Spring 2013

Volume. 2 Issue. 1

• Johnson Carlier: Three Generations of Success • Phoenix's Westown Shopping City • Atomic-Powered Construction • The Business of Safety

Spring 2013 Serving Contracting Firms and the Arizona Community …Then & Now

• Grand Avenue’s Mystery Dome • Four-Lane Freedom in the Fifties • Set in Concrete: The J.W. Lattimore Company

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COMING UP IN TUCSON….

AZBIZCON II, Southern Arizona’s Largest Construction Exposition!

The Alliance of Construction Trades will sponsor Southern Arizona’s Largest Construction and Business Expo on May 15, 2013 at the Hotel Tucson from 2 to 6 pm. The hotel is located at 475 North Granada Avenue in Tucson.

AZBIZCON II, now in its sixth year, will feature heavy equipment including trucks, vans, cranes, forklifts displayed outside. In the conference hall, there will be over 100 exhibitors showcasing material suppliers, bidding technology, lien & bonding companies, banking organizations,

marketing strategists, and telecommunication equipment.

Jim Kuliesh, President and CEO of ACT, said AZBIZCON II is open to all construction firms as well as commercial business owners and developers seeking to locate specialty contractors, business services, or material and equipment suppliers.

For exhibitor or attendee information, see www.azbizcon.com or www.actaz.net or contact ACT at 520-624-3002 or subs@actaz.net.

…More details on page 35

Publisher William Horner Billy@arizcc.com Editor Douglas Towne Douglas@arizcc.com Marketing & Sales Consultant Chuck Runbeck Chuck@arizcc.com Advertising Manager Shane Addington Shane@arizcc.com Production Manager Laura Harley Laura@arizcc.com Columnist Paul Beaulieu John Bueker Contributing Writers Connor Descheemaker Roberta Graham

Advertising 623-826-8598

View our online magazine at: www.arizcc.com

• Suggestions?

• Thoughts?

• Corrections?

We Want To Hear From You! Contact the editor at Douglas@arizcc.com

Printed at Lithotech

Arizona Contractor & Community (ACC) magazine is published quarterly (spring, summer, fall, & winter). ACC is a professional publication designed for the contracting industry, engineers, architects, 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 assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material.

Arizona Contractor & Community Copyright © 2013

Volume. 2 Issue. 1 Spring 2013

CONTENTS

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Editor’s Column: A Really Big Bang: Construction Using Nuclear Explosives - Douglas Towne Construction Around Arizona - William Horner Contract Awards - Provided by Bidjudge Architect’s Column: Grand Aspirations: Building Iglesia La Luz del Mundo - Roberta L. Graham Four-Lane Freedom: Arizona Enters the Interstate Age - Douglas Towne Westown Shopping City and the Emergence of the Phoenix Strip Mall - John Bueker Construction Column: The Business of Safety - Paul Beaulieu Vanishing Phoenix: Save Our School…Buildings!

- Connor Descheemaker Johnson Carlier: Building Arizona for Ten Decades - Douglas Towne Digging Through the Archives: John W. Lattimore Company - William Horner

45.

Construction Marketplace

Front Cover - C.O. Johnson & Son The grand opening of Park 5th Avenue Building/Retail Shops, Scottsdale Arizona on April 24, 1963. In the center of the photograph is builder L. A. Johnson and to his right is architect, Joe Wong.

See respective stories on pages 36 and 44.

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Editor’s Column Douglas Towne

A Really Big Bang: Construction Using Nuclear Explosives

S

projects? It certainly wasn’t through lack of trying by the U.S. government.

After World War II, the U.S. conducted nuclear testing at the remote South Pacific atolls of Bikini and Eniwetok. The logistics proved difficult however, and an area for nuclear experiments was sought within the continental U.S. The Nevada Test Site, selected for its relatively isolated location within the Nellis Air Force Gunnery and Bombing Range, was created in January 1951. The first nuclear explosion at the site occurred later that month when a 0.5-kiloton bomb dropped from a B-50 Superfortress bomber was detonated aboveground over Frenchman Flat. Influenced

by Cold War concerns, other nuclear tests quickly followed.

Between 1951 and 1992, 928 tests were conducted at the Nevada Test Site, now known as the Nevada National Security Site. One

hundred of the blasts were atmospheric, 828 were detonated underground. Nuclear devices were dropped from planes, suspended from balloons or towers, and even fired from an artillery piece. After 1963, all testing at the site was executed underground in tunnels excavated into Pahute Mesa or boreholes drilled into Yucca Flat.

All but 23 tests were conducted for military purposes. In 1955, President Eisenhower proposed Project Plowshare to study peaceful uses of nuclear explosions. Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, envisioned grand schemes for Project Plowshare, describing the venture “to engage in the great art of what I want to call geographical engineering—to reshape the land to your pleasure…” A scientific genius, Teller was also the inspiration behind the title character in the 1964 black comedy

Images courtesy of author

ometimes less is more…at least when it comes to moving material for construction projects.

I was reminded of this recently while standing on the lip of Sedan Crater: the world’s largest surface depression created by a nuclear blast in the U.S. The huge divot was created on June 6, 1962 by the detonation of a nuclear bomb buried 635 feet underground. The explosion instantaneously scattered over 10 million tons of sand and gravel at the Nevada Test Site, located an hour north of Las Vegas. That’s a lot of dump trucks full of alluvial material! Seeing the effects of the unfathomable power unleashed by this experiment is staggering.

There is a reason why many who witnessed such nuclear tests compared it to “seeing God.” But with this potent source available to assist earthmoving endeavors, why are nuclear explosives not available for construction

Eight

film, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

The second Project Plowshare test produced Sedan Crater, a crater that is a staggering 1,280 feet in diameter and 320 feet deep. This 104 kiloton test (in comparison, the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan during World War II was about 12.5 kilotons) was conducted to demonstrate the potential of nuclear earthmoving techniques. Possible applications included setting off a string of bombs across Central America to create a sea level canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Other potential civilian uses of nuclear detonations were to create harbors along rugged coastlines in Alaska, create a road cut through the mountains of Southern California, and to facilitate extraction of natural gas or valuable mineral resources. But none of these plans were ever carried out.

The scientists and public officials involved in Project Plowshare envisioned it as a triumph of technology to help mankind. For some it may have been a moral mission to turn the nuclear bomb into something positive for civilization.

But public safety and environmental impacts were never a major concern. Potential dangers were deemed vague and unproven; critics were “communist-inspired” or “environmental alarmists.”

