allen • "Refreshing" Buildings
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Spring 2015
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Salome - a small town with a zany history!
Publisher William Horner Billy@arizcc.com Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com Contributing Writers Kevin Bonner Robert Graham Roberta Graham Carlos Lozano Katie Mayer Karl G. Obergh Luke Snell Doug Sydnor Maureen E. Towne
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Scottsdale - great neighbors,terrific ambiance.
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Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now Printed at Lithotech Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, & winter). ACC is a professional publication designed for the contracting industry, engineers, architects, equipment rentals, suppliers, and others interested in Arizona and its history. Content including text, photographs or illustrations may not be reproduced without the written permission from the publisher. The publisher does not assume responsibility for unsolicited submissions. ACC reserves the right to reject any editorial and advertising material and reserves the right to edit all submitted content material. Arizona Contractor & Community Copyright © 2015 All rights reserved.
Four
Spring 2015
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Arizona Contractor & Community
Volume 4 Issue 1 Spring 2015
CONTENTS 8.
From The Editor: Towering Confusion Douglas Towne
10.
Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices
32.
Memorable Messages: Karl Eller’s Billboard Empire Douglas Towne
38.
Timeless Messages: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Tucson Neon Signs - Carlos Lozano
42.
“Psycho” Building Recast as Mixed-Use Development - Katie Mayer
47.
An Arizona Construction Family: Gunsight’s Doug Allen - Maureen E. Towne
50.
The Sign of Success: Courtesy Chevrolet Turns 60 Katie Mayer
56.
Architect’s Perspective : The Refresh Movement Doug Sydnor
58.
Digging Through the Archives: Adaptable Grader, The Huber Road Maintainer - William Horner
61.
Bid Results - Bidjudge
Front Cover The “skeleton” builidng in the opening of Psycho was that of the eight-story addition to the Bank of Douglas at First Avenue and Monroe Street. The addition was built over the existing two-story bank offices without halting business operations. The building was designed by Phoenix architect Charles Polacek and built by the Henry C. Beck Company. The Bank of Douglas later became the Arizona Bank. Story on Page 42.
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Spring 2015
Carlos Lozano
Maureen E. Towne
Doug Sydnor
Katie Mayer
Carlos Lozano
Maureen E. Towne
Article on page 38 Hometown - Chicago, IL. Hidden talent - Tai Chi. Comfort food - My homemade pizza. Favorite AZ town - Miami, AZ, an excellent example of "preservation by neglect." Three people you'd invite to dinner - Jesus, Darwin, and Elvis.
Article on page 47 Hometown - Phoenix but as a kid I went to school in South Dakota. Hidden talent - Rock climbing. Comfort food - Aside from chocolate, falafel. Favorite AZ town - Tucson, for its barrios and its authentic people. Three people you'd invite to dinner - My great-greatgrandmother Petronella Van Bezel, Icelandic artist Bjork, and film director Wes Anderson.
Doug Sydnor Article on page 56 Hometown - Born in Bremerton, WA, but moved to Phoenix at a very young age. Hidden talent - Sketching and drawing. Comfort food - Chicken tacos. Favorite AZ town Scottsdale for its aesthetics because of its progressive signage and landscape ordinances. Three people you'd invite to dinner - architect Louis Kahn, sculptor Henry Moore, and actress Meryl Streep.
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Katie Mayer Articles on page 42 & 50 Hometown - Huntington Beach, CA. Hidden talent - Table tennis. Comfort food - My grandmother's potato salad. Favorite AZ town - Jerome. I love its history, architecture, and culture. Three people you'd invite to dinner - Mark Twain, Marilyn Monroe, and any of my Irish or Italian ancestors. Arizona Contractor & Community
Eight
Spring 2015
From The Editor Towering Confusion Douglas Towne
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10-story Luhrs Building in 1924. Still, the Heard Building attracted a lot of fanfare, including being scaled by Bill Strother, the "Human Spider," who climbed the face of the structure and sat on top of the flagpole while reading a copy of the Arizona Republic in a publicity stunt in 1922. The building was capped with a huge KTAR radio tower in 1930 that has since been removed. Mr. Hitchcock himself might have mistaken the antennae-topped buildings for one another, since only a camera crew visited Phoenix to record the movie’s opening scene. Psycho was filmed at Universal Studios in Los Angeles and the highway footage of Leigh driving from Phoenix was shot in California on Highway 99 between Bakersfield and Fresno. So why did Hitchcock bother setting Psycho in Phoenix if the majority of the thriller was filmed in Southern California? “Phoenix seems to be a place where a director can stage a great murder, explosion or other crime,” Steve Weiss, Executive Director of No Festival Required Independent Cinema says. “Maybe it's because we have such nice weather, or that's it's always that great contradiction of wonderful weather and tragic outcome, but from Psycho to The Getaway [the remake] to David Lynch's TV drama, Hidden Palms, we're the go-to place for bad people doing bad things.” Clockwise from top left: Hotel San Carlos, 1961; the Jefferson Hotel, 1964; Westward Ho Hotel, 1970; Hotel Adams, 1962; Downtown Phoenix, 1957. Across: Janet Leigh in Psycho. Arizona Contractor & Community
