Winter 2017

Volume 6 Issue 4

$5.99 Winter 2017 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community. . .

● A "Courageous" Route 66 Pancake House

● Measuring Up: Southwestern Scale Celebrates 70 Years

● Phoenix's Alta Vista Subdivision and Shopping Center

● Mid-Century Design Bliss: Pierson Miller Ware

● New Windsor Hotel Offers Phoenix’s Oldest Lodgings

● The Rise and Fall (and rise?) Of metrocenter

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Publisher William Horner Billy@arizcc.com Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com

Protecting What Matters Most Property & Casualty | Consulting Services Claims Management | Human Resources Property Casualty | Employee Benefits Mentoring & Development | Surety Bonds

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Contributing Writers John Bueker Tom Gibbons Joe Jacquez Donna Reiner Luke Snell Doug Sydnor Production Manager Laura Harley Laura@arizcc.com Magazine Consultant Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com Publisher’s Representatives Tom Hogarty Tom@arizcc.com Rick Lafond Rick@arizcc.com Barry Warner Barry@arizcc.com Advertising 602-931-0069 Arizcc.com/advertise Visit us online at arizcc.com

Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community… Then & Now 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.

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Winter 2017

than the green pads used to scrub out kitchen pots. The website also notes that the company manufactured party dresses made out of the carpet material as a promotional item. greatly enjoyed the Fall 2017 issue of IArizona Contractor and Community magazine and its special issue coverage of Sunnyslope. Being born and raised in Sunnyslope, the photographs and articles brought back wonderful memories of my childhood. While looking at the inset picture of Victor Viking on the front cover, it reminded me of how the original statue came to be located at the high school. As we old-timers of Sunnyslope know, the current Victor Viking is not the original.

Our family friends, Renee and Walter Selinger, owned the carpet store, Carpetime, in Phoenix. In the mid-1970s, while I was in grade school, they purchased a competitor’s carpet business called Viking Carpets. Viking Carpets had a giant statue of a Viking in front of the store that was removed in the conversion to a Carpetime outlet.

When the Selingers were trying to determine what to do with the statue, one of their daughters remembered that their friends, my older sisters, went to Sunnyslope High School. The school’s mascot was a Viking. Renee and Walter called my mom, Angie Moody who was active in the Parents’ Association, and asked if she thought Sunnyslope High would want the Viking.

My mom contacted the high school administration, which was excited to receive the Viking as a gift. The Viking was erected and has been an icon of Sunnyslope ever since.

Right: The original Viking in front of Sunnyslope High School.

Jack Moody, Director of Water Resources Slater Hanifan Group Phoenix, Arizona Editor's Note: The Brandi Carpet Company in Glendale, Arizona, notes on their website that Viking Carpets was in business from the late 1960's to the mid-1970's. Their motto was, "Kitchen Carpets For People Who Don’t Like Carpet In The Kitchen.” The company had 20-foot-tall fiberglass Viking statues, which they installed at their stores.

The company eventually folded, in part, because their carpet material wasn’t comfortable. Their carpets were coarser www.Arizcc.com

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Meet the Staff

For Information Contact: Brad Cable (602) 415-0449 • Cell (602) 763-8039 Email: bradc@rec-reuter.com

ALL THE GEAR YOU NEED Hercrentals.com Call for rates and reservations Gilbert: 480-507-1680 Phoenix: 602-269-5931 Peoria: 623-760-0631 Tucson: 520-573-1344

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Donna Reiner - Writer Article on page 32

John Bueker - Writer Article on page 46

Donna Reiner was raised hearing the intriguing history of her family’s life in Asia from 1895 to the 1940s. When her Uncle Ben introduced her to the family genealogy at the age of 10, she was hooked. She did her research by reading and asking questions.

That early experience led to trying to solve historical mysteries, such as who built that structure, who lived and worked there, what else did that company do, and who are those people in that picture?

“In the olden days, I went through the painstaking chore of viewing microfilm and fiche, pouring through indices and bibliographies, and scribbling notes on pieces of paper,” she says. “Today, I praise the computer and its ability to find things quicker, although it does make mistakes and sometimes provides false leads.”

The digging remains a game for Donna, and she enjoys putting all the pieces together to create a story.

Occasionally, it takes several years to complete the puzzle, as more records and documents are digitized and readily available.

“Still, the life of a snoop-isn’t that what a historian is?--is never dull,” she says. “The next history adventure may be just around the corner.”

John Bueker was born in Detroit, MI but raised in Phoenix, where he experienced a rather sublime childhood that he has never entirely abandoned.

Something of an expert on mid-century Phoenix culture and history, John joined Arizona Contractor and Community as original staff in 2012 and specializes in writing about historic shopping centers, restaurants, housing subdivisions, amusement parks, and the like. He created and maintains a series of nostalgic websites (joandearc.com) that celebrate his favorite places growing up in the Phoenix area, including such iconic locales as Legend City, Chris-Town Mall, Westown Shopping Center, and the Copper Belle restaurant.

Arcadia Publishing published John’s book on the vanished Arizona theme park Legend City in 2014.

A former classroom teacher, John currently works as an instructional designer at Arizona State University. In addition to his interest in Phoenix history, John enjoys such pastimes as astronomy, Shakespeare, pop culture collectibles, and writing and performing music on his trusty Galanti vintage guitar.

John now lives in Glendale with his wife, Susan and assorted canines and felines.

When asked about his article on Metrocenter, John said he likes broccoli, but he’s not crazy about it.

Winter 2017

Volume 6 Issue 4

CONTENTS 10.

13.

30.

32.

37.

46.

50.

54.

56.

58.

60.

62.

From The Editor: New Windsor Hotel Offers Phoenix’s Oldest Lodgings - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona: Projects • People • Practices Back When: From Casa to Condos - Douglas Towne Jeanette E. Daley: More Than a Concrete Woman Donna Reiner, PhD Special Advertisement: Southwestern Scale Celebrates 70 Years The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) Of Metrocenter John Bueker A Fort by Any Other Name: Route 66’s “Courageous” Pancake House - Douglas Towne Building on the Past: 1952: Alta Vista Subdivision and Shopping Center - William Horner Architect’s Perspective: Pierson Miller Ware and Associates: Systems Coordination - Doug Sydnor, FAIA Digging Through the Archives: - William Horner Bid Results - Bidjudge ACC Advertisers’ Index

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G

uests down on their luck at the New Windsor Hotel can hold their heads high. Despite the hotel’s low-budget accommodations, the absentee owners spare no expense in maintaining its dazzling nighttime display.

A large vertical metal sign proclaims “New Windsor” in red neon at the sign’s apex and “HOTEL” in green neon lettering runs down along the front of the building.

A Moderne style canopy over the front door reinforces the hotel’s name in white neon, while the message “Air Cooled” dangles from beneath in cool, light blue neon like cold air trapped by a temperature inversion.

It’s easy to be whisked back to the 1930s while basking in the sign’s neon glow. But surprisingly, the New Windsor

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Hotel stretches even further back in time.

A.D. Walsh had the hotel built in 1893 at what was known as the Deats property at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Adams Street. He named the new Victorian building the Sixth Avenue Hotel though its address was 546 West Adams Street.

The 40-room hotel was touted as both the largest and neatest in Phoenix, offering

both suites and single rooms according to an 1893 article in the Arizona Republican.

"The hotel is as neat as a parlor throughout and is a decided improvement over the lodging houses in the city."

The hotel’s associated dining room was operated by “Misses Walsh,” who for many years had operated the Can Can Restaurant in Tombstone. The newspaper declared it had no doubt she would maintain her reputation "of keeping the best table in the territory." An Easter grand opening was to feature "the finest hotel dinner ever given in Phoenix."

The hotel ceased offering food service sometime after 1910, when a want ad appeared in the Republican stating “WANTED—Cook. One who understands meats and pastries. Call at once, Sixth Avenue Hotel.”

The two-story brick structure was renamed the Windsor Hotel in 1925. The name survives on the top of the east-facing

Winter 2017

the Egyptian Motor Hotel, and the Friendship Inn Motel, once an Imperial 400 Motel.

The hotel’s residents and other fans certainly hope the New Windsor Hotel remains part of the Downtown Phoenix landscape.

“So many people stop by to take a picture,” explains Larry, as if weary of all the attention. “We just recently had the neon signs fixed again after some storm damage.”

Opposite page, top: Windsor Hotel, 1940.

Opposite page, bottom: New Windsor Hotel 1970s.

This page: New Windsor Hotel canopy.

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Images courtesy of Author

brick wall as a faint ghost sign, painted in black, along with the critical phrase, “air cooled.”

Remodeling in 1935 added a third story to the building, along with a stucco facade on the south and west walls.

In the 1950s, the business gained its present name, the New Windsor Hotel. The tan building with turquoise highlights made the National Register in 1985, and it remains the only 19th-century hotel still in operation in Phoenix.

Today, the hotel’s clientele are mainly elderly residents who rent rooms that offer the bare necessities. The 70 rooms are rented on a nightly, weekly or monthly basis. "We use about 15 of the rooms for storage," says Larry, the afternoon desk clerk. "We also have a few more rooms located next door to the east in what we call the hotel annex."

Businesses such as the New Windsor Hotel are known as single room occupancy (SRO) hotels in which tenants commonly share bathrooms and kitchens and were once common in downtown Phoenix.

There were 36 SROs downtown offering affordable housing for low-income residents in the early 1970s according to a 1985 Arizona Republic article. With the area’s soaring real estate prices, SROs have been closed and razed, leaving few housing options for their clientele.

Will the New Windsor Hotel follow this trend? Probably not according to Beatrice Moore, who coordinates the nearby Grand Avenue Festival. “I get the impression that helping people get back on their feet was part of his [Larry Dollins] mission,” she says. Dollins, who lives in Chicago, also owns the nearby Las Palmas Inn, formerly

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Luxury Student Housing “RISES” in Tempe Douglas Towne

S

hepley Bulfinch, a national architectural firm, has completed a new luxury student residence building in Tempe for Chicago-based CA Ventures and its student housing investment and development division, CA Student Living.

