By Melissa Rosequist
Twitter: @mrosequist_

Thirty minutes before City Hall locked up for the weekend, more than 30 boxes containing thousands of signatures supporting a referendum petition to halt the Southbridge Two project in Old Town Scottsdale were turned in to the city clerk’s office.

At 4:30 p.m. Jan. 3, a reported 18,000 signatures, delivered via rented U-Haul truck, were turned into City Clerk Carolyn Jagger for verification. The referendum petition seeks to force Southbridge Two --- approved 4-3 by Scottsdale City Council in early December --- to a public vote next November.

Political Action Committee coined Committee for the Preservation of Old Town Scottsdale, was required to obtain 11,930 verified signatures by Jan. 3 in order for the proposal to be on the upcoming ballot. The committee was given about 30 days to garner their necessary signatures.

Southbridge Two, a Spring Creek Development project spearheaded by President Carter Unger, aims to redevelop nearly 10 acres of property along Fifth Avenue, increasing the density and building height of the property by adding luxury real estate, office space and a hotel.

Committee Chairwoman, Janet Floyd Wilson was among the handful of people at City Hall to see the signatures delivered.

“We needed to collect almost 12,000 signatures, and our goal was 14,000 to have a cushion in case some of the signatures were incorrect,” Ms. Wilson said. “We’ve actually gotten 18,000. Isn’t that exciting?”

Ms. Wilson is a property owner with 44 tenants in the area, some of which who have been there for decades.

The committee set up a headquarters shop in the downtown Scottsdale area where residents could sign the petition. She says the day of the deadline, the were was a steady stream of people coming to join the effort.

“This is a wake up call for the City Council that the citizens of Scottsdale are not happy --- they are hopping mad --- they want change,” Ms. Wilson said. “We want to keep Scottsdale as it is with a low skyline. We don’t want high-rises everywhere.”

Ms. Wilson says while the referendum petition is specifically about a decision on Southbridge Two, the effort speaks to a bigger issue.

“The citizens are awake now. They are going to be watching what City Hall does,” she said. “We want to make sure that we don’t have a City Council that is pro-development. We want our town to stay with the same character, same feel.”

Former City Councilmember David Ortega says Southbridge Two crossed the line with the size of his development. The project is a continuation of Southbridge, a development on the north side of the canal built years earlier by Mr. Unger's late father, Fred Unger. 

“They crossed the line when they put 12- and 14-story buildings between the canal, which is supposed to be a treasure,” Mr. Ortega said of the first iteration of Southbridge.

“And then Fifth Avenue --- they stuck it there, when previously they’ve only had three stories on the canal. So when they say it’s an evolution of phase one, it’s not. It just totally destroys even what phase one was about. So by disrespecting the canal, and abutting there, and disrespecting all the merchants there, in that area --- it made a lot of people angry.”

The signatures will be counted by Ms. Jagger prior to being verified by the Secretary of State’s Office within a 20-business-day window.