Melrose Arch Unveiled in Phoenix

I'm Tom Simplot I'm very happy and proud to say I've been your city councilman I'm Tom Simplot I'm very happy and proud to say I've been your city councilman I'm Tom Simplot I'm very happy and proud to say I've been your city councilman and there's been nothing nothing more fun to represent this community and you all and this side represents the success that we as a community have achieved over the past ten years by working together with one singular focus mission and that has been to improve our neighborhood to improve the Melrose district increase values reduce the crime and build a community and that's what I see tonight is a community thank you each and every one of you for being here and for those of you up close I want you to just turn around for a second and look across the street because there's the same number of people your friends and neighbors across the street here to watch the lighting up the switch tonight with us which is pretty cool way to them now so they know we know they're there so we have a couple quick speeches tonight and then we're gonna do something very special as we turn on the Melrose sign but first I want to say thank you to a few folks first which is Harley for providing some refreshments for us hope your I hope you all know harleys right up the street and of course to give it up for Arlie and of course flows the folks from closer here where are you waived if you're there you are the folks from closer here a great great neighbor in the in the neighborhood so as we look at the sign in before introducing others because I just wanted to go through a little bit a background on this so some love you in the crowd know that we have literally been working on this sign 410 years matter fact truth be known we worked on it for probably twelve years ages 10 took another 10 to get it done but we in the community like to call this the gayborhood and that means a lot to us who live in this gayborhood it means we pride ourselves on diversity we pride ourselves on welcoming everybody this part of town that we so lovingly call the Melrose history so win we started talking about designs our designer Jason over burgers gonna speak in just a little bit he came up with this awesome we had a group viewer friends and neighbors business owners who participated looking at in Kirti and truly provide on the design the site itself at one point the squiggle line which I hope you know represents the curve in in 7th Avenue it was originally not necessarily that color but I will tell you that the design group your friends and neighbors all insisted that that's cool should be paying to represent the gayborhood it's very important that we all acknowledge so oftentimes a neighborhood will first go through the the process of cleaning up the neighborhood in the seventh Avenue Merchants Association was there at the very forefront forefront about what fifteen seventeen years ago worst a reason somebody give you an accurate number but it was a long time ago fifteen years ago first they started with clean up the neighborhood and then of course the neighbors on either side %uh seventh Avenue started organizing cleaning up the neighborhood reducing the crime that starts with fight back search neighborhood meetings you know your neighbor and then you graduate to a point where you think you're ready to take it to the next level so before I came on board city councilman Phil Gordon and Lisa Hubbard helped organize something with issue which put in the really cool a bus stops that you see on the curve we've kinda forgot now advanced we were in progress we were when we put those in and now this is the final are not the final but the next stage in that movement I will tell you right now that your city councilman elect Laura past past or is here with us tonight because she we know she needs to hear from us that the next step is to put one on the north side other dollars so Laura we're gonna be behind you as you get to work on that next sign it is now my honor and privilege to introduce the director of the street Transportation Department Wiley bear up who I will tell you without his incredible staff incredible team this would not have happened so please welcome Wiley parent director Street in transportation engineer match that energy do my best to be in deliver my comments and I'm gonna spend a little time quickly recognizing the city work on this project mentioned fairly large project crossed Department boundaries but our team was led by two people me and word we had dinner at your word anyway to leads which is interesting two-headed monster like it could have been a challenge but they just work together problem use either there the result there behind you from like to recognize our partners from me him around see here tonight because Howard them and also from the streets department said Anderson and Tony Humphries bring charger the paving you're gonna hear later from the contractor designer the other members the city staffer worked reggie the inspector who worked on from from the city as well streak structure right there their street lighting section Jason so I think covered staffer worked on and with back take could I see a show of hands how many were here last week when the cranes were here between 10 at night and one in the morning show vans yeah or clapper applied because it was quite be one of those present was the president the seventh Avenue Merchants Association I could save between trees secular and her husband occurred they don't stop they are working constantly day in and day out to approve this neighborhood just like every member of the seventh Avenue Merchants Association please welcome up to the microphone to reset stickler for being here very important merchant 3 we had your support we tried very hard it dream for 10 years like work is make we're very actually become a reality court here we take rain help I'm really the community here your support really ally you here celebrate thank you so much it dream