By Paulina Pineda | Arizona Republic
Tempe residents and city officials hope a recently approved apartment complex north of Loop 202 could jumpstart redevelopment on a county island dotted by a strip club, a pawn shop and scrap-metal shops.
At the least, it takes a 17-acre chunk out of the 70-acre county island, as the city annexed the apartment land.
The Phoenix area has numerous county islands, a term that’s often unfamiliar to transplants from older, more established parts of the U.S.