As a result, radioactive fallout from the nuclear detonations at the Nevada Test Site harmed countless people living downwind,

Opposite page: The 104-kiloton Sedan nuclear test detonated in 1962.

Top left: Postcard from the Pioneer Club in Las Vegas shows mushroom cloud from atomic blast in the 1950s.

Top right: Postcard from the Horseshoe Club in Las Vegas shows five sequential images of mushroom cloud from a 1950’s atomic test.

Background: "Scorched, male mannequin in suit of dark fabric indicates a human would be burned but alive," is the caption from a photo illustrating an article on the effects of an atomic test in the May 16, 1955, issue of LIFE magazine.

especially in the nearby areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona. Of all the nuclear tests, Sedan contaminated the most U.S. residents with two radioactive plumes dispersed to the east with nuclear fallout being particularly heavy in Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Illinois.

Environmental problems are also astounding: an estimated 1.6 trillion gallons of groundwater is polluted at the site, as much water as Nevada is allowed to withdraw from the Colorado River over 16 years. At today’s prices, if not fouled, that groundwater would be worth $48 billion.

Unable to solve these health and environmental problems, and with the practical benefits of expensive nuclear detonations proving to be nonexistent, Project Plowshare was terminated in 1975. This is why conventional explosives and earthmoving equipment are used in construction today.

Sometimes less is more….

Image courtesy of Think Communications

Construction Around Arizona

Construction Around Arizona Freeways • Roadways Commercial • Residential William Horner Above: Sky Train construction progress at Sky Harbor with the McCarthy-Kiewit JV team (see story on page 16).

Right: Chuck Jacobs, a 14-year-veteran of Sunstate Equipment works on the Larry Miller Hyundai project.

Ten

Construction Around Arizona

Spring Opening for Phoenix Premium Outlets

O

n the Gila River Indian Community, Simon Property Group is planning a spring opening for the Phoenix Premium Outlet being built by Kitchell. Phase I of the project will be comprise 360,000 square feet that houses 90 outlet stores featuring high quality designer and name brands.

Top left: Steel worker grinds slag off of welded corners.

Top right: Richard Tabor of RSTeam Land Surveyors sets curb stakes for parking lot.

Bottom left: Mark Lentz, a 10-year veteran of Ace Asphalt, completed the fine grade for most of the project.

Bottom right: Ace Asphalt finishes paving the parking lot on the project’s west side using material delivered by Heritage Trucking Inc.

Twelve

Contract Awards (CMAR) Municipal Court Owner: Town of Paradise Valley 1/7/2013 DL Withers Construction $ 1,850,000.00 Broadway Rd Improvements Owner: City of Mesa 1/10/2013 Nesbitt Contracting Co. $ 8,690,029.00 (CMAR) Pinnacle Peak Rd 55th Ave to 45th Ave Owner: City of Phoenix 1/10/2013 CSW Contractors $ 8,000,000.00 SR 101 at Galveston St

Owner: ADOT 1/11/2013 Ames Construction $ 3,577,048.00 Ina Rd at SR 77 Owner: Pima County 1/16/2013 KE&G Construction $ 2,160,000.00 Agua Fria Freeway Pima Owner: ADOT 1/18/2013 Combs Construction $ 945,584.00 Camelback Rd to Glendale Owner: ADOT 1/18/2013 Pulice Construction $ 34,871,751.00

Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation Owner: ADOT 1/18/2013 Combs Construction $ 2,706,937.00 Rio Salado Pathway: Salt River 110/Tempe Drain Owner: City of Phoenix 1/22/2013 Intermountain West Civil Constructors $ 1,243,069.00 (CMAR) Deer Valley Water Treatment Plant Owner: City of Phoenix 1/24/2013 Kiewit Corp $ 18,600,000.00 8th Avenue Improvements Owner: City of Phoenix

1/29/2013 DPE Construction $ 1,281,019.00 Dobson South Water Production Facility Owner: City of Chandler 1/30/2013 Garney Companies $ 1,751,700.00

Sports Field Lighting Replacement Owner: City of Scottsdale 1/30/2013 CS Construction $ 813,950.00

(Continues on page 44)

Arizona Contractor & Community

Construction Around Arizona

Hardison Downey Adds to Rancho Solano

R

courts. The building will have six scoreboards, a weight room training facility, locker rooms, volleyball courts, a dance studio, an athletic training room, and coaches offices.

As this facility is being built on Community land, Hardison Downey made every effort to incorporate Tribal-owned subcontractors into the project. Contract awards twere made to Community-owned painting and surveying subcontractors. A local tribal artist has been commissioned to build a life-sized Palomino horse sculpture in front of the student center. In addition, Rancho Solano is working with the Community to offer scholarship programs to local youth.

Images courtesy of Hardison Downey

ancho Solano’s Ventura Campus will be expanding this spring with the addition of a new student center and gymnasium.

The school sits on Salt River PimaMaricopa Indian Community land, just west of Loop 101 at Via de Ventura. Designed by Ayers Saint Gross and being built by Hardison Downey construction, the 23,000 square foot student center and gymnasium will help the school enhance its student athletic programs.

The building is a complement to the 82,000 square foot, two-floor school addition completed in August 2012. It will have a seating capacity for 500 and include college-sized floors with the ability to separate into one full highschool sized court or three half

Fourteen

O

ften the highest compliment a construction firm can receive is when the public barely takes note they’re working round the clock on the job. Nowhere is this more important than at a facility that accommodates 40 million, often-stressed airline passengers annually. Fortunately McCarthy Building Companies and Kiewit Corporation have successfully passed this litmus test in pursuing a joint venture for a portion of the $1.5 billion Phoenix Sky Train project at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Both companies knew beforehand it would be no easy feat to keep a low profile and ensure their team’s work does not interrupt airport operations. The $117-million project known as the Phase 1a Extension began fixedfacilities construction in 2012 and will add 0.6 miles of guideway and a single station serving both Terminals 2 and 3 with a pedestrian bridge. The project includes the

relocation of utilities, mass excavation, caissons, demolition, extension of taxiways S and T, new service roads and general site work. The 1a project was broken into eight separate phases to maintain its schedule.

The team recently completed the extension of taxiway S, which will allow the new guideway to pass underneath. The taxiway S bridge was opened five days ahead of schedule last fall. The construction needed to be completed in a tight, six-month timeframe by November 2012 in order for both taxiways to be operational for the busy holiday travel season. Each taxiway is being demolished, excavated and rebuilt separately.

