Greenbelt 88. Credit: Nelsen Partners/City of Scottsdale
By Roland Murphy | AZBEX
Many times, the first issue of a new year will look back on notable changes and big wins of the last 12 months.
Unfortunately, there is one trend that’s casting enough of a shadow on the national and Arizona A/E/C landscape that, rather than indulging in a bit of retrospective whimsy, leads us to ask our readers to sharpen their focus: Opposition to development project is getting more entrenched, better funded, better organized and more broad, and the development community is not responding quickly enough to the change.
While evolution in the natural world is an exceptionally slow process, in the development and cultural world, lasting shifts can happen in a comparative instant.
It was only slightly more than five years ago that Village Property Management proposed redeveloping the struggling Lucky Plaza retail center at Hayden and Osborn roads in Scottsdale. It was a straightforward plan to replace a strip mall that was struggling to retain stores and customers with a modern 388-unit multifamily development called Greenbelt 88.