RISE on Apache is a 15-story, 640,000 square-feet mixed-use student housing complex, located on the corner of Apache

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Boulevard and Rural Road, across the street from ASU. Opening in September for the 2017 academic year, RISE on Apache offers an amenity-rich, off-campus housing experience for 833 ASU students. The complex features a rooftop deck with a swimming pool, a 10th-floor sports deck with grills, fire pits and games; and the fifth floor features a theater room and outdoor study area.

Apartments at RISE on Apache include a mix of studio, one-bedroom, twobedroom, and four-bedroom floor plans, ranging in size from 322 to 1,359 squarefeet and offering a private bathroom for

every bedroom. Each apartment features designer furniture, wood-grain flooring, modern kitchens with stainless steel appliances and granite countertops, flat screen televisions, and in-unit laundry.

The general contractor was Beal Derkenne, a firm based in Des Moines, Iowa and founded by Andrew Beal and Michael Derkenne in 2010. The company previously built The Hub, a 19-story student housing building across from ASU in 2013.

Siting the large building, one of the tallest in Tempe, within the small property footprint and to scaling its size to neighboring buildings was a design

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Winter 2017

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“Shepley Bulfinch’s design for RISE on Apache creates an impeccable livinglearning environment that supports productivity, promotes health and well-

being, and fosters community connectivity in an enjoyable atmosphere,” says J.J. Smith, president, CA Student Living.

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challenge. RISE on Apache was built on a vacant lot next to another student-housing complex, 922 Place. An office building occupied the site since the 1960s, but was demolished several years ago after a fire.

Stepped-back massing achieves this by making ten floors visible from the street and increasing five additional floors of the building beyond street view. Concrete floor plates extend out past the building envelope to shade the building's southfacing facade from solar heat. Concrete and exposed ceilings carry through the entry to create an urban feel.

The exterior of the distinctive building features rust-hued metal panels interspersed in vertical stripes against light-finished concrete panels, creating a balanced and modern look. Along with 384 residential units, the building has three ground-floor retail spaces to engage the street and a four-story parking structure and surface lot with a total of 414 parking spots.

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Douglas Towne

T

he orange Aztec pyramid on Central Avenue is no more. Phoenix’s flagship Macayo’s Mexican Kitchen closed and was subsequently razed earlier this year. The restaurant at 4001 North Central Avenue opened in 1952; its distinctive pyramid-like façade was added later.

In its place, Alta Central is arising, a 225-unit apartment complex on 3.3 acres at the northeast corner of Central and Indianola avenues in the Phoenix Midtown Transit Oriented Development District.

Wood Partners, an Atlanta-based developer, is building the new five-story complex, which will feature ground entrances facing both Central and Indianola. Residential units will surround an internal parking garage. Construction will be complete by summer 2018.

Macayo’s initiated the move, with the thought that the apartments will bring new energy to midtown Phoenix. The restaurant was originally slated to relocate to the south into a refitted automotive garage that housed Toyowest Automotive, Inc. The adaptive reuse project sought to keep some of the elements of the garage.

The Mexican restaurant will, however, now be moving into the former location of Fez

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restaurant at 3815 North Central Avenue.

The Mexican restaurant’s historical sign will be allowed to accompany them on the move. "They will be filing a new sign variance application since it’s going to a different location on Central Avenue than anticipated,” Michelle Dodds, Phoenix historic preservation officer, says.

The Mexican restaurant is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. Woody and Victoria Johnson started the eatery as Woody’s El Nido with only six tables at 37 West McDowell in 1946. Woody was the cook, while Vicki ran the restaurant.

Macayo’s now has more than 1,100

employees at 13 locations including two in Las Vegas, and a line of Mexican food products in stores.

Johnson's daughter, Sharisse, and two sons, Gary and Stephen, currently operate the company. Woody died in 1999 and Vicki in 2011. "Every family has their secrets – ours just happen to be recipes,” notes their website.

Images courtesy of Author

Alta Apartments Replace Historic Macayo’s

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Winter 2017

Tom Gibbons

B

Images courtesy of Author

ack in the day, the people who worked at 8307 West Washington Street in Peoria used water to put out fires.

Now the people who work there make firewater.

And the city of Peoria hopes the place can provide a spark for making its downtown a destination.

The Lucidi Distilling Company took over the city’s first firehouse and opened early in 2015. The business primarily makes spirits. At the front of the building is a bar and restaurant. Lucidi Distilling is the success story in the latest phase of Peoria’s attempt to revitalize its downtown, or “Old Town,” as the city refers to it.

Since the turn of the 21st century, the city has invested more than $60 million in projects in downtown Peoria, including

Projects

building a community center, a performing arts center, and renovating a park.

“There’s been little private investment in the area,” said Chris Jacques, planning director for the city. “What the city did a couple years ago is it took a different approach.” The city came up with a “block strategy,” buying up properties in a oneblock area bounded by Washington Street to the north, Jefferson Street to the south, 83rd Avenue to the west and 83rd Drive to the east.

“We’re trying to assemble properties and intervene directly into the market,” Jacques said. “Some of the properties had some buildings that were not historic and were in poor condition. We did raze a few buildings.”

The vacant lots represent a blank canvas.

“What the city is trying to do through this land-assembly process is to try to understand what the market will bear in this area,” Jacques said. “We think the area has good bones. It’s where the city got its historic start. It’s very walkable. We do have events there. There’s just not a lot of private investment down there.”

The city has hired the consulting firm Michael Baker International for $146,450.

Jacques said the consulting firm has two main tasks. The first is to find the best use for the properties that the city controls as well as other properties nearby.

“If there is not a market today that at least gives us some information on some interim uses that might be appropriate

Construction Around Arizona

Peoria Hopes Distillery First Step in a Spirited Revitalization of Historic Core

until there’s a market acceptance for the type of uses we’d want down there,’’ Jacques said.

Michael Baker International is still working on that analysis, Jacques said.

The second part is to create a brand for Old Town. “Identify place-making elements for Old Town, like better signage, stylized signage, all the different things – everything from light standards to landscaping to pavers that give an area character,” Jacques said.

Around the corner on Grand Avenue is a shopping center with a big-box store.

All the stores are vacant with the windows and doors boarded up. That presents a challenge. “I think it feeds the perception that Old Town is a little downcast,” Jacques said. “I think it probably feeds the perception that the area is not a safe area, though that’s not what the data show.”

On a September afternoon, downtown Peoria appears sleepy, not dangerous. There is virtually no vehicle traffic on the street and the sidewalks are completely empty.

Jacques said there already has been some commercial interest in the area, including a couple inquiries from parties interested in opening coffee shops, the lifeblood of any revitalized urban space.

And there’s the distillery in the old fire station.

Chris Lucidi was shown several buildings by the city’s economic development Top right: Peoria Old Town banner.

Left: Firehouse restaurant and beverage signboard.

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Winter 2017

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Image courtesy of Author

team. “I came to the conclusion that they wanted to build something to jump start Old Town,” he said. “So I did.”

Lucidi saw the potential for the fire house. “I thought the building was worth saving.”

The primary business is making whiskey, rum, vodka and other spirits. That’s in the back. In the front is the tasting room.

The last thing he wanted to do was to run a restaurant. “My family’s had 19 restaurants,” Lucidi said. “I hate restaurants. I grew up in them. I had a mother and a father who worked seven days a week.”

But recently he opened a kitchen to help with the walk-in crowd.

Lucidi said the city streamlined the review process. “I brought in my engineers, my architect, got my stamps, and we did an over-the-counter review in about an hour and 15 minutes,’’ he said.

Lucidi stripped the building down to the original bricks. He kept the firehouse doors, but put glass in the panels. The interior is full of firefighting memorabilia.

The building was originally a movie theater, built around 1920. It later became the fire station, for a volunteer fire department. According to the firefighters union website, Peoria did not have professional firefighters until 1980.

With a population of more 160,000 today, according to U.S. Census estimates, it is easy to forget that Peoria was a small town until relatively recently.

Peoria traces its roots to a young engineer from Illinois named William J. Murphy, who oversaw the building of the Arizona Canal. After completing the irriga-

tion project, Murphy was paid in land instead of cash. He went back to his home state and persuaded folks from the Illinois city of Peoria to buy some of his land and settle there in 1886.

The town was not incorporated until 1954. Peoria did not exceed 5,000 residents until the 1970s. It grew to 50,000 in 1990, and the city not only expanded in population but in size. At the time of incorporation, Peoria was about a mile square. Now it stretches 28 miles from north to south.

And this is one of the challenges with downtown Peoria, and other municipalities in the Phoenix area: the downtown is not anywhere near the center to the city. In Peoria’s case, it is near the south end. If there is a city center it is the area around

the Peoria Sports Complex near the 101 freeway and Bell Road, about 4 miles north. The neighborhood there has a spring training baseball facility, an ice rink, restaurants, and bars.

“For Old Town to really happen, you need, well, I will call it game-changer land use,” Jacques said. “You need a destination that will drive traffic.

“We don’t want to have a north Peoria and a south Peoria,” Jacques said. “Basically we are trying to have a personality of ‘this is the historic core.’ That’s part of the challenge is to get people who are quite a distance from Old Town to come to Old Town.

“You don’t have a lot of areas in the Valley, and in the West Valley in particular, that are walkable,” he added. “I think people are looking for something a little different.”

Megan Campbell, 24, was looking for something different when she first visited the Lucidi Distilling Company with a friend on a Groupon deal shortly after it opened.

She enjoyed the experience enough to become a bartender.

“We get a little bit of a local crowd now that we have food,” she said. “But for the most part people seek out local distilleries. So we get quite a few out-of-towners.”

The city hopes the out-of-towners in the near future will have more businesses to visit as well.

Top right: A former hotel in downtown Peoria.

Left: The intersection of Peoria, Grand and 83rd avenues, 1970s.

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Tempe’s University Square Construction Rises to Challenges Joe Jacquez

I

east, Myrtle Avenue to the west and Seventh Street to the north.