The project runs parallel to an active runway and taxiway, so timing and sequencing of work is essential. "The closure of a taxiway or any interruption to airport operations requires a higher level of communication beyond just scheduling the work—it must also

be integrated with ongoing airside operations," said Dennis Tucker, McCarthy senior vice president.

“Since we’re in control of scheduling, we provide daily notification on all construction activities and timing to airport personnel,” Tucker added. “The coordination that is required to work at the airport is entirely dependent on how it affects airport operations. For safety purposes, our team needs to accomplish our major pours late at night when the level of traffic is much lower.”

Sustainable efforts include the use of certified wood products, separating trash and the use of building materials incorporating recycled content. These efforts, along with recycling concrete and asphalt from the demolition as fill, are expected to earn LEED Silver certification for the project.

The McCarthy-Kiewit JV team is on track for completion of the Sky Train 1a extension project in May 2014.

Top and bottom: Work proceeds on Sky Train.

Images courtesy of Think Communications

Construction Around Arizona

Train-to-Plane Sky Harbor Transport on Track

Sixteen

Construction Around Arizona

Larry Miller Hyundai Expansion

D

ickens Quality Demolition (DQD) is currently retrofitting the northern portion of the building housing Larry Miller Hyundai. Phase two of the project will stabilize the building shell and sawing though the entire perimeter

Eighteen

of the north wall to allow a tom punch thorough to the future pad area s according to the DQD Project Manager. Punching through this wall will increase the building expansion allowing for maximum area upon completion.

Construction Around Arizona

Scottsdale Rehabilitation Now Complete S

cottsdale Healthcare and Global Rehab, together with Sundt Construction, recently completed a 54,400 square-foot medical building at 8850 E Pima Center Parkway. The hospital, which features all private rooms, was

designed for treating patients needing inpatient rehabilitation following stroke, hip fracture, neurological disorders, brain injury, spinal cord injury, traumatic injuries, and complex medical conditions. The state-of-the-art,

two-story, 50-bed inpatient rehabilitation hospital was started in April 2012. It is expected to eventually employ approximately 120 people.

Top left: Bunney’s Inc. pours entrance radius concrete delivered by Arizona Materials.

Top right, bottom: Interiors by Pete King Construction.

Right: Charles Cardenas, concrete foreman for Bunney’s Inc.

Twenty

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Grand Aspirations: Building Iglesia La Luz del Mundo Roberta L. Graham

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ou can’t miss it.

Iglesia La Luz del Mundo of Phoenix, an ongoing construction project begun in early 2009, is a familiar sight to drivers along the elevated section of I-10 just west of 15th Avenue. An imposing dome, roofed in silver colored shingles, rises above the freeway traffic on the site of a now demolished Grand Avenue tourist motel. A hundred foot tall masonry tower to the west of the dome, now nearing completion, will rise even higher.

Like so many others who’ve seen the building grow over the last few years, we were curious. So we asked Project Supervisor Noe Arroyo for a tour. He met us at the site, midmorning on a Saturday. It was a good time, he said, “because most of the guys are eating lunch.” The “guys” are all volunteers, working on their day off.

Noe took us through the main two-story worship space under the dome, and up the winding concrete steps in the masonry tower for a view of the entire project from above.

Emergency vehicle sirens greeted us as we stepped out onto a work platform near the top.

The clear morning light not only gave us a spectacular view of the Valley, we also had a traffic helicopter-worthy angle on a recent crash

in the westbound lane of I-10. We were mesmerized by the growing traffic backup, but Noe just shrugged.

“We see a lot of accidents”, he explained, “I’ve seen maybe twenty, in the morning they’re going East, in the afternoon, West. Usually if one happens this way, another will happen the other way.”

But, of course, the tower and the dome were not built for the view out, or down. This church was meant to be a landmark, to proclaim its purpose to the world. The proximity to the freeway was always seen as an asset. Noe leaned out over the void below and gestured to the west.

“If you’re coming from the outskirts of LA this is the first, highest building you see before you get to downtown…and you can see the dome from the ramp off the 51.”

I asked him if the tower, when finished, would be topped by a flame, as shown on an early rendering we’d seen displayed on Grand Avenue. He pointed down at a twelve foot high gold-colored object adorning the roof of a small historic adobe church, currently used by the congregation, at the rear of the site.

“Yes. But it’s a spiral, water and flame, together. The water represents baptism and the flame represents the Holy Spirit. But we’re going to have one much bigger than that.”

Bigger. Everything about the scale of the building is stunning, especially considering the small size of the congregation. Six hundred church members are building a behemoth that could easily seat twice that number, not including the sprawling mezzanine, or the finished full basement which will also house the TV and radio studios. Impressive.

Noe smiled at our surprise.

“Not only that, it’s being built by the members. Not only do they work here, they bring their money, they donate their time and efforts… Even though the church is in fortythree countries, every church is responsible for their own construction. So even though we’re united with Tucson, or Avondale, or Sunnyslope… every single one has its own project. They have to build with their own members and their own money.”

As we climbed back down to the main worship space under the dome, Noe explained further.

“We’ve been doing everything…welding, everything. People, they don’t believe us sometimes when we tell them we do it all. But, it’s like myself, I have the K-11 license and I do all the electrical…me and my brother we’ve been doing all the electrical. We have another member, he has his own company, sprinklers.

He’s putting in all the sprinklers. Another has a

excavation. The exterior remains essentially “We’ve still got a lot to finish on the unchanged, but the interior has been outside…colors and textures. Another year… extensively redecorated by the La Luz del we’ll be done.”

Mundo congregation. All that effort will not be wasted; the adobe building will be used for classes and children’s programs after the new Opposite page: View of the city skyline from the dome roof.

Top left: The scaffolding in the interior of the church. church building is completed.

Top right: The exterior of the new church.

And when will that be, Noe? Bottom: The original church next to the dome church.

Images courtesy of Robert Graham

masonry company…he’s been doing all the masonry. You know stuff like that, it’s actually professionals. It’s what they do in their fields.”

Noe admitted there was one exception, “The stained glass was made in by a Jewish guy in Guadalajara.”

Even with protective plastic sheeting covering the interior surfaces of all the windows, the design and colors of the glass panels are startling: bold, clear and distinctly modern. The largest panel fills an entire section of the dome, to the north, from apex to base.

Eight smaller panels are regularly spaced around the octagonal main worship room.

