The Monroe Building in Downtown Phoenix debuted a revitalized new landscape plan designed to enhance the walkability of the area in concert with a broader downtown initiative, known as the Downtown Phoenix Urban Form Project.
The Monroe Building resides in the most walkable area of the Valley with a Walkscore of 96. The building’s latest enhancements are designed to continue the streetscape transformation, further enhancing an active, pedestrian oriented and sustainable Downtown Phoenix.
“Our vision for the Monroe Building is to serve as a destination for the businesses and residents of Downtown Phoenix,” said DJ Fernandes, architect and vice president with Ironline Partners, part of the ownership team at the Monroe Building. “We are fortunate to be at the center of the city and by creating a sense of place we intend to add depth to the Downtown Phoenix urban fabric,” he said.
Since 2008, the City of Phoenix has worked diligently with Downtown Phoenix stakeholders to implement practical and aesthetically pleasing environmental landscapes to a number of quadrants in the Downtown area. The addition of mature trees, lush greenery, shade structures and outdoor seating not only make the area’s street view more appealing, it also makes the pedestrian thoroughfare more practical to use on a year-round basis.
“Enhancing downtown’s street level experience while forging strong relationships between storefront stakeholders and the public are keys to creating a walkable and dynamic downtown. The energy being created at the Monroe Building is a prime example of that,” said Devney Preuss, executive director, Phoenix Community Alliance.
One of the biggest beneficiaries of the streetscape enhancement at the Monroe Building is the all-local group of retail tenants that occupy the ground floor of the Monroe Building.
“We felt it was extremely important to design the streetscape in a way that pedestrian traffic and communal seating supports our ground floor retailers and neighbours,” Fernandes said. With tenants that include Hidden Track Bottle Shop wine store, Mornin’ Moonshine coffee shop, Esoteric Audio record store, zPizza pizza parlor, Club Pilates fitness studio and others, the transformation of the streetscape has produced a lively environment where people come together throughout the day to eat, shop, socialize and participate in group activities and classes.
“Ensuring our hardscape/landscape exceeded Urban Form expectations was something we were very mindful of,” said Fernandes. “Our desire was for the street surrounding our building to possess energy that fosters the continuing vitality of Downtown,” he said.