The complex will consist of two towers. The first will be 20 stories, the second will top out at 12 stories with studio, one- and two-bedroom units. The first four stories of the second tower will be wrapped around by 22 walk-up city homes and flats. Finally, it will feature more than 31,000 square feet for restaurants and retail businesses along University Drive and Seventh Street.

Amenities will include a shared fifthfloor deck between the two towers, a resort-style swimming pool, and an area for grilling and outdoor lounge areas with cabanas and fire pits. A fitness center, dog

walk, a bike workroom featuring space for 450-plus bikes, and 350-plus public parking stalls are also part of the final plans.

Individual housing units will include 9-foot ceilings, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, cabinetry, and private balconies.

Sundt Project Executive Garren Echols said embarking on this project was basically a no-brainer. “Investing in our communities is always a good idea,” he said.

The project is expected to generate $450 million for the city and create more than 600 jobs in Tempe, according to city economic development officials. In addition, the project is expected to generate $50 million in net new property tax reve-

Images courtesy of Author

n October 2016, nearly an entire city block on the northwest corner of University Drive and Forest Avenue in Tempe was just a surface parking lot.

By the next month, construction had begun on a project aimed at turning the parking lot into a residential and business mixed-use development complex. A year later, and a hot summer of record-breaking high temps in between, the project is on schedule to be completed in July 2018.

Opus Development Company, LLC, the project’s developer, had submitted plans to city officials in May 2015 for what is called in at least one city document the University Square Mixed Use Development.

“Upon completion, the project will offer residents a central location that is walking distance to downtown Tempe and the ASU campus, along with upscale amenities and retail tenants that will complement the residential community,” said Opus Senior Vice President and General Manager Larry Pobuda.

The 407-unit complex at 110 East University Drive is a partnership between Opus, Tempe-based Sundt Construction, Inc. and the city of Tempe.

The site is considered block 14 of the Tempe subdivision and the 1,150,000 square-foot area is bounded by University Drive to the south, Forest Avenue to the

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nue, of which the city share would amount to $8 million.

Echols said the project is on schedule, but that does not mean Sundt has not experienced obstacles during the process.

With students walking to school and cars passing by, between 300 to 400 workers move parts, ride up and down an elevator with their hard hats and work boots, and perform activities such as nailing in a wall and installing an electrical system — during an Arizona summer in which temperatures hovered near 120 degrees some days.

“It was hot, even hotter on the concrete formwork decks, but our teams worked diligently to mitigate its impact on our people and the project’s production,” Echols said. “We adjusted shifts, cycled crews, provided cooled break areas, and actively watched each other for signs of heat-related impacts. We are proud that as a team we were able to work through this with minimal effect.”

The record heat was not the only obstacle Sundt had to deal with this summer – in fact – Echols said, finding an adequate number of people to work during the summer might have proved just as difficult.

But sticking to the guiding principles of Sundt, he said, helped mitigate this issue.

“The craft labor shortage has been a challenge and a real risk in the market to maintain the project’s trajectory,” Echols said. “We have been successful through advanced planning and getting labor commitments early. Additionally, we pride our culture of being ‘Built on Purpose,’ on continuous learning, and our employee-owned structure in attracting the very best.”

Besides labor and weather factors to consider, Echols said there is always some level of uncertainty when working on an urban site. But Echols said Sundt spent a lot of time thinking about logistics, modeling site geometry and making sure they were responsive to changing conditions.

Echols said this helped keep the project’s utilities on schedule.

“Soil conditions proved to be less desirable than anticipated during drilling excavations as cobble raveled into the hole creating larger caissons than needed,” Echols said. “This, in turn, increasing the quantity of soil needed to be loaded and hauled from the site.

“We, in turn, came up with several mitigating strategies to hold the project schedule, including resequencing the project’s south podium.”

Echols said technology played a big role.

“The project’s primary systems were designed virtually (computer modeled), constructed in a warehouse and have been shipped to the building for ‘assembly’,” he said.

The project is scheduled to finish in July 2018. Through it all, Echols said he knows keeping the project on schedule requires a team effort.

The current project is one of a long line of projects done by Sundt in the Downtown Tempe area. “The relationship that has been built between Sundt, Opus, the city of Tempe and our trade partners is one of a kind,” Echols said.

As far as what people have asked the most as they pass by the construction site?

“What are you building?” Echols said.

Arizona contractor & Community

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People Construction Around Arizona Image courtesy of Author

Legacy of Phoenix’s Agricultural Past Given Update Douglas Towne

I

rrigation systems, a remnant of the Valley's rich agricultural history, have been in place for more than a century, when hundreds of farms grew a wide variety of crops. Over recent decades, most agricultural lands have been converted to subdivisions, but some residential properties still receive irrigation water, especially in the North Central and Arcadia neighborhoods.

Most of the irrigation water comes from the Salt and Verde rivers, which are impounded by six dams. The first and largest, Roosevelt Dam, was completed in 1911. Water released from the dams flows to Granite Reef Diversion Dam where it is diverted into a network of Salt River Project canals and laterals.

Delivery of irrigation water to residential yards is handled by zanjeros, Spanish for “ditch rider.” Zanjeros are recognized by their white rubber boots, which help keep their feet dry and cool.

The job entails crazy hours, the stress of

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keeping homes from being flooded, and unpredictable neighborhood encounters.

Technology has recently made zanjeros’ lives easier when tracking irrigation water running to multiple residences. “When I first got into the profession, we would track homes receiving water using paper maps we highlighted,” says Michael Sloan of Solutions Irrigation. “This was a lot more efficient than just driving around in circles and looking at each yard.”

Sloan highlighted maps for years and then started to chart the watering times of each yard for use on the next irrigation run.

“With the technology available, I came up with a mapping system that tracks irrigation for properties down to the second and in real time,” he says. The program also monitors the Salt River Project gate that provides the water to the neighborhood so we can adjust our water orders.”

The program also stores information on how to irrigate each property, with multiple images of entry points, valve locations, gate/slide locations, and fill points, and sends an alert when the average watering time of a property is exceeded. “We can send this information via email to any water customer,” Sloan adds.

The first year Sloan used the mapping system, his company was able to save a Water Delivery District, from mid-April to December, 8.3 acre-feet of water. “That is 2.7 million gallons of water, which translates to a free 32-hour irrigation run for the district,” he says. “We saved them money and saved SRP wasted water that we didn't use.”

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www. Diamondbackmaterials.com Twenty eight

Winter 2017

T

his article is the second of a two-part installment on how concrete cylinders are used on the job site. It explores how field-cured cylinders should be made, stored on the job site, and how to use the results of this test. The first installment (see Fall 2017 issue) examined laboratorycured cylinders.

While concrete strength is influenced by many factors, the concrete and air temperatures are important elements.

Contractors need to have an idea of the strength of the concrete at its early stages so they know when they can remove the forms. Many contractors on small jobs remove the forms within two days if the air temperature is hot. If the air temperature is cold, they wait for 3-7 days before they remove forms.

On complex projects, a more exact process is required. Formwork that is removed too early can cause damage to the concrete and result in expensive repairs. Late removal of the formwork is an unnecessary delay. Thus, the contractor needs a procedure to help identify when formwork can be removed.

Why make field-cured cylinders?

The Building Code (ACI 318-14) provides a procedure that many contractors follow. It states that for formwork removal, the estimate of the in-place strength shall be based on field-cured cylinders. It allows for other methods of determining when the strength of the concrete is adequate for form removal. However, the field-cured cylinder is the method that is commonly used by the contractor.

How often are cylinders made?

Field-cured cylinders should always be done in conjunction with laboratory-cured cylinders from the same concrete in the wheelbarrow.

Who makes the cylinders?

Technicians who have a current ACI Field Grade I Certification make the cylinders.

They are required to follow an exact procedure that is given in ASTM C31.

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1. Field-cured cylinders are stored in or on the structure as near to where the concrete was poured in the forms.

2. Field-cured cylinders are protected in the same way as the concrete.

3. Field-cured cylinders receive the same temperature and moisture conditions as the concrete.

4. Field-cured cylinders are removed from their molds at the same time the framework is removed.

5. Field-cured cylinders are tested in the same moisture condition as the structure.

Practices

ments for form removal, then the contractor can be reasonably assured that the concrete in the structure is stronger and the form removal can safely proceed.

Construction Around Arizona

By Luke M. Snell

Why is following this procedure relevant?

These methods were developed so that a concrete cylinder tested in Arizona, Hawaii, and Alaska all follow (or should have followed) the same procedures.

The previous article detailed how to make laboratory-cured cylinders. Field cured cylinders are made the same way but are cured differently. Some key points in this process are:

A final caution on using field cured cylinders.

The correct use of field-cured cylinders depends on theses cylinders receiving the same curing conditions as the concrete in the structure. On one project, the fieldcured cylinders were stored at the job site in a trailer at a much higher temperature than the concrete in the structure. After testing these cylinders, the approval to remove the concrete forms was given.

However, since the concrete in the structure was much colder, it had not reached sufficient strength. The formwork collapsed with the loss of several lives. Thus, it is critical to make sure that the fieldcured cylinders are receiving the same protection and moisture conditions as the concrete in the structure.

When are field-cured cylinders tested?

The field-cured cylinders are typically tested earlier than the laboratory-cured cylinders, usually between 3 and 14 days.

These cylinders are to determine if the concrete has reached the required strength so that the forms can be removed.

The contractor may need to make several sets of cylinders. If the first test shows that the desired strength has not been achieved, a second set of cylinders may be needed.

Does the field-cured cylinder measure the strength of the concrete in the structure?

Although the field-cured cylinder has as close to the curing condition of the concrete in the form structure, it still doesn’t provide a complete picture. When cement and water combine in the concrete mixture, there is a chemical reaction that gives off heat. The concrete in the structure is much more massive than the concrete in the cylinders. Thus, the concrete in the structure is hotter, will set faster and as a result will have higher early strength compared to the concrete in the field-cured cylinders.