Three of them feature a verse, Revelations 4:8, in Hebrew, Spanish and English: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”

Much smaller windows, at eye level, dot the remaining exterior walls. The main entry, a two-story south facing entry porch, will be enclosed with a wall of stained glass to catch the afternoon light as services begin at 6:30 in the evening. Broad monumental steps connect this entry to a forecourt abutting Grand Avenue, tying the building to the streetscape it already dominates.

Most of the non-structural design decisions were left to the church pastor, and many of those choices remain to be made. But this was always the intent. Keep the options open and wait for inspiration.

“We like our buildings to be unique”, Noe told us, “Not just boxes. All of our churches are different.”

On our way out, we asked to see the historic church on the site, now literally in the shadow of the new building.

Originally the Foursquare Baptist Church, it was built during the Depression, dedicated in 1935. The buttressed walls are adobe block, made on site, using soil from the basement

Arizona Contractor & Community

Douglas C. Towne

A

s Arizonans celebrated the conclusion of World War II in 1945, few could have foreseen the tremendous changes that would take place in the state over the next 30 years. Nowhere was this transformation more pronounced than with Arizona’s highways. At the end of the transition period, motorists would travel faster, farther, and more safely over completely new roads often routed through previously pristine landscapes.

Destinations which once took days to reach were now attainable in hours. The new auto routes even featured convenient rest areas in scenic places where motorists could use bathroom facilities or enjoy a picnic.

The cruising convenience that came from radically reshaping Arizona’s highway network however would come at a steep cost. The new interstate infrastructure superseded many existing highways, bypassed small towns, and divided urban neighborhoods. These new freeways had limited access points which made real estate near the off ramps expensive. These conditions favored corporate businesses in the gas, food, and lodging industries and left a legacy of bankrupt mom and pop businesses, desolate highway strip development, and downtown areas devoid of commercial activity.

Tourist industries, once primarily composed of independent owners, evolved in many areas into the domain of chain establishments.

Residents were mere employees and business profits only minimally benefited local communities.

The new transportation network came about after World War II when America experienced unprecedented auto affluence with Arizona leading the trend. Motor vehicle registrations in the state increased from 154,000 in 1945 to 1.7 million vehicles in 1974 according to the study, Arizona Transportation History. These staggering statistics do not include equally dramatic increases in traffic from tourists visiting the state. Highways in Arizona, already suffering from maintenance neglect because of shortages of men and materials caused by the war, were further burdened by these burgeoning traffic flows.

Concurrently, autos were becoming larger and more powerful and their drivers less patient to be stuck behind plodding vehicles on two-lane roads or creeping along in bumper-to-bumper traffic in urban areas.

Solving Arizona’s transportation problem would require a new paradigm; but that solution would not began until 1956. In the meantime, a piecemeal approach was used to keep traffic flowing through the Grand Canyon

Arizona Sand & Rock using a Northwest shovel, loads blasted rock onto dump trucks on Black Canyon Freeway (Interstate 17) near New River in the summer of 1949.

Arizona Contractor & Community

Image courtesy of author

Four-Lane Freedom:Arizona Enters the Interstate Age

State. Highway construction was generally used to improve existing roads rather than build new ones. U.S. Highway 60 between the towns of Miami and Superior was realigned and widened.

Similarly, in northern Arizona more than 170 miles of U.S. Route 66 were rebuilt including a segment that bypassed the mining town of Oatman near the California border in 1952.

Sections of the “Mother Road” running through Williams and Winslow were converted into parallel one-way streets to ease traffic congestion in the towns.

Another postwar focus was improving highway links between Phoenix and nearby tourist destinations. The Beeline Highway (State Route 87) to Payson was completely paved by 1958. The Black Canyon Highway (State Route 86) was realigned through Cordes Junction and paved to Prescott. From Cordes Junction a new highway connection, designated State Route 79, was made to Flagstaff in 1960. State Route 93 was opened in 1957, between Kingman and Congress Junction, providing a direct connection from Phoenix to Las Vegas.

Still, the aging highway infrastructure in Arizona was falling farther behind in keeping up with increases in traffic. This was a nationwide problem. “The obsolescence of the nation’s highway system presents an appalling problem of waste, danger, and death,” said President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This led to the FederalAid Highway Act of 1956 that appropriated $25 billion to build the National System of Interstate

Images courtesy of author

“Motorists would travel faster, farther, and more safely over completely new roads often routed through previously pristine landscapes. Destinations which once took days to reach were now attainable in hours.”

Twenty-six

became part of Interstate 17. In 1958, construction started on the Maricopa Freeway, which was incorporated into Interstate 10. The freeway was completed in 1971 with the opening of the Broadway Curve section. The Valley’s third freeway, the Superstition which branched off Interstate 10 to Tempe and Mesa, had its first section opened for traffic in 1971.

The most difficult Valley freeway was the Papago Freeway, the section of Interstate 10 that would connect the Maricopa and Black Canyon freeways through downtown Phoenix.

Originally planned in 1969 as an elevated freeway, public sentiment were against the design. A decade-long stalemate occurred before construction started on what became an underground route.

By 1973, over a thousand miles of interstate were in use in the state. The boom years of highway construction were over however.

Limited federal highway funds and an energy crisis would soon cool Arizona’s freeway construction frenzy.

Image courtesy of Fisher Contracting

Opposite page top: Construction sign along Black Canyon Freeway in 1949.

Opposite page bottom left: ADOT driving brochure.

Opposite page bottom right: Project supervisor over seeing operations for Arizona Sand and Rock.

Right: 1951 Fisher Contracting blasting rock on the Miami Superior Highway.

Bottom: Due to heavy rock on this section of the Black Canyon Freeway, crews used jackhammers to cut back the banks where the new culverts were to be installed.

Images courtesy of Author

and Defense Highways. The program was funded on a pay-as-you-go basis by user taxes on the oil, automobile, and trucking industries.

The nationwide highway system planned to include 41,000 miles of divided, four-lane, limited-access roads built to the highest design standards and be completed by 1972. The ambitious program would become the largest public works project in American history.

Interstate construction in Arizona began in 1957 with the routes designed to replace existing highways often along new alignments since the main purpose of the new roads was to move traffic quickly between major cities. As a result, Interstate 10 directly headed west from Phoenix along a new alignment called the Brenda Cutoff. Towns previously along the main drag to Los Angeles such as Wickenburg and Salome were bypassed and their economies suffered from the lack of traffic. Similar fates would occur in northern Arizona where Interstate 40 bypassed Route 66 towns such as Holbrook, Winslow, Flagstaff, Williams, Ash Fork, and Seligman.