your think so when we started this process with to reset a few other folks trying to figure out what the design would look like we were presented with a designer and we had never met J but what we discovered in our first meeting well as we lucked out J silverberg lives right up the street of 7th Avenue he knows what this neighborhood's about and his very first design nailed it so J silverberg the designer design please come forward and say a few words good evening everyone this is truly a very exciting evening for the mill district its businesses in this neighborhood I would like to thank the City of Phoenix cheap smits the Melrose business community so supportive to the design team on the city and also the community for this tremendous opportunity I have the honor tonight representing Gansler who is the architectural design firm for this project this project done by a single person but very talented team like to recognize a few folks worked on this project really made this happen harm in bonn Luis Cruz Martinez sky ECB on buying it Erik von Brunn and Mike Stanley and Patrick Magnus and they were here tonight thank you all very much very talented engineers our consultants Paul Koehler Henderson engineering stick injury work seamlessly to design and deliver this project we also want to thank whites construction particularly Larry Palmer Dennis wannamaker to tires effortlessly worked on this project really make this happen we also have two collaborators that were influential what you can see tonight morning bill Steele who produced all these beautiful panels that you see here all the structure behind and also Airpark signs to shortly when the the name light up you'll see they were help fabricate the a watermark you see there but would like to talk about a little bit for a quick second we started this project we really wanted to work with the community and create a simple for this district something that would be timeless that would transcend the character this community we walked around we seen authenticity we see Ron s we sing diversity you know boldness that we tried to capture with this new Gateway we wanted to do something iconic and memorable we asked the question what makes this district unique what is identity so from we figured out there are three things that we could build architectural concept around the first the wonderful mid-century modern influence this area also again the local his and the divers experiences great great place so with that we gravitated to a concept that would be a contemporary symbol that would be very simple but very bold and were captured image image we want people to experience the Gateway as you move through it us we create a portal for you transition from one place to another you know that your movie into the Melrose district this mid-century modern influence inspired the pattern skin you see we get lots of questions about what was the the influence what you're looking at there was idea that blended concept abstracted inorganic floral pattern created from the local ornamentation in this district with in plasma cutter all these 97 panels and the peace altogether meticulously for one image then rusted finish material you see thats authentic material that we think with the existing materiality display sure its uniqueness the word identity like simply talked about really is heightened by the representation the Melrose curve symbolically with the pink bread emblematic seventh Avenue this Gateway really represents the past the present and the future all simultaneously it's important insignificant symbol for the Melrose district truly conceived with by this community and designed to engage this district at many levels are honored played a small role in developing this new community symbol we thank you J that was smoking is only a proud parent can speak up their baby and we appreciate that we love that we have one final speaker before the the flip the switch and that is the executive vice president %uh Wates construction mike von trigger please come forward welcome Mike well listening to everybody talkin finding out this project is 10 years in the making would officially make it the longest project we've ever worked on and you know I want to thank the City of Phoenix and count for allowing us to be involved in this great project it is truly tremendous and we are very proud builder to be involved we have the lucky job turning somebody's vision and somebody's line into tangible results we just love doing that and I would really like to give a shout out to J again report heart and soul into this it was a lot of work for him I know he was out here at nights working on this thing along with Larry and a couple other acknowledgements Corbin service electric was out here with us provided the electricity we have bill Steele who those guys rock stars here bill Steele you guys great strategic partner for a long time and stock in them before they have let's call it 2300 man-hours in this thing and they work 24 hours a day to get this done yeah nice job so and a special shout don't think you can hear me but Larry Palmer Rockstar flip the switch he devoted his heart and soul as well thank you larry and thank you alright we're getting close we're getting close only three quick things left to do first I need you all to help me think acting city manager at Zuercher and Deputy City Manager reclaim our core here with us tonight this would not and could not have happened without their support thank you ed and wreck the second thing is we have not talked about where on earth did we find the resources to do this so real quickly I just want to share with your friends and neighbors in the other parts of town as how did the Melrose district out in central Phoenix get this incredible looking arch it's because we went through the public process the public budget process and we had full unanimous support from the entire city council fund this arch so the next time you see anybody on city council sure because it took every single member