Downtown Phoenix Is Moving Toward a 24-Hour Economy
Downtown Phoenix, Arizona Mark Skalny / Shutterstock.com
The vibrancy in this part of the nation’s sixth-largest city is a stark contrast to its condition a decade ago.
WASHINGTON — Downtown Phoenix is on track toward having an economy that will see action all day and all night, according to Daniel Valenzuela, the city’s vice mayor.
Commercial activity there currently hums along for about 16-hours a day, Valenzuela said. But, he added, it’s headed toward becoming “a 24-hour economy.” What’s notable about this, is that downtown Phoenix wasn’t always so vibrant. Flashback about a decade, and it was a place where people went for work, or for sporting events, and then went home.
“It was rare to have anyone on the streets after 4 or 5 p.m,” the vice mayor explained during a panel discussion at the National League of Cities 2016 Congressional City Conference, which is being held in the nation’s capital this week.
But, since the early 2000s, billions of dollars have flowed toward development in the city’s core. Taxable sales are up by roughly 80 percent there in the last seven years, according to Valenzuela. In the next three years, over 4,600 new housing units are planned, he also said.
In Valenzuela’s view, two types of investments were especially important for spurring the economic uptick.
“You have to invest in infrastructure, and you have to invest in education,” he said.
For Phoenix taxpayers, this has meant providing support for the regional Valley Metro light-rail transit system, which came online in 2008. It has also involved the development of a city-owned, 30-acre medical and bioscience campus. The campus offers a home for biomedical-related research, along with academic and clinical facilities, and supports about 10,000 jobs.
The biomedical industry has become an important facet of the city’s efforts to diversify its economy, which has depended heavily on tourism and real estate in the past.
Universities based in the city and elsewhere in Arizona have also taken on a greater presence in downtown. “Today there are more than 12,000 young college students who are living in downtown Phoenix, and who are helping the downtown businesses thrive,” Valenzuela said.
In addition to supporting infrastructure and education, Valenzuela believes there’s something else that has helped boost downtown Phoenix’s fortunes: a vision for how the place should be.
“It’s about sharing this vision,” he said. “And making people feel like this is our city.”
Bill Lucia is a Reporter for Government Executive’s Route Fifty. (Photo by Mark Skalny / Shutterstock.com)
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