Surprisingly, the Valley had a freeway that predated the interstate system. The Black Canyon Freeway was a four-lane, controlledaccess highway that began a few blocks west of the capital building and ran north for a few miles before merging into Phoenix’s arterial street network. Began in 1950, it eventually Arizona Contractor & Community

Westown Shopping City and the John Bueker

T

he modern American strip mall emerged through a fateful confluence of circumstances arising in the aftermath of World War II. A steady migration of the population to suburban living, the increasing reliance on an automobile-based mode of existence, and a robust post-war economy all combined to change the culture of American consumerism.

Strip malls were a fundamentally logical consequence of this new landscape. The idea was to provide every merchant and service a burgeoning suburban community might desire, all in one convenient location. To facilitate access, the stores were aligned in a row with a sidewalk provided for easy passage. A spacious parking lot adjacent to a major thoroughfare completed the simple formula. This arrangement is so familiar to us today that it is easy to forget what a marvelous innovation it once represented.

By the early 1960s, strip malls of varying sizes and aesthetic conceptions were mushrooming throughout the Phoenix area,

steadily drawing consumers away from traditional shopping downtown. Examples abound, but the shopping center built for the Westown and Surrey Heights subdivisions in what was then considered Deer Valley provides an exceptional example of a mid-century strip mall specifically established to sustain an early Valley suburban community.

The construction of these homes so far north of town raised some eyebrows at the time. There was very little development beyond Northern Avenue and the idea of building homes three or four miles further north was quite visionary in hindsight. The provision of a shopping mall was an essential element in luring home buyers to this relatively remote area in the desert.

Ralph E. Staggs, president of Staggs-Bilt Homes and builder of the Westown neighborhood, owned the site of the proposed strip mall, which would be situated at the far eastern end of his new subdivision. With the Steves Brothers’ Surrey Heights

homes beginning construction to the immediate north of Westown, the need for the shopping center was becoming increasingly urgent. Ground was broken in March 1960 on the northwest corner of the Black Canyon Highway and Larkspur Drive for what would become Westown Shopping City.

Grant and Leroy Malouf, owners of Malouf Construction & Development Company, signed on as the mall builders, developers, and leasing agents. The Maloufs recruited an interesting variety of prominent Valley contractors of the day for the project, including Arizona Sand & Rock Company, Bill Rouse Concrete, Pioneer Steel, and Thomas Air Conditioning. The flagstone-laden design of the new shopping center was devised by Chandler architect Glenn A. McCollum.

Strictly speaking, Westown Shopping City was conceived as a double-sided strip mall, divided into the anchor stores facing east to the freeway with the smaller businesses aligned on the opposing side facing west, a slightly more

Emergence of the Phoenix Strip Mall

For shoppers desiring a relaxing cocktail in the midst of their consumerism, Westown offered a pleasantly cozy tavern experience.

Originally named “Stretch’s Westown Tavern,” the bar was soon rechristened the “Amber Inn” and would so remain for the duration of the mall’s existence. Such was the success of the Westown watering hole that it was later expanded into an adjoining store unit to provide patrons with additional space dedicated solely to pool tables and the then-emerging phenomenon of video games.

The Westown shopping experience was completed by a handful of peripheral businesses that sprang up around the shopping plaza. Westown Medical Center, Valley National Bank, a Union Oil service station, and the whimsically adorned Merry-Go-Round Nursery School all offered critical services to complement the merchants located in the mall itself.

The strip-mall ideal of providing every imaginable business and service the community might

wish to patronize was fully realized in Westown: here was truly one-stop shopping.

Westown Shopping City was easily accessible from the adjacent subdivisions via sidewalks and surface streets, but the builders were naturally interested in luring customers from far beyond the realm of the Deer Valley communities. To this end they situated the large, iconic Westown Shopping City sign on the eastern fringe of the property. With its distinctive irregular 12-point star perched atop, the sign served as an effective advertising beacon overlooking the increasingly busy I-17 Freeway.

As the natural focus of a relatively isolated neighborhood, the mall assumed immediate importance as a center of community activity, hosting everything from political rallies and charity bake sales to 4th of July

Valley National Bank at Westown Shopping City, August 1963.

Image courtesy of author

sophisticated arrangement compared to most early Phoenix strip malls.

Westown Unit 1 debuted in a gala grand opening event on December 1-3, 1960, offering shoppers an A.J. Bayless supermarket, Westown Liquor Store, Westown Barber Shop, Mary Lee Beauty Shop, and Pepe’s Mexican Food. Unit 2 went up in early 1961, adding a Ryan-Evans drug store and T.G.& Y. five-and-dime to the Westown line-up. The two units were separated by a walkway that would be lined with an array of smaller businesses attached to Unit 1.

Strip malls 50 years ago were far more likely to incorporate small local businesses than they do today, and so it was with Westown. The assortment of independent merchants doing business in this mall over the years was remarkable: Dino's Pizza, Sidoti Bootery, The Family Department Store, Cameo Cleaners, Westown Pastry Shop, G&E TV Repair, Westown Hardware, and The Bent Cover bookstore, to name but a few. Many of the proprietors were themselves residents of the Westown area.

firework shows, an annual Halloween “Goblin Parade,� and a location for Santa to appear each December. The Phoenix Library dispatched its bookmobile to Westown each week in the 1960s and 1970s, providing a convenient source of reading material for local residents.

On a more fundamental level though, the mall in its early years was simply the obvious place for neighbors to gather, socialize, and commune together.

Inevitably, the explosive growth of the northwest Valley rendered the old Westown center increasingly obsolete.

With so many more shopping options appearing in the 1970s, including the nearby megamall Metrocenter, Westown Shopping Center was luring fewer customers with each passing year.

Additional construction was done on the site during this period and some notable businesses added, including a BaskinRobbins and Radio Shack, but the tide had irretrievably turned.

The major anchors began to drop out in the 1980s, and the Maloufs sold the center to the local Calvary Church, which gradually occupied and extensively remodeled the buildings. As their leases expired, many of the Westown businesses simply disappeared into history, although some long-time merchants like the Amber Inn and Westown Barber Shop opted to close and relocate elsewhere.

Background: Grand opening of Ryan-Evans Drug Store and T.G. & Y. at Unit 2 of Westown Shopping Center, May 6, 1961.

Left: Westown advertisements.

The barber shop, which ultimately did business in Westown for over half a century, moved to a nearby strip mall in 1995 and prospered for another 17 years before finally calling it quits in 2012. The Amber Inn continues to operate in its transplanted location on Dunlap Avenue, the last surviving business of the original shopping center.

