No doubt about it: Mesa scored much more than prestige when city officials announced plans for the Barry and Peggy Goldwater Library and Archives to be built downtown.
Barry Goldwater, U.S. senator and 1964 Republican presidential nominee, lived in Paradise Valley, where today his memorial is located. Goldwater Boulevard winds past Scottsdale Fashion Square, where a department store that bore his family’s name once stood. And the Goldwater Institute, the conservative think tank named for him, is in midtown Phoenix.
Yet the library, named for arguably the most revered Arizonan in state history and his wife, is not planned to be built in any of those cities. It represents the latest in downtown Mesa’s measured but consistent steps forward in recent years. As the Tribune reported last week, the city intends to donate land it owns for the 40,000 square-foot library, which is to be built with privately collected money and is expected to draw about 60,000 visitors annually.
From the Mesa Arts Center to the light rail extension, to the opening of branch campuses of no less than four universities and colleges, downtown Mesa has been growing out from more than 20 years of lacking a reputation as a place locals and visitors talk about actually setting foot.
Finally, it seems, with a clearly emerging downtown, Mesa might well shake off a reputation for being just about the nation’s largest bedroom community without a living room. Soon, Mesa could be known as a city with something other than an endless array of strip centers and subdivisions and a population that frequently travels outside the city limits to places like Chandler, Tempe and Scottsdale for night life, dining and entertainment. Those three cities have vibrant, varied downtowns. Mesa still doesn’t, but the library represents a movement that could change the deficiency at long last.
Let’s just hope that the proposed location of the Goldwater library isn’t jinxed.
The library site at the southeast corner of Macdonald and First Avenue still is owned by the city after Mesa officials decided in January 2005 to give up plans for an indoor aquatic center for the site, the Tribune reported nearly eight years ago.
As the Jan. 14, 2005, Tribune reported, the reason cited for abandoning the aquatic center was that cost estimates of $24.6 million had substantially grown to a $41.3 million figure city officials couldn’t justify.
The decision, while prudent, dealt a big blow to Mesa’s desires for a multi-faceted downtown, for a sense of synergy that attracts new development.
The Mesa Arts Center opened that same year but for most of the time since has been a shining island in a still-murky sea. The recent recession can be blamed for a good part of the stagnation, but the years of the arts center and the defunct aquatic center were in the last mid-decade, a time generally agreed to have been boom years in the East Valley.
But despite the recession, the recent strides forward in higher education and mass transit — two components of building a daily influx of people — plus the new library could be the necessary critical mass for downtown Mesa that urban planners talk about.
That is, downtowns are more than just a collection of a few big-name projects. The large landmarks are the catalyst for an equally vital component to a strong downtown: small business. This includes places to eat, to be entertained, to buy interesting products and services not usually found in a shopping mall.
From the description on the library’s website (https://barrygoldwaterlibrary.org), in addition to being a place for scholars and researchers, it will also hold a number of public events. Expect a number of major political figures to speak there as well as panel discussions on civic life in Arizona and the nation local residents can attend and learn from.
As the Tribune reported last week, officials expect to open the library in 2016, an indicator that this is indeed still a struggling economy we’re in. Neither the story nor anything I could find on the website quotes anyone estimating the library’s cost. That ought to be made public, even in general terms. Donors and taxpayers — the city is donating the land, after all — have a right to know what it is they’re paying for and whether three years is enough time to come up with it.
Avoid any jinx, Mesa and library officials: Whatever that estimate is, it should be one that you can expect to be relatively the same by 2016.
Next Wednesday is Halloween. Time and foot-dragging led to a near-doubling of the estimated cost of the aquatic center, dooming its ghost — and its one-time promise of a national reputation for downtown Mesa — to haunt the southeast corner of Macdonald and First Avenue.
• Read Tribune contributing columnist Mark J. Scarp’s opinions here on Sundays. Reach him at mscarp1@cox.net.
downtownresident posted at 9:04 am on Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
This will increase the value of all the half-way houses, sex offender central, the Alhambra, on S. Macdonald, between Main and 1st Avenue.
The writer failed to mention the subsidized housing project going in to the east of the library, and next door to the Mormon Church at Center and 1st Ave.