This characteristic is one reason to use field-cured cylinders, as they typically underestimate the strength of the concrete in the structure. If the field-cured cylinders test result exceeds the require-

Image courtesy of Author

The Field-Cured Concrete Cylinder

Arizona contractor & Community

Back When I

n a scene that would frequently be replayed, one of Phoenix's most noteworthy houses was razed in 1956 to create condos, or apartment homes, as they were then called. The demolished residence was Casa Blanca, built in 1903 for Dwight and Maie Heard, who created the Heard Museum on

Images courtesy of

& Arizona Contractor

ine Community magaz

adjacent land to display their collection of Native American art.

What arose at 2201 North Central Avenue is now a mid-century landmark. The $2.5 million, 14-floor Phoenix Towers became the city’s second tallest building when completed by the Del E. Webb Construction Company in 1957. Chicago architect Ralph C. Harris designed the soaring X-shaped residential building with pink block exterior façade and two large charcoal gray panels. Two of the four wings

From Casa to Condos Douglas Towne were larger, giving the impression of two separate towers. Bert M. Thorud of Phoenix was the supervising architect, and Acme Materials supplied the concrete for the reinforced cantilevered floor slabs and columns.

The 67 living spaces were initially priced from $30,000 to $58,000 and included servant’s dressing rooms and the services of a doorman, engineer, and gardener. The two-acre complex featured a 120-vehicle underground parking garage, two-story cabanas, swimming pool, ninehole putting green, and four shuffleboard courts.

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Arizona contractor & Community

Jeanette E. Daley: More Than a Concrete Woman Donna Reiner, PhD

Dump truck fleet at the Acme Materials plant in 1952; their tires were supplied by the Denton Tire Company.

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

F

The new rail spur in front of batch plant and mixers at Acme Materials, 1952.

Thirty two

inding historical elements in my neighborhood entices further exploration. One such feature, a concrete stamp, “Daley Corporation, 1937, has led to a nearly a decade-long search to learn about the company that poured most of the driveways and curbs in my historic district.

Initially, I discovered little about the Daley Corporation. The names Jeanette and George Daley were associated with the company, they had a Phoenix residence on East Willetta Street in 1938, and an office south of the Salt River. My research languished, but my curiosity did not abate, particularly when I found variations of the Daley Corporation concrete stamp across Phoenix.

Winter 2017

Eventually, I discovered a much richer history than I ever anticipated.

George Robert Daley was born in California in 1884 and listed himself as a farmer when he registered for the World War I draft in 1918. He might have been working with his father, who was also a farmer. Soon after registration, Daley started a small contracting business in San Diego. His part-time bookkeeper was Jeanette E. Moses, born in 1895, who came from a family of 11 children raised in a small town in North Carolina near Asheville.

Jeanette moved to Asheville at age 14 to live with an uncle and worked as a domestic servant for $1 per week. After a year, she moved to California where it took her almost a year's work to pay back the $57 fare to get out west. Finding a job with www.Arizcc.com

the telephone company in 1913, Jeanette was later promoted to chief operator and troubleshooter in Calexico, which she said, occasionally meant "shinnying up poles" to fix problems. She also worked nights for Western Union.

Much like you see in the movies, Jeanette joined George Daley’s business venture in 1918 and then married him a year later. She remained secretary-treasurer of the Daley Corporation until 1945.

It was this combination of strengths and wills that built the company in Southern California. The Daley Corporation won government contracts to pour concrete airport runways and construct roads. The latter activity probably led to the company’s presence in Arizona where there was enough construction work, despite the

Great Depression, to attract firms from neighboring states.

The Daley Corporation applied for a permit from the Arizona Corporation Commission to do business in the state in 1933.

The company bid on a road construction project as early as 1934, but their first successful Arizona contract appears to be the Fort Huachuca-Bisbee Highway Southern Pacific Overpass in 1935.

In 1937, the City of Phoenix awarded Daley Construction what was touted to be “the biggest street improvement job…since the Depression.” The job was for a 30-block area, including my neighborhood.

These successful Arizona bids encouraged the company to open an office in Phoenix and the Daley’s purchased a home Arizona contractor & Community

unity magazine ntractor & Comm

years later, the company’s name changed to Daley Construction-Acme Materials Company. Coincidentally, Tulloch moved to San Diego and worked with the Daley Corporation.

The Daley Construction-Acme Materials Company completed major projects throughout Arizona, including these in 1950: ● excavation and concrete work on the spillway to allow the installation of new floodgates on Horseshoe Dam on the Verde River,

Images courte

sy of Arizona Co

in Phoenix. Their office near 16th Street and the Salt River included the firm’s paving and general contracting buildings and a sand and gravel pit for producing concrete. The couple maintained their San Diego home and office.

In an article in the Arizona Republic, Jeanette described herself as having “sand in her shoes and dust in her hair,” but she also had an interest in politics. Running as a Democrat, she defeated the incumbent Republican Assemblyman in California’s 78th District representing San Diego, becoming one of two assemblywomen in the state legislature in 1936. She served six years and, in 1944, unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for Congress.

Jeanette and George divorced in 1944, and she acquired the company’s Arizona holdings. Along with Thomas P. Tulloch, she formed the Daley-Tulloch Construction Company on December 29, 1944. Two

● a concrete apron in front of Sky Harbor’s new control tower, and ● installation of curbs and gutters for the South Central Avenue Improvement District from the Central Avenue Bridge to Southern Avenue.

Jeanette was instrumental in encouraging Southern Pacific to build a railroad spur south of downtown Phoenix to four major concrete firms in 1952 (see related article on page 54). Her company separated into Acme Materials (which later became the Phoenix Concrete Company) and Daley Construction Company in December 1953. A year before this separation, Jeanette had incorporated the Daley Equipment Company. She later operated

Images courtesy of Author

Top left: Daley Caterpillar #112 blade at Luke Air Force Base, 1951.

Top right: Acme Materials Company advertisement, early 1950s.

Right: Jeanette Daley leans out of locomotive at the railroad spur at Acme Materials, 1952.

Below: Curb stamp, 1948.

Opposite page, top left: Daley Tulloch Construction Company curb stamp, 1947.

Thirty four

Winter 2017

Image courtesy of Author

the Clover Leaf Ranch in the Verde Valley and the Daley Investment Company, created in 1958.

But what was Jeanette Daley, a woman who managed more than 200 men in an almost exclusively male field, like?

One reporter described Jeanette as a “onewoman-dynamo," while she herself used the label “petticoat boss.”

“She enjoys activities on a large or vigorous scale, but becomes impatient when involved with trivial details,” noted Arizona Builder and Contractor magazine in a 1949 profile. Jeanette revealed her hobbies as sewing and poker. Her seamstress skills were displayed on a dress she designed called “Engineering in Cloth,” which was a formal gown featuring a parade of construction machines in miniature.

As for poker, she commented, “The kick I get from gambling, after all, isn’t hard to understand—the contracting game, for instance, is a matter of constant risks. You gamble to get a contract, gamble that you can complete it by a certain time, and gamble that you will make money on the job.”

In the interview, Jeanette said that she has always been accepted by the men in the industry, saying, “I can talk their language, meet them on their own ground, and play poker with the best of them.” As for being a woman, she noted, “My rule in all these endeavors is to be certain that I never do anything that would operate to the detriment of those women who are bound to follow me.”

Reflecting on her years in the construction industry, during a period of transition from using horses and wagons to mechanized equipment, illustrated a significant point, she said. “In business, you must adapt to changing times. The only alternative is that of being left far behind in the race.”

Jeanette also noted, “Then, too, to succeed in business today, one must have

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two Philadelphia lawyers in one pocket and a certified public accountant’s certificate in the other.” Although she contemplated practicing law, she “determined long ago that it is much better to know how to stay out of trouble than it is to attempt getting out of trouble, after having made an illconsidered move.”

Jeanette was also a community advocate with unbounded energy and charm who supported many charitable organizations. While never having children of her own, she took in more than 30 foster

children and, through the Phoenix Soroptimist Club, helped create the Girls Ranch of Arizona. Jeanette donated her Scottsdale house, which she dubbed “El Rancho Sueño,” in 1959 as an additional facility to house young girls who needed a safe place to live.

She then moved to central Phoenix.

Jeanette Daley died in her home in Phoenix Towers in November 1960. But she and her companies continue to have a lasting imprint in Arizona, especially in neighborhoods like mine.

Arizona contractor & Community

CONGRATULATIONS SOUTHWESTERN SCALE ON 70 YEARS IN BUSINESS Speciality Companies Group, LLC God Bless You

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Thirty six

(623) 582-2385 • (623) 581-7454 fax specialtycompaniesgroup.com

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Winter 2017

- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

Southwestern Scale Celebrates 70 Years

Construction of a scale foundation led by Construction Foreman Andy Akins, late 1950s.

I

n Ben Franklin's famous quote, "Nothing in this world is certain except for death and taxes," the famous American statesman overlooked another inevitable certainty: In any economy, everything gets weighed, sometimes multiple times.

Fortunately, there is Southwestern Scale Company Inc. to assist in this endeavor. A fixture in the Valley since 1948, the company still measures up as they celebrate their 70th anniversary. “If Southwestern Scale supplies your scale equipment, you have our assurance that it’s going to be accurate, precise, and have longevity,” declares Mark Murdza, the company’s director of business and sales.

Murdza weighs the evidence and is justifiably proud of how many industries

are aided by equipment from Southwestern Scale. “Whether it is for commercial trade, production control, quality assurance, or safety purposes, everything gets weighed somewhere between cradle and grave,” he says. “This occurs with textiles, agricultural items, mined materials or otherwise.”

Scales and weighing systems are used for a multitude of purposes, including assuring the value of goods for sale, product quality, process control, safety, process efficiency, and inventory management. By providing the weighing equipment and ensuring its accuracy, Southwestern Scale has long supported companies that are producing goods and materials that drive the regional economy.

These industries encompass chemical, farming, food, industrial, laboratory, livestock, mining, railroad, recycling, sand and gravel, distribution, and waste.

The company’s sales personnel engage their customers in a consultative perspective assuring to understand the application and purpose of the weighing equipment, providing solutions that meet their needs. “Being your value-added solutions provider is our goal; our solutions are the key to your success,” Murdza says.