Westown Shopping City had run its course, but the old strip mall served its original purpose and served it well. It provided the secluded residents of the early Deer Valley subdivisions with all the essentials of suburban living, and just as importantly, a common focus of socialization and community purpose. The mall delivered far more than a convenient source for groceries and dime-store merchandise -Westown Shopping City was a familiar and reliable friend whose disappearance is still lamented by many local residents.

Calvary Church has wisely retained that iconic 12-point-star atop the reworked parking lot sign, a poignant reminder of the classic strip mall that once inhabited those enduring buildings along the Black Canyon Freeway and helped define the lives of some very lucky early Phoenix suburbanites.

Images courtesy of author

The Business of Safety Paul Beaulieu

I

n 2004, I was visiting one of my project sites in Phoenix where we were demolishing an old parking lot that had been indiscriminately added to over the years. One such homemade upgrade was a dilapidated light pole base with a thick wire running from it.

My superintendent was wary of the wire and asked me to double check that it had been disconnected.

"Will do," I replied, and went off to the general contractor's superintendent.

Surprisingly, the general's superintendent became irritated with me and declared, "I already told your man that the line is dead! It's dead!"

My gentle response was, "Fair enough.

Then will you or your electrician come out and cut the wire for us...just to be sure?"

He leapt up in a rage and stormed out of his trailer. Pulling the radio out of his pocket he barked out, "Sparky, come up to the north parking lot. These grading guys don't believe you disconnected the juice to the light pole."

The electrician arrived, wearing tan, worn coveralls and an indignant look on his face.

Furiously he snapped at me, "How many times do I have to tell your crew that the power is off.

It is off!"

"I am glad to hear that it is. Will you please just cut the wire running to the light pole? Then we won't bother you anymore."

"You have to be *!%#@!^ kidding me!"

With that he grabbed his snips in one hand, wire in the other and cut the line.

The resulting bright flash and smell of ozone has left a lasting impression in my mind.

Thankfully, only his pride was hurt and that for the better I believe. With a meek voice and eyes as big as saucers he thought aloud, "I thought I disconnected this."

"Thank you Sparky. Thank you Super," I said matter-of-factly. Then I turned to my grading superintendent and asked, "Anything else?"

"Nope, thank you," he said with a smirk.

Keeping ourselves and our crews safe is of paramount importance. At the same time, let's take a balanced look at the business of safety.

Consider first that it is a billion dollar industry and manufacturers of safety equipment and programs are pushing hard for your company to purchase all of their ideas and wares. They would delight in seeing your crews Thirty-two

fitted with football pads, painted fluorescent orange, and five-point harnessed into a safety seat. Why? Because it makes them rich!

The insurance companies want the same.

Why? Because you are mitigating their risk at your expense! With the lawsuit culture that we live in, they know that a stubbed toe can cost them a fortune. "It should be common sense" is not defensible in a country where people sue and win after they dump coffee on themselves and are surprised to discover that it is hot.

Employees also can benefit from excess safety equipment in unhealthy ways. Ever try to do math in your head after using a calculator? It is difficult because the calculator has become a crutch for the mind. It can be the same with the mindless application of safety equipment.

In a market that is not willing to wait or pay for their construction projects to be done by individuals sporting bomb squad gear, business owners must live with the tension of

maintaining profitability and keeping their employees safe, all while special interest groups are shouting, "It's for the children!"

One thing that every business owner can do is insist on hiring and retaining smart employees.

Wisdom is being in the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing. Being safe requires wisdom and soft skills like mindfulness (awareness), humility, education, and understanding. To be truly safe requires thinking.

When I was young and an apprentice grade checker in the operators' union, an old journeyman grade checker asked me one day, "Do you know why they make you wear that vest?"

"For safety," I replied.

"Nah," he said, "It's so they can find your body in the grade." Pointing to my head he stated, "That's where the safety comes from."

Save Our School…Buildings!

Connor Descheemaker

Check out new & past issues online

@ arizcc.com

Image courtesy of author

E

veryone has distinct memories of the schools of their youth. For many, it was a neighborhood school, one which was embedded into the history of the community.

Sense of place, whether for better or for worse, is a factor deeply wedded to schools of any age.

And to see such a locale disappear is to remove a distinct part of the surrounding community’s history and ties to the past.

One such historic school, the 50-year-old Mohave Middle School, faced transformation this past year, with the entire campus being demolished and replaced with new, supposedly more efficient buildings. The act came, as many such demolitions do, as part of Scottsdale Unified School District’s bond initiative for school improvements, which called for largescale modifications to a number of aging schools within the district.

Although many schools around the country undergo major construction, those same such schools are often the last to be considered for historic preservation. New buildings are seen as the only option.

Teardowns have become so prevalent among historic schools that the National Trust for Historic Preservation produced the guide “Older and Historic Schools: A Roadmap for Saving Your School,” detailing steps in getting an educational facility preserved, and the important role such schools can play in the community.

Regardless of the fright felt by the preservation community at such actions, according to Director of Construction Services Rick Freeman for SUSD, such a decision is reached on a case-by-case basis. “We first have to take a look at the age of the school. When we’re reaching 50 years, [it] opens up a lot of things to consider,” says Freeman.

Chiefly among those concerns is that of energy efficiency, and what it would take to get such aged buildings up to modern standards in comparison to starting anew.

Running contrary to this belief though, is the current mantra within sustainability and historic preservation that “the greenest building is one that’s already built.” With the combined emissions of tearing down, removing, and reinstalling a building, it’s difficult to argue that such a process is taxing on the environment.

The need for constant use of schools by students further complicates the struggle between preservation and reconstruction. With asbestos issues being a given for any aged building, abatement can mean doing nearly as much damage as a teardown would anyway.

Freeman counters that, “A lot of times you have so much destruction done [in removing

asbestos] that we end up tearing down most of the school.”

In and around downtown Phoenix, there remain several schools from the city’s early history, including the Phoenix Union High School, Monroe School, Grace Court School, and George Washington Carver School. Perhaps tellingly though, each of these buildings sat vacant for years, and sometimes decades, before being renovated and reused for another purpose.

Phoenix Union now sits as part of the Phoenix Biomedical Campus; the Monroe School houses the Children’s Museum of Phoenix; Grace Court School houses offices, and the Carver School is now home to a museum celebrating the city’s African-American history, reflecting the school’s role as the state’s first “colored” high school.

