'Ghost of council past' haunts current body

Mar. 4—If Charles Dickens — who started his writing career as a London reporter — lived to cover a Feb. 20 meeting in Scottsdale, he might dub it "The Ghost of Council Past."

Or, perhaps, "A Tale of Two Councils."

Indeed, in sharply reducing bonus heights offered to Old Town developers, the Scottsdale City Council seemed to be wrestling with its own not-too-distant past.

At the Feb. 20 meeting, several current members fired shots at the 2018 City Council, which metaphorically put the elevator up on building heights.

Asked about the barbs, Jim Lane, mayor from 2009 to 2021, defended the approval of tall buildings that transformed Old Town/downtown.

"It's always easy to criticize in hindsight," Lane said. "We were doing a lot of things and taking measures we thought were best.

"They come in with a different view," he said of many current council members, whom he described as running on "no-growth" platforms.

Things were very different when he took office, Lane insisted.

"Old Town was a ghost town in 2009," Lane said.

That's hardly the case in 2024.

A half-dozen tall hotels are shooting up around Old Town, bookended by Caesar's Republic and the under-construction Maya Hotel, which towers over its Entertainment District neighbors.

With its boisterous bars, the Entertainment District itself was a new addition under Lane's leadership.

Reflecting on all the newcomers he and City Council waved into Scottsdale, Lane wondered:

"Were we too successful?"

He said his administration "tried to hang in" with keeping Old Town developers under 100 feet, "but sometimes that got away from us.

"So now there are veiled insinuations the past administration let Old Town go to hell," Lane complained.

To Lane, the real hell was the 2009 scene of Old Town's "abandoned buildings and empty shops. We had to put art in the window so people wouldn't see what it was."

Cutting to 2024, Lane sees a thriving Old Town that has lured new tourists by the thousands, who in turn patronize established businesses.

"Overall, I think we did a heck of a job. And we did it with no subsidies," Lane said. "We did a good job in getting activity into downtown."

Brushing aside self-doubt ("Did we become a victim of our own success?") about approving new projects around Old Town and downtown, the former mayor said he has not heard criticism from residents or business owners.

"I've got nothing but thank yous," Lane said.

Not so from the members of Scottsdale's current City Council — who took a red pen to the Lane administration Old Town plan.

Correcting "bad situations"

"The Downtown Character Plan was breezed through (in 2018) ... the deliberation was not what it deserved," Councilman Barry Graham said at the Feb. 20 meeting.

The new changes, according to Councilwoman Betty Janik, "corrected some bad situations."

Councilwoman Solange Whitehead commented, "There were pretty obvious flaws in it from 2018."

Councilwoman Tammy Caputi added, "I can't believe the previous council would just say 'let's bring up the heights.'

"Why were these changes made in 2018?" Caputi said she asked city planning staff. "The answer I got was, 'We had nothing coming. We were scared.'"

Though Caputi joined the other six council members in voting for lowering the maximum bonus height in Old Town from 150 feet to 102 feet, she added a somewhat cryptic caveat:

"This council has the ability to say yes or no to anything that comes before us."

Asked to clarify the statement, Caputi responded, "We didn't have to go through all the time and expense to change the allowable bonus heights — we could have always just said yes or no."

Caputi, unlike her colleagues, defended what Lane and her predecessors did.

"The increased possible heights were put in place during an economic downturn when we were trying to encourage more economic activity in our downtown," Caputi said.

And she welcomes the towering new addition to Old Town.

"Caesar's is the right project in the right location," Caputi said, "and will be a great asset for the city."

Hail Caesars

Councilwoman Kathy Littlefield is the only current member who was on council when Old Town bonus heights were raised.

But she can claim immunity from some criticism, as she voted against allowing the Fashion Square owners to build a hotel as high as 150 feet.

That was just one of a wave of 10 tall hotels that Council approved from 2016-18.

One, Caesars Republic Scottsdale, opens Wednesday, March 6. This is the Fashion Square project the council approved on Aug. 29, 2017.

Like others around the country, this project's construction was delayed by the pandemic.

Finally, nearly seven years after being approved, Caesars is nearing completion — coming in at 11 stories and 147 feet tall, a scant 3 feet under its limit.

"It does seem to me to be a massive project," Lane allowed. "But we were accepting those kinds of things."

Like thousands of developments around the country, Caesars was stopped dead in its tracks by the COVID pandemic.

But the hotel — at North Goldwater Boulevard and East Highland Avenue on the north end of the Fashion Square property — got back on track once supply lines resumed.

Ready for business nearly five years after its original start date, the hotel is part of a larger development plan presented to the city by Scottsdale Fashion Square owner Macerich in 2017, when the company won zoning changes for what critics called a "skyscraper."

The plan also included multifamily housing, a grocery store, commercial office space and an additional 100,000 square feet of retail.

The Aug. 29, 2017, rezoning portion of the council meeting featured lively debate.

The bulk of complaints came from Optima residents concerned that a 150-foot building nearby would block their views or otherwise negatively impact their community.

Lane led a council of Virginia Korte, Suzanne Klapp, Littlefield, Linda Milhaven, Guy Phillips and David Smith.

Expecting strong opposition, John Berry, an attorney representing the proposed hotel, came out with guns blazing:

"Since the day that Winfield Scott founded Scottsdale has there been an industry more critical to quality of life than tourism?"

Berry quoted a city press release "noting that visitors to Scottsdale generate more than $37 million sales tax revenue each year, money that stays in our community to repair roads, maintain libraries, train emergency responders and provide other services."

The big hotel he was representing would only add to the city's coffers, he implied.

Sasha Weller, president of the Scottsdale Firefighters Association, seconded Berry, calling the project "far more than a zoning case — it's an economic engine for this city. It's a vital part of our downtown."

But Ray Sachs was one who questioned why the hotel had to be so tall. Quoting a newspaper story, he said, "Scottsdale's standard for many years was 60 feet height."

Even so, he said, the then-standard of 90 feet — without the bonus — would be fine with him. "Why isn't this height sufficient for building an office or hotel?" Sachs demanded.

"I think that we are changing what Scottsdale looks like when we start adding high-rises."

After Pei Tao presented a petition with 300 signatures against a project "which will change Scottsdale's skyline forever," Smith offered an alternative.

The councilman said Council could continue the zoning request to a later date to give the developer more time to come up with "a rationale for the 150 feet."

Littlefield seconded that — but the other five council members rejected it, instead voting to clear the way for the towering hotel.

Height, of course, is relative.

The 10 tallest hotels in the country (most in New York City and Las Vegas) all stretch four to five times higher than Caesars Republic Scottsdale.

And, though it peers down on its neighbors, the new Old Town hotel is puny, compared to the 31 floor/365-foot-tall Sheraton Phoenix Downtown, which surpassed the 24-floor Hyatt Regency Phoenix as the tallest hotel tower in Arizona.