Images courtesy of author
W
hile Phoenix will never be the Barrister Place building, was mistaken for Hollywood, recently sold by the city to P.B. Bell the Arizona capital has Companies and Davis Enterprises experienced its share of movie magic. which will retrofit the interior to One of the most noteworthy clips of include apartments and ground-level Phoenix cinema fame came in Alfred retail space (see story on page 42). Hitchcock’s Psycho, released in 1960. The San Carlos Hotel, which opened Ranked among the world’s greatest in 1928, continues to thrive as an films, the low-budget flick broke independent historic hostelry. After movie boundaries for violence, being vacant for over a decade, the deviant behavior, and sexuality. The 1931 Professional Building is being plot involves a secretary, played by rehabbed by CSM Lodging to reopen actress Janet Leigh, as a Phoenix Hilton who embezzles The Heard Building was hotel. The Adams money from her scaled by Bill Strother, Hotel, which was Phoenix employer after the the "Human Spider" rebuilt and flees to a distant original structure motel operated by the creepy was destroyed in a 1910 fire, was Norman Bates, portrayed by actor imploded in 1973. The Marriott Anthony Perkins. The subsequent Renaissance Phoenix Downtown gruesome murder of Leigh's hotel is now located at the site. character in the motel shower is one Some film enthusiasts think the of the most memorable scenes in building with the distinctive rooftop cinema history. antennae survives as the Westward After the opening credits, Psycho Ho, the former luxurious hotel built begins with its title dissolving into the in 1928 that now offers subsidized Phoenix skyline with Camelback housing for the elderly. But, contrary Mountain in the distance. The camera to popular belief, the Westward Ho slowly pans south, providing views of does not appear in Psycho…unless, of the San Carlos Hotel, the Professional course, you count remakes. The Building, the Adams Hotel, and a Westward Ho was featured in Gus building with a huge radio antenna Van Zant’s 2002 version of Psycho affixed to its roof. Finally the lens starring Anne Heche and Vince focuses through an open window on Vaughn. the fourth floor of the Jefferson The distinctive radio tower Hotel. There, Leigh and her boyfriend featured in Hitchcock’s classic was are concluding a clandestine the Heard Building, the first lunchtime rendezvous, discussing the “skyscraper” built in Phoenix. need to pay off his debts in order for Businessman Dwight B. Heard them to get married. financed its construction in 1920. Despite the many changes Soaring seven stories above street downtown Phoenix has undergone level on Central Avenue south of in the decades since this scene from Monroe Street, it towered over Psycho was filmed, fans of the Phoenix for a few years, as the 1920 Hitchcock movie are heartened to cotton bust temporarily halted work find that many of the buildings on other high-rises. The Heard captured in the film are still extant. Building, however, held the title of The Jefferson Hotel which was the city’s’ tallest building for only a completed in 1915 and later became short time; it was surpassed by the
Construction Around Arizona
Images courtesy of The Brown Group & Paul Markow
Construction Around Arizona
Projects ∙ Practices ∙ People
East Mesa to Blossom with Mulberry Marketplace
S
cottsdale-based retail developer Brown Group, Inc. recently announced plans to build Mulberry Marketplace on 17.7 acres of vacant land at the northwest corner of Guadalupe Road and Signal Butte Road in Mesa. The shopping center will feature a Fry’s Food & Drug, the third such Fry’s-anchored center the Brown Group, headed by partners Gary Brown and Todd Kjar, has developed in the last five years.
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Building is scheduled to begin in July, including site work, construction of a 123,419-square-feet Fry’s, and 12,000 square feet of shops. The site plan calls for 710 parking spaces and a Fry’s Fuel Center consisting of a gas canopy with nine fuel dispensers. Deals are in the works for the three pads available for ground lease. Two of the pads are designed for drive-through restaurants and the third is for a bank.
Plans are to open the center around May 2016, with no date yet on when Fry’s will open. Named for the nearby Mulberry residential development, Mulberry Marketplace will be filled with the type of service providers typically needed in a neighborhood center. “We hope to satisfy a consumer’s needs in a number of different areas with service tenants and restaurants,” Brown says. “We try to create a nice marketing mix of various tenants who complement one another.” The Brown Group has developed more than 6 million square feet of retail real estate, mostly in the West. Longtime friends of over 20 years, Kjar and Brown balance each other in business dealings. Todd is the dealmaker and Gary is the financier, though there is overlap. Likeminded, they believe in hard work and a conservative business model, with an emphasis on ethics and integrity. Asked to explain Brown Group’s success―through even challenging economic times―Kjar says, “We are always upfront and nurture our relationships. It’s the reason we do so much repeat business.”
Spring 2015
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