Mesa City Council updated on city’s redevelopment efforts

By Connor Van Ligten
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The Mesa City Council was given an update on the city’s redevelopment efforts by Urban Transformation Manager Jeff McVay and others at their June 26 study session.

According to a council presentation, the goal of the redevelopment effort is to identify focus areas, apply site feasibility criteria, and determine the highest and best use of sites.

Focus areas are crucial so the city knows where to focus their resources and effort, according to Redevelopment Program Administrator Jeff Robbins.

“One of the key components of the program was the idea of focus areas,” Robbins said. “We can’t be everywhere all at once and if we want to really create momentum and change we’ve got to pick places where we’re going to concert our efforts.”

Robbins said the primary focus areas for redevelopment are major business centers such as Riverview, Fiesta Mall, Superstition Springs and Longbow. Other areas include areas where land value exceeds improvement value, such as East Main Street, aging arterial shopping centers such as on Power and McDowell, and ares near major public investments and redevelopment areas such as the Fiesta and Asian districts.

“The Asian district was one of the recommendations for the redevelopment area plan and we grabbed onto that,” Economic Development Director Jaye O’Donnell said. “We have ran with it with very limited funding and resources so we’re thinking about how we might want to do that in other areas of the city.”

McVay also pointed out that this is an effort that requires the work of multiple departments, which means redevelopment processes will be time-consuming.

“Even if you made a redevelopment department, that department by itself would never be able to accomplish these goals,” McVay said, “It will require economic development, development services, planning, it’s going to require our utilities, it’s going to require solid waste and fire and police. So we are just at the tip of the iceberg of the amount of effort it’s going to take throughout the entire city.”