Until more is learned about the efficiency of preservation and the benefits of such classically-designed schools, it would appear that schools will continue to be torn down in cycles of roughly 50 years. Not all historic buildings can be saved, but one can only hope that all options are considered before a piece of the past is wiped away.

Top: Phoenix Union High School Administration Building, December 1963.

Thirty-four

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Johnson Carlier: Building Arizona for Ten Decades Douglas Towne

A

rizona schoolchildren have long been taught the five “C’s” that form the historic basis of the state’s economy: cattle, citrus, climate, copper, and cotton. Chris Johnson, however, has another theory.

“Arizona’s most important industry has been growth,” he says.

His Tempe-based construction company, Johnson Carlier Inc., provides an excellent example, having expanded from a one-man, home-building operation in the 1920s into an $80 million dollar corporation today.

Chris Johnson is currently the firm’s chief executive officer (CEO). For 34 years, he has

owned the business that has been in the Johnson family for three generations. A big man, Johnson’s friendly nature far outweighs his imposing physical presence. When asked about his athletic past, Johnson modestly demurs that he is more at home atop a horse than on any type of playing field. “For many years I rode and showed cutting horses but my brother, Carl Johnson, received all the athletic talent in the family. He was a star offensive lineman on two national championship football teams at Nebraska in 1970 and 1971 and went on to play in the NFL for the New Orleans Saints and Washington Redskins,” says Johnson. Carl

never worked for the family firm but his Cornhusker squad was recently named by The Sporting News as the all-time, best college football team.

Johnson’s company was started in 1921 by his grandfather, C.O. (Carl) Johnson, who was born in Finspong, Sweden in 1892. One of eight children, Carl was selected by his siblings to immigrate to America at age 17 after their parents died during a flu epidemic.

He learned carpentry in Sweden and honed his trade initially in New York City and later in Des Moines, Iowa which had

Images courtesy of Johnson Carlier and author

Top left: C.O. Johnson with son, L.A. Johnson, by company truck.

Top right: C.O. Johnson with his catch of the day.

Bottom left: Football star, Carl Johnson.

Bottom right: St. Luke's Hospital signing contract with C.O. Johnson & Son, June 29, 1956.

Background: Designed by Weaver & Drover, the Kingman Valley National Bank under construction, June 15, 1956.

family to California. In this life-changing trip, a large Carl ended up marrying her daughter, Pearl, and Scandinavian community. While they settled in Phoenix. The couple had two living in Iowa, Carl was hired to move a lady’s children including a son, Lee Allen, born in 1923.

Carl operated his business, then called C.O. Johnson – Builders and Constructors, from the basement of his Phoenix home.

“My grandfather’s house is gone; it was located where Good Samaritan Hospital now stands,” says Johnson. Carl built homes in the 1920s in what’s now considered central Phoenix. His company survived the Great Depression helped by jobs such as the construction of the Glendale Public Library in 1938.

The company became inactive during the early 1940s. “I’ve heard conflicting reasons for the hiatus,” said Johnson. “One story is that our firm received a contract to construct a building on the Northern Arizona University [then called Arizona State College] campus in Flagstaff. The geology there is volcanic. When the company excavated the basement, they hit some sort of hollow lava tube and went broke trying to repair it. Another story is that his son, Lee Allen, joined the Navy during World War II and he didn’t want to profit

from government contracts during a conflict that might kill his son.”

Johnson pauses, considering each theory.

“There’s probably some truth in both,” he finally muses.

Lee Allen, now married to Jeanne, joined the firm in 1946 and the name changed to C.O. Johnson & Son. The couple raised four children, nicknamed the “4 C’s”: Claudia, Carl, Chris, and Cindy. The postwar period was a boom time during which the company built a wide variety of structures across Arizona including college dorms, schools, churches, office buildings, banks and warehouses.

Critical to the company’s expanded growth was engineer Robert C. “Bob” Strembel, a Phoenix native who graduated from the University of Arizona. “Bob was the unheralded hero of the company,” says Johnson. “He was a talented engineer and mentored me for five years when I took over the company in 1979. As well as a successful partnership, my father and Bob were great friends too and lived across the street from one another.”

During the 1960s, major projects for the firm included McClintock and Camelback

high schools, various Valley National Bank branches, Memorial Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital. The company had three employees. It was during this decade that Chris Johnson began working with his family’s company. As a youth, he fondly recalls a more relaxed lifestyle when C.O. Johnson & Son would shut down during fall deer season and go hunting together in the Superstition Mountains. “It was fun but a much different time,” recalls Johnson. “We would caravan from Laveen and the adults would be drinking Olympia beer, we called them the ‘Big Oranges’. At the campsite, ‘beer pancakes’ were made for breakfast since we weren’t able to refrigerate milk,” he says.

Johnson often spent summers as a teenager on out-of-town construction jobs including a long stretch spent living in a motel in Kingman. “After work, I would wrestle with the superintendents,” he recollects. “Eventually Phoenix College offered me a wrestling scholarship but I broke my leg within a few weeks and dropped out of school.”

After being a carpenter, Chris Johnson became president and CEO of the company in 1979. Two years later, he partnered with Gene

Carlier to establish Johnson Carlier Inc. Museums, hospitals, auto dealerships, libraries, and public works projects were but some of the jobs the firm tackled in the 1990s. Carlier retired in 2000 and about the same time the firm built their new corporate office in Tempe.

Johnson Carlier currently specializes in many types of construction, the main two being automotive dealerships and industrial warehouse retrofits and manufacturing plants.

The recent opening of the Lexus dealership in Scottsdale is an example of the firm’s work in the automotive field. Industrial retrofits include clients such as Safeway, Shamrock, United Dairymen, Gatorade, Pillsbury, Coca-Cola, and Revlon. “Johnson Carlier works throughout the Southwest: Nevada, Utah, Texas, California, and Colorado,” said Johnson. “But 95 percent of our jobs are within Arizona with most in the Valley and Tucson.”

Asked about the firm’s most challenging jobs, Johnson mentions the South Mountain High School auditorium which involved a slip form concrete

Top left: Ernie Mohamed’s Number 12 blade grubbing future building site.

Background: A division of Fisher Contracting, the Superior Sand & Gravel mixer delivers to a C.O. Johnson commercial project.

Image courtesy of Johnson carlier

process, the Barrows Neurological Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital, and the Bay State Milling silos in Tolleson.

Reflecting on the industry, Johnson proudly says, “Construction is a great way to get a job, move up, start your own business, and become successful in this country.” He has witnessed many changes over the years. “The biggest is the huge vacuum in skilled labor,” Johnson says.