Southwestern Scale is at the forefront of the evolution of weighing solutions. The purposes for scales have evolved, the types of applications and requirements have escalated, and technology provided the opportunity to deliver capabilities that

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years were previously unavailable, on an exponential level according to Murdza. “We are proud of that history,” he says. “We feel as though the company has played an important part in the evolution of the economy.”

The company’s business focus is Arizona and neighboring states, but they have expanded to serve customers across the nation. Their expertise, however, is such that they’ve recently sold their products in Canada, Mexico, and, through a partner in Melbourne, Australia, into Morocco, Kazakhstan, and Namibia. “We out-competed Chinese companies for those jobs,” Murdza crows. “We’re trying to maintain the company’s long-term sustainability, and a portion is exporting our products and services outside the state.

But our primary focus is supporting the local economy, which has its ups and downs."

Southwestern Scale installing a truck scale near Higley, AZ, 1960s.

THIRTY EIGHT

Southwestern Scale technician loading service truck at 26th Street yard, 1960s.

Evolving from a regional player performing 95 percent of its work in Arizona 15 years ago to serving nationwide and global clients has helped the company stay balanced. “You would have never thought that a little scale company on Broadway Road in south Phoenix next to a bunch of scrap yards would be doing these types of projects with over 35 workers,” Southwestern Scale President Roger Dumont says.

Southwestern Scale’s passion for their business is evident at their offices at 2535 West Broadway Road. With the recent widening of the street, the company took the opportunity to demarcate their business uniquely. An antique scale is situated in front of the building and the new parking lot has a full-size mockup of their Side-

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

Manufacturing Foreman Dan Seckler, atop scale, loading a portable contractor scale for FNF, 1980s.

winder truck scale. An antique scale is in the lobby to give visitors a chance to check how their diet is doing.

The Southwestern Scale office includes a museum-worthy display featuring vintage scales and weights along with

historical information about some of the company’s unique business clients such as the Phoenix Zoo. Their Galapagos tortoises weighed about 500 pounds, and Ruby, the famous painting elephant, weighed almost 8,500 pounds.

Another fascinating artifact is the table in the company's boardroom, a scaled-down version of Southwestern Scale's renowned Sidewinder truck scale.

"The employee, our manufacturing foreman Dan Seckler, who built the table, will have been with the company 39 years this September,” Roger Dumont says.

“That’s why people want to work here – it’s tied to the company’s culture.”

Southwestern Scale has a fascinating history, but the company is focused on the future. This includes changing some of their product offerings and branching out into new opportunities to contribute to the local economy, whether it’s weighing sand and gravel, pharmaceuticals, or production output using automated check-weighing equipment.

One new product is an automated filling and batching system. “We built an automatic keg filler for a beverage company in town, which improved their production output by 400 percent,” Murdza says. “It’s these skills, technologies, capacities, and knowledge that we translate across all industries to improve their productivity.”

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

Company Profiles Roger Dumont President and Co-Owner

A

s I near my 18th anniversary with Southwestern Scale, I find it amazing that when I started entering my early adulthood, I didn't want to be here. Not because I didn’t like the business, but because sometimes my father and I didn’t see eye to eye. Like any child of a small business owner, I was involved in business activities, especially mundane items like stuffing envelopes, getting trade show materials ready, picking up trash on the company’s property, cleaning the office, and sweeping floors.

As I got older, more exciting work opportunities came my way such as working with my brother during summers in high school on the construction crew putting in scale foundations. Again, I always seemed to be the one cleaning the shovels and tools after every pour. I also worked with the manufacturing department and went with field service techs on calls. Eventually, I produced the entire daily customer invoicing in my bedroom during high school. There were times my father would get frustrated with me not getting the invoicing done each day because of either my homework load or being a lazy teenager. He threatened to fire me numerous times but never did.

Thinking about it now, as a father of a couple of teenagers, I can relate to his frustration.

After high school, I decided it would be less stressful to pursue accounting work at a variety of small CPA offices when not in class at the University of Arizona. It was a great experience understanding how small businesses worked and their pitfalls.

After graduating with an accounting degree, I became a cost accountant for

John Diets and Rollin Dumont, 1998.

FORTY

Roger and Dean Dumont pose on the company’s famous “Sidewinder” truck scale, 2008.

BHP Copper (then called Magma Copper) in San Manuel, AZ. Within five years, I was promoted to the senior financial analyst at the corporate office in Tucson.

Eventually tiring of corporate culture, I worked at a small family-owned company in Tucson. After a year at the job, my father and brother asked me to rejoin Southwestern Scale in 1999. I was apprehensive since my working relationship with my dad was like oil and water. I decided to commute from Tucson to see how it worked out until my wife finished her school year teaching fifth grade.

My father and I butted heads during the four short months we worked together until his passing. If we had continued working together, I might have left the company, valuing our relationship more than the job. Importantly, during those few short months, I think he came to realize that Dean and I were ready to take over the business and that gave him peace.

Initially, I was obsessed with determining how to make the company realize its potential. It was invigorating to finally be in a situation where I could make a real contribution and see the results. That tenacity hasn’t stopped 17 years later. I am proud of the legacy of this company and the people, past and present who have made it what it is today. We currently have a fantastic group of individuals here to take us to the next chapter of the business.

Dean Dumont Vice President and Co-Owner

T

he scale business has been part of my life ever since I was a kid. I would spend many days with my father at his work either on job sites or projects at the office. When we moved to Arizona in 1984, he purchased Southwestern Scale.

Throughout high school and college, I spent summers working at his shop in Phoenix.

My father made it a point to provide an experience in almost every sector of our industry. I believe this was the best way for me to learn and I am thankful he did that. After graduating from Northern Arizona University in 1992, I went into sales. His first piece of advice was, “Here is the phone book, start with A and let me know when you are done.” It was a hard lesson in “Cold Calling 101” but made me realize just how important weighing systems are to our customers.

Customers mostly welcomed me into their operations and shared how they used our products. I learned a great deal about the industry and the region during that period. There are few roads in Arizona I have not traveled working with clients. This year marks my 25th anniversary at Southwestern Scale, and I am truly honored to be a part of our 70th anniversary as a company.

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

Mark Murdza Director of Sales and Business Development

A

s a first-generation American, born to Eastern European parents with a strong work ethic, I was raised around mills, drills, and CNC machines. That exposure led to a Manufacturing Engineering degree from Arizona State University in 1995 and a 17-year career in technical marketing and sales in the semiconductor business. After being in a global market and industry, I wanted to understand who

Mark Murdza.

drove our regional economy and joined Southwestern Scale in 2011. As we serve more than 20 different industries, our company has a pulse on the players in each market. I’m gaining insight into how the various operations function and what drives their markets.

Kristin Miranda Accounting Manager

I

was born and raised in Phoenix and obtained an associate’s degree in accounting from Phoenix College, and a bachelor’s degree in Global Business Leadership and Management from ASU West.

While in school, I began my accounting career as an apprentice at Barrow Neurological Group and later took a job with a law firm and worked my way up to lead bookkeeper. After 15 years, I joined Southwestern Scale in 2015 to become the accounting manager in charge of business services.

The company’s integrity attracted me along with the fantastic team of people that have grown to be like a second family. The longevity of Southwestern Scale is remarkable, and I look forward to being a part of the company as we work

Vintage truck scale ad.

toward many more years of quality, success, and growth.

Joel Arroyo Systems Integration Manager

I

have worked in the food and beverage and industrial sectors as a supervisor, manager, technical trainer, ISO Internal Auditor, sales representative, and inventory control specialist. My career with Southwestern Scale began in 2014 as a sales and application engineer, which entailed selling weight-based systems and helping customers find the bestautomated solution for their process. I have since been promoted to systems integration and project manager where I oversee engineers and field service staff with scheduling major projects.

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

History of the Company

F

or 70 years, Southwestern Scale has proudly served the needs of customers in Arizona and across the nation. The company was started in 1948 by Jack Payne and Cliff Taylor in a small garage located in Phoenix.

Arizona companies needed accurate and reliable weighing equipment in order to sell products and goods. Southwestern Scale met that requirement providing manufacturing, installing and servicing weighing equipment. The company and regional economy, boomed, and they eventually relocated to a larger facility on 24th Street near Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.

Southwestern Scale relocated again in 1976 because of the airport’s expansion.

They moved into their current facility at 2535 West Broadway Road. Fourteen years later, in 1984, Rollin Dumont purchased the company from its original owners. Rollin knew the owners from back when he worked in marketing for another firm, the Howe Richardson Scale Company in Vermont in the 1960s. Rollin moved his family from Illinois to Phoenix to continue his 20-plus year career in the scale industry.

His sons, Dean and Roger Dumont, grew up with the company. “We’ve been involved since we were teenagers here, and even younger when we had the business in Illinois,” Roger says.

Dean worked sales with his father, working with light-capacity clients while Rollin handled the heavy-capacity customers. “He was a master salesman and

Elephant being weighed on a Southwestern Scale at the Phoenix Zoo. Photo by Dick George.

marketer, and I learned a lot about the business from him,” Dean says. “My first sale was a Parts Counting Scale to a “Fastener” company in Phoenix; I was pretty thrilled.”

Dean and Roger became the owners of Southwestern Scale when Rollin passed away in 2000. Their father was both the owner and the top salesman and left a

Portable scale weighing an Arizona Dept. of Weights & Measures truck, 1960s.

FORTY TWO

Southwestern Scale’s first office, 1948.

huge void in the company. “His nickname was ‘The Scale Baron of the Southwest,’” says Roger. "Our company should have been a statistic. We should have just gone away."

The brothers updated the company's logo and marketing, and the company continued to prosper. Roger says much of the success is because of his brother, Dean.

“That guy knows where every scale is in the Southwest,” he says, admiringly.

The Dumont brothers’ years of experience, trustworthiness, and progressive business practices are combined with the company’s innovative solutions. More than 70 years later, Southwestern Scale continues to be the leader in the scale industry.

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years -

Weighing haul trucks at an open-pit mine in Nevada.