It'll be interesting to watch it all unfold, and see where the money goes.
ekmc8 posted at 9:50 am on Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
The posted cost of the library everywhere is $30 million, all privately funded and operated, with $10 million pledged by the Taiwan government....quoted by a city councilman. I can't be the only one who easily found that information in the original announcement this week. Even if the city donated the land that is currently sitting there empty, taxpayers aren't funding the library itself so I have no complaints.
vickiln posted at 3:24 pm on Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
While I think the Goldwater Library is positive in most ways, it will not change much more downtown Mesa than the art center has. In terms of people coming to downtown Mesa for an event, their is nothing there or even planned, that will keep them in downtown Mesa. There is a rather pitiful choice of restaurants, actually no restaurants at all that appeal to the masses or have hours conducive to real business, like maybe a steak house or a Applebees type business. That is due to the liquor issue. No beer with a burger or a pizza at all. Unless that ban disappears, people will continue on down the road to other spots other than downtown Mesa.
mymesa posted at 5:27 pm on Sat, Oct 27, 2012.
Vicklin- did you see the article on the "Entertainment District" zoning overlay they are considering for Downtown? Show up to the City Council meeting and support it. Although Downtown is not void of places that will serve you a beer and burger (Grill on Main) I hope the overlay will help negate the perception of Downtown being a Drytown.
downtownresident posted at 8:07 am on Sun, Oct 28, 2012.
Vickiln,
Don't know much about the restaurant business, do you? I don't know of any business that would invest 3-5 million dollars to build a world class restaurant in downtown Mesa. Take a look around. There's no building in downtown that could be easily brought up to present day codes to house a restaurant. Jimmy John's seems to be doing OK in the former Jack in the Box building.
iL Vanaio, Kirk's, Desert Eagle, Grill on Main, Nunthaporn's, Monster Land and Bistro de la Cruz all serve beer and some serve mixed drinks too. That's just on Main Street, from Country Club to Center Street.
Changing a hundred year old cultural aversion to alcohol won't happen over night.
But, with the new blood on Council and at DMA you should have noticed a big difference in the type and number of activities going on downtown.
The streets were jammed with people last night, till 1:00AM.
I think we should tip our hats to Mayor Smith, Chris Bradey and David Short, of DMA for taking some very important steps to bring downtown Mesa back from the grave.
hopeforbest posted at 8:10 am on Mon, Oct 29, 2012.
As a former owner of a downtown business the City is part of the problem. Yes this weekend there were lots of people downtown but it was centrally located between Center and MacDonald. Is that the only place there are restaurants and business in Mesa? NO. They always focus on that area so it can be close to the huge Mesa Art Center. Maybe if the City and Mayor Smith and DMA would concentrate on the whole downtown things could change. Country Club to Mesa Drive has business that could use the support of the Downtown and Mayor Smith and the DMA, but they seem to once again show their support to a few business in one City block. It is a shame, Mesa could be a beautiful Downtown Art mecca, but look at the business that have closed in the last year. Where was the support for those?
Leon Ceniceros posted at 10:12 am on Mon, Oct 29, 2012.
What else except ...."PRO-GAY"....could Barry Goldwater Sr......be, due to the circumstances.
Let's not forget that old Barry voted against the ....CIVIL RIGHTS ACT.
Oh....and let's hope they don't cover up the fact the Barry was one of Senator Joe McCarthy's biggest..............."SUPPORTERS".......too.
Bluepoet posted at 1:22 pm on Mon, Oct 29, 2012.
It's somehow fitting, that Mesa should be the site of a library dedicated to the notorious war hawk, Barry AUH2O...
As a child, I viewed him as the man who, if elected, would have started WWIII, just out of a sense of, "hit them first, before they hit us!"
Nowadays, I actually long for people, especially Republicans, to be more like him...if he were still alive, the Tea Party crazies would have rode him outta town, on a rail, for being too Liberal!
Yep, time for Mesa to take its rightful place, among the highest echelons of regressive-thinking politicians.
What's next, the General Macarthur memorial Peace exhibit?
"Kill For Peace, Citizen!"
Leon Ceniceros posted at 3:16 pm on Tue, Oct 30, 2012.
WOW....looks like someone had way, way too much "Purple Kook-Aid" today. It must be because the Election is getting way to close to call....and the Democrat "Red Guard" are getting worried that their ..."Chairman"....Barack Hussein Obama and his "ashamed to be an American" Wife won't be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after the end of January 2013..............[beam]
Bluepoet posted at 10:07 am on Wed, Oct 31, 2012.
How amusing, Leon, that you think everything is tied to this election--one in which, no matter who wins, it will not matter...the fix is still in, and the purveyors of influence are the only ones who will benefit. Elections are little more different than betting on one's favorite sport.
Rah, rah, ra...
[wink]