Tempe enters talks to revamp Danelle Plaza after decades of deterioration
Tempe has entered formal negotiations with developers to revamp Danelle Plaza, a move that marks the furthest the city has gotten in its years-long effort to renovate the historic yet deteriorating 14-acre site.
The Plaza sits at the corner of South Mill Avenue and West Southern Road. It was first built in the early 1960s and has evolved into a cultural hub for the city, with everything from public art to retro-style buildings to classic Tempe businesses such as the Yucca Tap Room, which Mayor Corey Woods said may be the “oldest live music venue” in the city.
Still, the original vision of Danelle Plaza becoming "the heart of Tempe's new downtown '' never came to fruition. Development there stagnated in 1983 and it’s now dotted with empty lots and vacant storefronts, something city leaders have decried as a waste of potential for more than a decade.
But Tempe’s City Council began the process of changing that last week, when officials unanimously voted to enter negotiations with developers who want to build a new mixed-use project with apartments, retail shops and restaurants on the underused site.
The process is still in its early stages and officials haven’t worked out any of the project details, but they said the recent decision is the most significant step in decades towards breathing life back into Danelle Plaza.
“What this does is provide an opportunity for the city of Tempe and the (developers) to come together and begin conversations about what a development agreement could look like,” Woods said. “This is the closest that we’ve ever been to getting something done and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited about the opportunity.”
The two developers involved — Guina Affiliated Developers and Desert Viking-Danelle Plaza — were chosen by Tempe last September, about a month after the city started looking for qualified companies interested in building on the city-owned portion of the plaza.
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Tempe and the developers have already hammered out some of the terms of a potential deal, although they’re vague at this point. Specifically, they include:
“Jointly pursuing legal options to address” building restrictions on the property that could make it next to impossible to build a sizable project on the site. Those rules are controlled by a nearby condominium association, which is similar to an HOA.
Requirements that the developers set aside a portion of the new on-site apartments for affordable housing and install “significant public art throughout the property.”
A promise that Tempe will consider special zoning rules for the project, which could include such things as allowing more signs than typically permitted.
Consideration of tax breaks for the developers if “supported by an economic impact study and public benefit analysis.”
City staffers have until Dec. 1 to finalize the development agreement, after which council members will have to take another vote on whether to sell the piece of Tempe-owned land in the Plaza.
City leaders promised that the final proposal will preserve the unique character of Danelle Plaza and emphasized that residents will have input throughout the process.
“We’re going to do it right. We’re listening to our residents. We’re making sure that we’re going to do a project that everyone can understand and that everyone can be part of,” said Councilmember Joel Navarro. “This is a great first step forward and I’m just anxious to see what we do.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Tempe officials are negotiating a major Danelle Plaza makeover