Company Services

S

outhwestern Scale has served local industries since 1948 and is proud to have played an integral part in the economic development of the Southwest.

Because of this lengthy history, the company understands their customer’s needs, and works expertly to meet them.

Their staff know which products are superior and sell those at fair prices.

The company offers a wide-range of high-quality products including weighing scales, software components, and peripherals for more than 17 industrial sectors.

There is a Southwestern Scale solution for virtually every operation-related weighing requirement. “The breadth of our product means that your weighing solution can come with various levels of functionality and technical complexity to perfectly suit your particular size and budget needs,” Murdza states.

The company offers many types of high quality, heavy-capacity equipment: ● Cattle/Livestock Scales ● Railway Infrastructure Monitoring Systems ● Combination Rail & Truck Scales ● Crane Scales ● Axle Scales ● Forklift Scales ● On-Board Truck Scales ● Off-Road Mining Truck Scales

● Truck Scales ● Rail Scales ● Mobile Bogie Test Rig – Weigh & Balance ● Floor Scales ● Bench Scales ● Counting Scales ● Tank Scales ● On Board Loader Scales ● High Impact/Coil Scales ● Belt Scales ● Used Truck Scales

Southwestern Scale provides scale calibration services, new products, integration, construction, installation and rental needs for most industries. Their services are available nationwide. “Our focus is providing exceptional service that exceeds our customers’ expectations,” Murdza says. “We take great pride in the quality of products that we manufacture and sell along with our decades of experience.”

The company produces one of the most popular truck scales in the weighing industry: The Sidewinder. Murdza loves to tout Southwestern Scale’s most famous product. “The Sidewinder is a tank!” he says. “It takes a beating and keeps going.

It’s been in some of the nastiest, dirtiest, and most abusive applications in the Southwest since the 1980s and has proven to withstand all the impacts.”

Southwestern Scale is also an authorized manufacturer and distributor of products from premier suppliers including BTEK Scales and Trakblaze Global. Southwestern Scale fabricates BTEK Scales’ truck and railcar scales, among other items in their portfolio, for sales in the Western U.S. “This relationship allows us to have a larger solutions portfolio for our direct sales to our customers/market as well,” Murdza says.

The Trakblaze Global relationship allows Southwestern Scale exclusive North American distribution of niche solutions that are rarely available on this continent,

A “Sidewinder” truck scale under a ready-mix batch plant.

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- Southwestern Scale Company Celebrates 70 Years in the form of portable and in-motion railcar scales.

Southwestern Scale is vertically integrated, which means one-stop shopping if a customer needs an old truck or railroad scale replaced. The company has their own construction crew and can fabricate a new scale, rip out the old scale, refurbish the foundation, and put the new scale in the same hole at a fraction of the cost of their competitors. “With these types of jobs, no one else could have done them as efficiently and cost-effectively as us,” declares Murdza.

Service is king at Southwestern Scale.

The company has the best-staffed service department in the region to do periodic calibrations or emergency repairs. Their service area covers Arizona, Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. Besides calibrating and servicing

Load testing a crane using 75,000-pounds of weight.

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Southwestern Scale service test truck.

Southwestern Scale products, Arizona’s largest team of factory-trained technicians can usually repair other company's products too.

Though Southwestern Scale has both in-state and out-of-state competition, they are the most comprehensive scale company in the region. They have more equipment and technicians servicing equipment than any of their local competitors. The company has a vested interest in the local economy and using Southwestern Scale means that you are “shopping locally.”

“No other competitor has what we have under one roof,” Murdza says. “Our manufacturing component sets us apart from our competitors, and we deliver it from a local freight point. We’re bringing products and services to market that our

local competitors have yet to offer. We have unique products with rail scale technology and are developing weight-based control process systems. That includes taking existing equipment and upgrading it; we’re into product development.”

Remember that scales that are "Legal for Trade" must be registered and licensed with the state. When Southwestern Scale certifies your scale, they also submit all documentation so that your company will be in compliance to conduct business transactions immediately.

Company President Roger Dumont sums up Southwestern Scale’s philosophy in a simple, memorable sentence: “Everything gets weighed and we continue to position ourselves to be the ‘go-to’ source for weighing solutions and services.”

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Arizona contractor & Community

The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of Metrocenter

M

y quintessential memory of that patch of land south of Peoria Avenue along the Black Canyon Freeway is, without a doubt, the smell; that remarkably disagreeable odor that, 50 years hence, still lingers in my

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nostrils like an eternal miasma dispersed and wafting through my childhood recollection. It was the kind of stink that could only be generated by a rather sizable field of broccoli baking beneath the heat of the central Arizona sun.

The malodorous veggie crop was quite impossible to ignore. After all, our family encountered it every time we ventured down the freeway. It was a sort of Van Allen radiation belt of stench through which one was forced to pass on the way to any worthwhile destination south of the Surrey Heights neighborhood. Rolling up the car windows did little to mitigate the pervasive fragrance, which would dissipate only with the passage of time and a suitable distance away from the contaminated

Above: Metrocenter,1976.

Top right: Metrocenter facing south, 1975.

Right: Grand Opening of Broadway department store, 1973.

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area. But pass through it we did, on virtually a weekly basis throughout the 1960s.

By 1970 however, ambitious plans had been laid for the smelly old broccoli field.

A shopping mall of unprecedented scope and splendor would rise upon this pungent parcel of agricultural soil. The old broccoli patch soon disappeared into local history, like so many other thousands of acres of cropland that yielded to the everencroaching behemoth of Phoenix civilization during that era.

I think it’s worthwhile remembering that a humble and putrid old field of cruciferous vegetables is where Metrocenter mall was born. That such a lamented and unlikely parcel of real estate very near where I lived on Joan De Arc Avenue would be transformed into one of the largest shopping centers on earth was no trivial matter. We had never seen anything remotely like it.

Metrocenter boasted 1.4 million square feet of space and was the first two-story mall to appear in Arizona. There were five major anchors situated around its periphery: Sears, Rhodes, Diamonds,

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

Goldwater’s, and Broadway. There was a full-sized Ice Capades Chalet skating rink, multiple movie theatres and restaurants, a myriad of specialty shops, and a sleek drinking establishment called Metro Port Lounge, which overlooked the ice rink and was designed to resemble a jet airliner. It was here I first experienced the timeless rite of passage of being carded and then kicked out of a bar. Oh, but I would be back.

Colossus that it was, the mall proper was only one component of the overall development at Metrocenter. The primary shopping center was enclosed within a ring of paved roadway that was framed by a second outer concentric ring built to accommodate even more businesses along with a variety of residential construction.

The result of it all was a mile-long shopping mall development that filled the entire space between Peoria and Dunlap avenues.

The original architectural flavor of Metrocenter was eclectic. Like our beloved Christown, Metro was infused with its own unique identity, but one entirely different from the futurist Googie flair of the older mall. Put briefly, Metro’s design was ultramodern with some unique influences thrown into the mix.

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Arizona contractor & Community

Author urtesy of

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incorporated certain aspects of that structure’s design into his vision for the new mall. Most notably, he chose to adorn each of the mall entrances with a huge wave of soaring concrete held in place by a trio of massive parabola-shaped buttresses. The result was a uniquely equivocal architectural effect, yet one that meshed beautifully in the overall design.

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Image co

Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

Perhaps the most memorable of these influences came from the far side of the planet. Metrocenter architect Robert Fairburn apparently harbored a deep fondness for the legendary architect Le Corbusier and his Palace of Assembly, a rather astonishing building constructed in the city of Chandigarh, India in the 1950s. Fairburn

One of the more charming features of the original mall was an eccentric little concourse called "The Alley," which was located in a rather obscure area on the upper level near Sears. The passage, decorated to resemble a narrow city alleyway, conveyed an odd sort of hippie vibe and incorporated a few small businesses into its tableau, including a Lotions ‘n' Potions shop and an antique photo emporium. However, for the most part, The Alley served no apparent purpose whatsoever; it was the kind of frivolous adornment that lends real character and distinction to a shopping institution. So, of course, it didn’t last.

The funny thing about shiny new shopping malls is that they inevitably fall into decline. Exactly when this fate befell Metrocenter is a matter of subjective perception, but some of the iconic businesses disappeared surprisingly quickly. The skating rink was closed in a mall renovation in 1986, after only a dozen years of operation. Likewise, Metro Port Lounge closed at this time. The resulting cavernous space was eventually filled with a food court above and a large video arcade below.

In 1993, Arrowhead Mall opened in Glendale and began luring business away in much the same manner as Metrocenter had once done to Christown mall. Of the original five anchors at Metro, only Sears and Diamonds (Dillards) now remain, the

once great Metrocenter rather than inhibit it. Time will tell.

Ultimately, the fate of Metrocenter may more resemble that of Park Central than Christown: a hybrid blend of stores, restaurants, office space, healthcare facilities, and residential property. This destiny also appears to be the plan for Fiesta Mall in Mesa.

One reason for optimism regarding Metrocenter’s future is the Metro Light Rail, which will soon be making its way west from 19th Avenue along Dunlap Avenue to Metrocenter, ensuring a resur-

latter relegated to the diminished status of “clearance center” and utilizing only the upper level of the store. On my infrequent visits there, I cannot help but reminisce about waiting in long lines for Phoenix Suns tickets during their epic 1976 playoff run.

The Diamonds box office is now long gone.

A few of the original architectural flourishes at Metrocenter have managed to endure. A prime example is the Western Savings building, with its distinctive rising cone-shaped, ribbed tower. The bank building lives on as a Souper Salad restaurant with a distinctly different color scheme. Sadly, the iconic concrete entrance slabs at Metro were removed in a $32 million mall facelift in 2004.

When contemplating the future of Metrocenter, it’s instructive to review the mall’s parallels with Christown. Both malls were prime Phoenix shopping destinations that fell into decline amid changing neighborhood demographics and the strain of competition with newer malls. No small irony lies in the fact that Christown, whose prosperity was deeply affected by the opening of Metrocenter in 1973, has managed to survive and could conceivably outlive its long-time rival.

