Ready to bowl over S. Scottsdale / P. 33
An edition of the East Valley Tribune
INSIDE
This Week
NEIGHBORS ................ 27 Scottsdale Boys & Girls Clubs' Youth of the Year.
BUSINESS ..................... 35 Knightime entertainment coming to N. Scottsdale.
ARTS................................ 40 Exhibit honors forgotten local artist Dorothy Fratt.
NEIGHBORS ........................ 27 BUSINESS ............................. 35
OPINION ..............................38
ARTS ................................... 40 FOOD & DRINK...................43 CLASSIFIEDS .......................46
Not just your typical bar food / P. 43
FREE ($1 OUTSIDE OF SCOTTSDALE) | scottsdale.org
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Museum Square fuels love-hate reaction BY WAYNE SCHUTSKY Progress Managing Editor
T
hough heralded by many as a needed shot of vitality to downtown Scottsdale, Museum Square still has detractors with serious concerns about the development’s potential impact on the surrounding community. At a meeting hosted by Scottsdale Councilwoman Solange Whitehead and former Mayor Mary Manross, dozens of community members filled the former Loloma Transit Station to learn more about the development and share their thoughts. Councilwomen Kathy Littlefield and Suzanne Klapp also attended the meeting. According to plans submitted to the city, the development will feature a 149-foot-high hotel south of Museum of the West where the transit station sits and a 60-foothigh apartment building across the street on Marshall Way. Museum Square would also include three
condominium buildings south of Second Street, ranging in height from 139 feet to 149 feet. The development would replace the Loloma station, but nearby Stagebrush Theater or the Scottsdale Artists’ School wouldn’t close. The development also includes a public park-style plaza surrounding the hotel just to the south of the museum that could be used for events, said Jeff Denzak, a partner with architecture firm Swaback who is working on the project. Museum Square has the support of Museum of the West and the nearby Stagebrush Theater. Developer Macdonald Development Corp. already owns some of the land needed for the development and agreed to pay the city $27.75 million for 180,000 square feet of land adjacent to the museum, including the Loloma site. That land sale is contingent upon the city’s approval of a rezoning
see MUSEUM page 8
This rendering shows the hotel and open space at the proposed Museum Square development that would sit just south of Scottsdale’s Museum of the West. (Progress file photo)
City eyes project to curb major �lood threat BY WAYNE SCHUTSKY Progress Managing Editor
A
proposed wash project in northern Scottsdale around the Loop 101 freeway would protect thousands of properties and critical city infrastructure in the event of a 100-year flood. The currently-unfunded project is one
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of many being considered for inclusion in a potential bond election that the City Council is expected to vote on in April. The project would protect against a flood that would have flows greater than that of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Currently, there is a 7.5-square-mile FEMA-designated floodplain in Scott-
sdale that originates in the McDowell Mountains near Pinnacle Peak Road and extends south to Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard. The flood plain encompasses 4,600 properties and the Scottsdale Water Campus, a critical piece of city infrastructure
see FLOOD page 26
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