MESA DOWNTOWN SUMMIT
What: City officials, urban-development experts, developers and financiers discuss prospects for urban redevelopment in west Mesa. the strip malls, and the company that owns the struggling Fiesta Mall recently turned the property over to the lender that financed its purchase in 2004.
A vacant, fenced-off shopping center called Fiesta Village, on the northwest corner of Alma School Road and Southern Avenue, has generated resident complaints and city code-compliance cases for years.
Mesa already has sunk millions of dollars into the Fiesta District, first building a police station there and now tearing up Southern Avenue for a $10 million reconstruction and landscaping project.
In addition, two of the colleges Mesa recruited in 2012 have set up shop in the Fiesta neighborhood.
Smith has focused on Fiesta for years. In early 2009, he solicited advice from urban-planning experts during a conference in Denver as to what could be done there. Even then, he said Fiesta would never again be a regional retail mecca, suggesting instead that it would be suitable for mixed-use, urban-style development.
As opposed to the mostly local presenters for the March 2012 downtown summit, the Dec. 9 meeting will feature several prominent urban-development experts from across the country. They include: » John Norquist, who led redevelopment efforts as Milwaukee’s mayor from 1988 to 2004 and is now president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism and a university instructor on urban issues.
» Scott Bernstein, president and cofounder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a group promoting sustainable urban communities.
» Robert Chapman, managing partner, Traditional Neighborhood Development Partners and a national leader in the “new urbanism” movement.
» Gary Pivo, senior research fellow at the Homer Hoyt Institute, which studies land-use and urban issues.
There also will be a representative from the Suburban Land Institute, which is a real-estate investment subsidiary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that promotes economic development at the local level. When: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 9. Where: Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St., Mesa. Contact: Neighborhood Economic Development Corp., Mesa, 480-258-6927.