In a sad and eerie re-enactment of Christown’s past, Metrocenter recently demolished its old Broadway store building to make room for a new Super Wal-Mart.

This move certainly signals that the old mall will continue to be a shopping destination of sorts, although some argue that this addition will hasten the demise of the

gence of patrons in the years ahead, just as it has for Christown.

And so, while Metrocenter’s finest days are certainly well confined to its past, there now seems at least a smidgen of hope that the senescent mall’s deteriorating condition may at least stabilize in the years ahead.

Regardless of what transpires, I am quite satisfied that Metrocenter will continue to be a stellar improvement over that foul-smelling broccoli field of my Phoenix childhood. If all else fails, it’s got that going for it.

Image courtesy of Author

Top left: Metrocenter Rhodes department store rendering, Gruen Associate Architects, 1972.

Top right: Metrocenter postcard, 1970s.

Below: Palace of Assembly in Chandigarh, India, 2006.

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Arizona contractor & Community

Route 66’s “Courageous” Pancake House Douglas Towne

A

rizona is chock full of forts established by the military in the days of the Wild West. Many of these citadels continue in a variety of functions. Fort McDowell is known for its casino, Fort Grant is a state prison, Fort Whipple is a veteran's medical center, and Fort Huachuca remains a U.S. Army base.

One of the state’s most visible forts, however, has nothing to do with the frontier. Rather, it’s the result of marriage a half-century ago between a faux-Dutch restaurant and a 1960s TV sitcom.

At first glance, Fort Courage on Interstate 40 near the New Mexico border may look like a Territorial-era military installation. The observation towers of the stockade-style structure overlook the highway at the Houck interchange at Exit 348. The fort’s real mission, however, has already been revealed by billboards, which began advertising the roadside attraction miles away. Adjacent to the fort is a hodgepodge of structures including three shuttered businesses: a store, gas station, and restaurant.

There’s nothing 19th century about the compound. Its genesis was the result of Van de Kamps, a Southern California-

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based restaurant chain, first expansion into the tristate area of Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. The Houck restaurant was to be the first of 40 blue and white windmill coffee shops, according to an Arizona Republic article in 1967.

Van de Kamp's Holland Dutch Bakeries was founded in Los Angeles in 1915. By the mid-1950s, the company had evolved into a regional bakery and restaurant chain with their trademark windmill buildings and the slogan, "Made Clean, Kept Clean, Sold Clean."

The Houck restaurant was a 16-sided polygon-shaped building topped with an unusual folded-plate roof. In the center of the structure was an eight-sided pylon, 19 feet across at its base tapering to eight feet across at the top, which was manufactured

by Bethlehem Steel Corporation. Attached to the 48-foot-high pylon were 50-foot windmill vanes, which turned concurrently as the windmill itself rotated 360 degrees.

The building was designed by Pasadena architects Harold Bissner and Harold Zook.

In addition to the restaurant, the complex featured a Chevron gas station, a combination grocery and curio store, and Fort Courage, a replica of the set of the

Images courtesy of Author

A Fort by Any Other Name:

ABC TV show, “F Troop,” which aired 65 episodes from 1965-1967. The satirical series starring Ken Berry, Forrest Tucker, Larry Storch, and Melody Patterson was set at Fort Courage, a fictional Army outpost in the 1860s. The comedy involves a bumbling troop of misfit soldiers and a local tribe, the Hekawis.

The roadside fort had no official affiliation with “F Troop” but nonetheless cashed in on its popularity and sold merchandise related to the show.

Houck was but a wide spot in the road, which at the time was called Route 66. In this isolated location, where did the businesses recruit their staff from? Van de Kamp’s grabbed an idea from the Harvey Houses, a chain of hotels and associated restaurants that followed the Santa Fe railroad from Kansas to California early in the 20th century.

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“The restaurant had dorms on-site and girls would come from across the U.S. to work there,” Bill Ortega says. His future wife, Vicky Ortega, worked after school as a waitress in the restaurant during the dinner shift in the 1970s. “She lived down the road in Sanders and twice had to stay overnight in the bunkhouse when employees were snowed in."

Van de Kamp’s parent company, the General Host Corporation, offered Bill Gipe a position at Fort Courage in 1969. Gipe had been working for the company in Yellowstone Park. He moved and managed the Arizona business until buying it in 1976.

“By the time my family moved to Fort Courage, Interstate 40 had bypassed Route 66, the windmill had been taken down from the restaurant, and the waitresses no longer wore the Dutch-style uniforms,” Jeff Gipe, his son, says. Most of the restaurant’s business came from the 60 Greyhound buses that stopped each day, whose passengers ordered a hot meal off the simple menu.

It was a busy place though. Gipe says that tourists always asked if the fort’s observation tower was the same one that would collapse in every episode of “F Troop.” They offered pony and hayrides to visitors, had a Hogan and a buffalo on the

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nately, the car belonged to a friend of my dad’s, who said it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen and not to worry about the damage.”

Gipe’s father sold Fort Courage in 1982 to two individuals who resold it in 1984 to Armand Ortega, the older brother

Images courtesy of Author

Opposite page, top: Fort Courage billboard, 2017.

Opposite page, bottom: Van de Kamps coffee shop, Los Angeles, 1940s.

Top: Fort Courage postcard, 1960s.

Right: Fort Courage, 2017.

premises, and Gipe had a pet goat that had a habit of climbing on vehicles in the parking lot, much to the delight of visitors.

Then there was the time his old horse, which was blind in one eye, got spooked, bucked Gipe, and tried to leap a car. “He smashed into the vehicle,” he says. “Fortu-

Arizona contractor & Community

reviewer commented in 2009. “They had all the things you'd expect: Indian headbands, tomahawks, “F Troop” trinkets, and an old buffalo that lived next to the Hogan.

Things have changed so much. The rear buildings have become apartments with wrecked vehicles parked in front of them.

[It's] sad to see it this way. The tower is there, and you can still go up. But for those of us who remember it, it will never be as it was.”

Fort Courage shut down after Armand Ortega died in 2014. "None of the family lives there, so we closed it," Ortega says.

The family is attempting to sell the enterprise, which is located on 174 acres. The most likely buyer is the Navajo Nation’s Houck Chapter. "They expressed an interest in obtaining it, but there has been no offer yet," he says. "The tribe likely wants to tear it down and put in some other kind of retail operation."

The tourist attraction remains closed for business but open to sightseers except for the fenced-off businesses. But more of its charm is lost to vandals and weathering every year.

“Times change, Fort Courage kind of ran its course, and went the way of the

dinosaur,” Gipe says, reflecting on his former home. “Nowadays kids get on their phone and don’t care about seeing a buffalo and or climbing a tower.”

Top right: “F-Troop” comic book.

Below: Pancake House Restaurant.

Images courtesy of Author

of Gilbert Ortega, owner of a chain of Native American arts and crafts stores. The restaurant, then called the Pancake House, suffered as fewer Greyhound buses traveled on Interstate 40. “The highway business didn’t turn out as lucrative as he hoped and was hurt by competition from other curio stores," Bill Ortega, Armand’s son, says.

The business appears to have started a downward trajectory during the 1990s, when a Taco Bell franchise moved into the Pancake House.

As the years went by, some “F Troop” fans weren’t pleased with their Fort Courage experience. “Supposedly the Fort Courage Trading Post is the ‘Home of F Troop’ from the 60's TV series,” a reviewer posted on the Roadside America website in 2003. “I was looking forward to maybe getting some Hekawi tribe souvenirs or other ‘F Troop-related’ junk. Well, there wasn't any. Nothing. No Corporal Agarn t-shirts, no Wrangler Jane bandanas, no Sergeant O'Rourke hats, not even any Ft. Courage refrigerator magnets. Very disappointing.”

“Fort Courage was the best place in the '70s,” another Roadside America

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Arizona contractor & Community

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

Model home at the new Alta Vista subdivision

by F & S Construction Co., 1953.

1965.

Above: Alta Vista Shopping Center, de. faca nal origi of e imag ent Curr t: Righ

Sam Hoffman, with shovel, at the grou ndbreaking of the Al ta Vista subdivisio n, December 16, 1952 .

Building on the Past 1952: Alta Vista Subdivision and Shopping Center

T

he F & S Construction Company, headed by Sam Hoffman, built the Alta Vista Subdivision and Shopping Center on 320 acres at the northwest corner of Northern and 27th avenues in Phoenix. Hoffman had purchased the former agricultural fields in the early 1950s. The groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of more than 1,500 homes and a shopping center was held on December 16, 1952. Construction would continue into 1955.

The houses, advertised as “You’ll want to live in Alta Vista Hoffman Homes, see the model today!” were priced from $7,000 to $9,000. The homes surrounded

the shopping center, which occupied the southeast corner of the property.

The $1 million Alta Vista Shopping Center, at the time one of the largest in Arizona, was completed in 1954. The 11acre center had 21 stores including an A.J. Bayless Market, Ryan Evans, Sprouse-Reitz Variety, Johnson’s Department Store, and Hamman’s Lumber & Hardware. There was parking space for 987 vehicles. Acme Materials Company furnished the ready mix for the subdivision and shopping center. P.J. Smith Paving completed the curb and gutter, sidewalks, and street paving.

Hoffman sold the shopping center to the Rankin Development Company for $700,000 in 1955. Rankin Development had already built several residential subdivisions in Glendale and Scottsdale. The F & S Construction Company was the fifth largest residential builder in the nation, according to an Arizona Republic article in 1955. The company's operations were centered in Chicago and Baltimore, although it maintained its headquarters in Phoenix.

Background: F&S Construction employees building the Alta Vista subdivision,1953. www.Arizcc.com

Arizona contractor & Community

A

Phoenix-based architectural firm came together synergistically for a very brief and productive time in the mid-1960s to create some dynamic structures in Arizona. Pierson Miller Ware and Associates (PMWA) was active for just four years from 1963 to 1967 with its roots as Pierson & Miller Architects in 1960 to 1963 and again in 1967 to 1968. The story of this office is quite fascinating as it brought together the assembled talents of Principals Eugene L. Pierson, AIA, (1923 – 2008); L. Don Miller, AIA, (1925 -1998); and Lloyd Peyton Ware, AIA, (1917 -1983).