“In the early 1980s many Arizona shops were ‘double-breasted,’ meaning they had both union and non-union workers. In 1986 the master labor agreement expired and was renegotiated and most general contractors became open shop. Now, the workforce is 90 percent non-union and there are few such programs available for non-union companies

that compare to the apprenticeship training offered to unions.

As Johnson Carlier enters its tenth decade of helping build Arizona, Chris Johnson still guides the company on the principles started by his grandfather, Carl, and continued by his father, Lee Allen. They are wise thoughts, which have a much broader application than just construction practices. “The success of the company depends on our ability to work well with our clients and partner with architects and engineers in a collaborative team environment.

This philosophy, along with the practice of hiring good honest people with a strong work ethic, quality craftsmanship, and attention to detail is the surest way for our continued success for generations to come.”

Top: Chris Johnson and Nicole Roy pose in in front the historical display in the company’s reception area.

Image courtesy of Johnson carlier

Background: Completed Valley National Bank branch at 16th Street and Camelback Road.

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C

oncrete is my passion and for many years I ve researched Valley firms who pour this material. One of the most prolific was the John W. Lattimore Company.

I recently had the privilege to meet with a member of this well-respected firm, Lonnie Lattimore. He is the younger brother of John, who passed away in 1989. Over apple pie and ice cream, we reminisced about his brother s company, the exhausting manual labor involved in early concrete pours, and other historically prominent firms that are no longer in business.

Lonnie told the history of the Lattimore family, who moved to Phoenix in 1929 when John was 9 years old. Their father was able to support his family during the Great Depression through employment with the Works Progress Administration (WPA), farm work including picking cotton, and other odd jobs. In 1938 John enlisted in the Marine Corps and served in communications and construction units. After World War II, John returned to Arizona and, along with his father and brother Harry, were hired by the Del Webb Company to demolish prisoner-of-war camps that had been built at Fort Huachuca in southern Arizona.

John later worked for a few years as a foreman at Kruptum Contracting.

John started the John W. Lattimore Company from his north Phoenix home in 1950; his only equipment was a 1949 Chevy, a trailer, and some concrete forms. The company rapidly grew and specialized in pouring and finishing house slabs and foundations for small commercial structures.

Throughout the decade, Lattimore s company worked for prominent Valley housing developers including John F. Long Homes, Hallcraft Homes, Lennar Homes, Knoll Homes, Suggs Homes, Elmer Bradley Homes, and Continental Homes.

Around 1962, John and his employee, Al Jones, engineered a machine to pour curb and gutter, and sidewalks (monolithic) powered by a five horse-power Briggs and Stratton engine, which proved a huge money maker.

Using the new machinery, Lattimore was capable of pouring 150-200 cubic yards or about 2,200 linear/foot per day of concrete.

The company expanded operations and by the 1970s, Lattimore had 150 employees, 4 blades, and 1 curb machine. In the mid-1980s, John retired from the concrete business. His son, John T. took over the company while his brother, Lonnie started Double LL Contracting mostly pouring curbs and gutters for subdivisions.

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Send an email to the publisher Billy@arizcc.com Forty-two

Image courtesy of Bill Heeter

To get a better understanding of what it was like to work with John W. Lattimore, I met with the Matousek brothers: Dennis, Jim, and Mike who all were employed by the firm. Dennis started in 1957, Jim worked from

Sanner Contracting and John W. Lattimore crews place four-inch concrete on the upstream slope side of the State Route 87 at the Salt River project in 1965.

Hess Smother, Jr., who was the Lattimore superintendent on the project.

Arizona Concrete Contractors Association Officers in 1982: (left to right) Tony Pulice, Secretary-Treasurer; Archie Gulliver, Director; Bill Rouse, Director; John W. Lattimore, President; A. Deal Beck, Vice President.

Lonnie Lattimore in 2012.

The Matousek brothers in 2012: Dennis, Jim and Mike.

Images courtesy of author and Lonnie Lattimore

●1960 – Mayer Central Building at Central Avenue and Earl Drive. ●1963 - United Bank Building at Central Avenue and Osborn. ●1964 - Curb, gutter, sidewalk, and drainage structures along Route 66 in Winslow ●1967 - Structures and curb for Los Arcos Mall. ●1974 – Curb, gutter, sidewalk, and drainage structures at McCormick Ranch ●1980 - Landscaping and retaining walls along the Maricopa Freeway from 16th Street to 7th Avenue ●1984 – Concrete structures and sediment ponds for the wastewater treatment plant at Gainey Ranch

1963-83, and Mike invested 22 years with the company. Dennis summed up how demanding Lattimore was, If you could work for John you could work for anyone!

The overwhelming impression I took away from our conversation was how tough it was to pour concrete curb and gutter and sidewalks during the boom construction decades of the 1960s and 1970s.

With concrete forms set ahead, in one day Lattimore crews, by hand, could pour, tamp, and finish 100-150 yards of curb and gutter plus the sidewalks. That is a very impressive ten to fifteen loads of concrete on a job site in one shift.

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Groundbreaking Asian-American Architect

O

ne of the most prolific architects of the Valley’s famed mid-century era was Joe Bing Wong, a native Arizonan who passed away in 2011. Working mostly in Scottsdale, Wong designed many commercial buildings, schools, homes, and perhaps most notably, the Carefree Sundial. His influence on the Scottsdale skyline is felt not only with the numerous buildings he designed, but also with his work on various architectural advisory committees and community projects.

Of Chinese ancestry, Wong was born in the copper mining town of Clifton, Arizona in 1921.

He attended the University of California at Berkley before serving in the U.S. military during World War II. In 1952, Wong and his family moved to Scottsdale and two years later he established the architectural firm, Wong Associates.

Wong’s design philosophy was that buildings should blend in with and maintain the integrity of the surrounding Sonoran Desert landscape.

He maintained this vision in designing over 550 homes, offices, banks, restaurants and schools in the Valley. His most notable structures included Scottsdale's 5th Ave, Hopi School,

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Stagebrush Theater, and additions to the Valley Ho and Camelback Inn. Wong also felt a connection to Native American communities and designed many housing projects on tribal lands in Arizona.

Top: Grand opening of Park 5th Avenue Building Retail Shops.

Architect Joe Wong displays rendition to Southwest Management Group and C.O. Johnson & Son Building Company, April 24, 1963.

Above: Giant Sundial, Carefree, Arizona. Proclaimed the largest sundial in the Western hemisphere, it’s 62 feet long and equipped with tubes to heat water by solar energy for a nearby building.

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