The trio brought complementary experience and skills to this practice, which resulted in successful public, commercial, and residential commissions.

Pierson was born in Anaheim, Calif. and graduated from North Phoenix High School. He attended Phoenix Junior Col-

Architect’s Perspective: Pierson Miller Ware and Associates: Systems Coordination Doug Sydnor, FAIA Doug_sydnor@outlook.com lege, University of Arizona, and received a Bachelor of Arts from Arizona State College (ASU) in 1950. Pierson worked for the prominent firms Place & Place in Tucson, and in Phoenix with Lescher and Mahoney, Kemper Goodwin, and Weaver & Drover.

He founded his firm in 1958, which became Pierson & Miller Architects in 1960. Pierson was a member of Kiwanis International, Phoenix City Planning and Zoning Commission, CSI, and AIA. Miller was born in Rocky Ford, Colo., attended North Phoenix High School, and graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design from Stanford University in 1947, and a Bachelor of Architecture from USC in 1956. At the latter university, Miller had Calvin C. Straub, FAIA, as a design studio professor, who was later recruited to ASU where many architects were fortunate to have him as students, including this columnist. Miller worked in Los Angeles, followed by Weaver & Drover, Kemper

Goodwin, and Eugene Pierson in Phoenix.

He then became a Principal at Pierson & Miller Architects in 1960, PMWA in 1963, and Cartmell Miller Associates in 1968.

Miller was an AIA member and the AIA Central Arizona Chapter President. Upon retirement, he focused on his watercolor paintings and traveling.

Ware was born in Tempe in 1917 and graduated from Florence Union High School. He then started working for firms in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, followed by H.H. Green Architect and John Sing Tang in Phoenix. Ware founded his own practice in 1955 and became a Principal in PMWA in 1963. He left and joined Biggs Kaufman & Ware in 1967. He was a Mason, Shriner and an AIA member.

PMWA had Phoenix offices at 1133 East Missouri Avenue and 1439 North First Street, the latter a building designed by Miller for his father, O.D. Miller, who was a former state senator, rancher and Arizona Universities and State College Board of Regents President.

Three project examples, executed in a short period, demonstrate the depth of their joint capabilities in design and construction methods.

Thunderbird Branch Bank at 5704 West Glenn Drive in Glendale was built as the first community-owned bank in 1965.

The 7,000 square-foot building is com-

Images courtesy of Author

Top left: Thunderbird Bank Branch, Glendale.

Bottom left: Saguaro High School cafeteria wall allows students to store books.

Bottom right: Saguaro High School Auditorium.

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Winter 2017

Images courtesy of Author Image courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community

posed of battered concrete walls, slumpblock masonry walls, tall entry glazing, and capped with a protective shading device from the sun. The covered drive-in has been expanded over the years. The interior has a raised ceiling in the lobby, whereas the staff areas have more intimate, lower ceilings.

The project used natural materials to great sculptural effect and delivered a strong visual street presence. Interestingly, this bank was a prototypical design, and an almost identical twin was built at about same time in Sun City at 13250 North Del Webb Boulevard.

Saguaro High School at 6250 North 82nd Street in Scottsdale was built in 1966.

Ware stated that “We have tried to create something of beauty here at the same time we held construction costs to a minimum.”

At a school administrators convention it was noted that it is an “outstanding use of land and its flexibility.” The 40-acre campus was planned for 2,400 students and composed of seven buildings totaling 220,191 square feet.

The plan reflects the functional separation of those uses that generate more noise versus those that do not. The plan integrates four major patios for the free flow of student traffic. The 1,300-seat auditorium has a glass piece that expresses

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the seven lively arts and was a Glass Art Studio donation of Scottsdale. In the cafeteria, the architects attempted to create a “coffee shop atmosphere.” The construction used concrete wall panels, and double Ts as the roof structure with vari-colored glass between the beams. The finished floor line was elevated for flood protection from the nearby Indian Bend Wash. This columnist was in the first freshman class, and these aspects were experienced firsthand.

Arizona State University Business Administration Building at 300 East Lemon Street in Tempe was completed in 1968.

This 80,000-square-foot structure has three levels, and anchors the southern end of the main mall. As an ASU student, I walked by this structure daily for a few years, struck by the confident expression of the exposed concrete structure, and the articulation and interlocking nature of each beam, purlin, wall panel, and exit stair. The architecture has an appropriate scale, exquisite craft, coordination of systems, and uses materials such as concrete, brick, and blue glass accents. Additions were completed in 1971, 1974, and 1983. The excellent maintenance of the building shows the university’s respect for this structure.

Top left: ASU Business Administration Building.

Top right: Northgate Bowl (now ‘Let It Roll Bowl’), Phoenix, 1962.

Above: Rendering of the Arizona Bank, 1964.

Despite Pierson Miller Ware and Associates’ brief time as an active architectural practice, they executed a series of architecturally significant structures in Arizona. We are grateful that many of their beautiful works are still with us as they teach us many important design and constructability lessons.

A sampling of other Pierson Miller Ware and Associates projects: ● 1962 - Northgate Bowl, 8925 North 12th Street, Phoenix. ● 1964-65 - Saguaro Branch Library, 2808 North 46th Street, Phoenix. ● 1965 - Arizona State University Residences, Tempe. ● 1966 - Palo Verde Library, 4380 North 51st Avenue, Phoenix. ● 1967 - Arcadia Green, 48th Street & Earll Drive, Phoenix.

Douglas B. Sydnor, FAIA, is Principal at Douglas Sydnor Architect+ Associates, Inc. and author of three architecture books.

Arizona contractor & Community

Digging through the Archives: Railroad Spur Sparks South Phoenix Expansion Willian Horner

S

and and gravel is a heavy bulk commodity not cheaply transported long distances by truck. Realizing an economic opportunity involving the aggregate plants located between Downtown Phoenix and the Salt River, Southern Pacific Railroad Company built a 2.5 mile spur line to the area in 1952.

Just west of Seventh Street, the new railroad track ran south from Southern Pacific’s main line that bordered Downtown Phoenix. The spur itself was constructed by the railroad, while individual sidings for businesses were built by a local contracting firm, John C. Kelton & Son. Southern Pacific spent more than $250,000 on the project.

The spur line served four companies: ● the Acme Materials Company plant at Seventh Street and the Salt River,

● the Arizona Sand & Rock Company plant just south of Acme Materials, ● the A. J. Bayless warehouse on Central Avenue just south of Henshaw (Buckeye) Road, and ● the Hooper Concrete Pipe Company on Seventh Street just north of Acme Materials.

L. H. Trimble, the general freight and passenger agent for Southern Pacific predicted a significant expansion of industrial firms along the spur line in a 1952 Arizona Republic article. “Industry always follows railroad tracks,” Trimble said.

Southern Pacific and Acme Materials representatives were on hand to greet the arrival of the first shipment of two 75-ton carloads of bulk cement from the Arizona Portland Cement plant at Rillito near Tucson. Officials included Trimble and T.W. Saul, an engineer for Southern Pacific who was responsible for much of the project and Jeanette E. Daley and H. J. Zabel, co-owners of Acme Materials.

The railroad spur allowed the Phoenix companies to bid on large sand and rock contracts across Arizona and adjacent states. The high cost of trucking the materials formerly hindered such business opportunities.

Arizona Sand & Rock and Acme Materials plants with the Central Avenue Bridge at the top and the Southern Pacific spur on the right, 1953.

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Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

Images courtesy of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine

The Southern Pacific railroad spur at the Acme Materials plant; Jeanette Daley and H.J. Zabel (far right) pose on the locomotive, 1952.

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The Southern Pacific spur at the Arizona Sand & Rock plant, 1952.

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FleetWest 480-736-8800 Fleetwest.net

P. 22

Pavement Recycling Systems 800-966-7774 Pavementrecycling.com

BidJudge 602-456-BIDZ bidjudge.com

P. 25

GenTech 800-625-8324 gentechusa.com

P. 28

Preach Building & Landscaping P. 60 602-944-4594 preachbuildingsupply.com

Vermeer Sales Southwest 480-785-4800 vermeersouthwest.com

P. 20

Branco Machinery 480-892-5657 brancomachinery.com

IFC

Hagen Business 602-570-7289 hagenbusiness.com

P. 14

R Directional Drilling 602-374-3173 drillrdd.com

P. 61

William Scotsman 800-782-1500 willscot.com

P. 3

Calportland 602-817-6929 calportland.com

P. 8

Herc Rentals 602-269-5931 hercrentals.com

P. 6

RDO Rents 877-90-RDOIC rdoic.com

BC

Woudenberg Properties 480-620-8555 woudenbergprops.com

P. 3

Cemex 602-416-2652 cemexusa.com

P. 15

Joel Westervelt Architect 928-567-2255 Joelwesterveltarchitect.com

P. 14

Red Mountain 480-477-9400 redmountainrentals.com

IBC

WSM Auctioneers 623-936-3300 wsmauctioneers.com

P. 45

Coti Global Sensors 866-762-2684 cotiglobal.com

P. 41

Konecranes 602-267-8191 konecranesusa.com

P. 36

Reseco Advisors 602-753-4250 resecoadvisors.com

P. 4

Courtesy Chevrolet 866-809-7065 courtesyfleet.com

P. 12

MDI Rock 602-569-8722 mdirock.com

P. 61

Reuter Fabrication 602-415-0449 Reuterequipment.com

P. 6

Diamondback Materials 623-925-8966 diamonondbackmaterials.com

P. 28

Metro Engineering & Survey 623-466-6640 metroaz.net

P. 18

Risk Management Advisors 602-753-4290 teamrma.com

P. 61

DitchWitch 602-437-0351 ditchwitchaz.com

P. 31

Metro Traffic Control 623-879-0610 metrotrafficcontrol.net

P. 20

Southwest Sweeper Sales 602-678-0496 southwestsweepersales.com

P. 28

SIXTY TWO

Winter 2017

www.Arizcc.com

Arizona contractor & Community

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