Turf Paradise to Ride Off Into the Sunset

For more than 60 years, Turf Paradise has been an iconic horse racing facility in North Phoenix. The 1,400-acre facility is located near 19th Avenue and Bell Road.

Horse Racing in Phoenix

The track is comprised of a clubhouse building that faces a 1-mile dirt oval track. Turf Paradise opened its doors in 1956, offering live thoroughbred horse racing from October - May and simulcast coverage. The track added off-track betting in the 1990s.

 

 

The facility has changed hands several times during its history, and the current owner is Jerry Simms, who purchased the facility in the year 2000.

The track is locally known for its live horse racing, as well as its many promotional days. The racetrack formerly had “Quarter Days” with 25-cent admission, popcorn, sodas, and other concessions. As time went on, this became “Dollar Days” due to increasing costs. Promotional giveaways included shirts and other memorabilia.

Turf Paradise has occasionally hosted other events, such as flat track motorcycle racing in 2016, 2017 and 2018.

New Ownership

In April 2023, local news stations reported that Simms had signed an agreement to sell the racetrack to CT Realty, a California-based developer. He told Axios that owning the track has been a great experience for the past 23 years, but it’s time to sell. “I’d rather spend time with my grandkids” he said.

What’s Next

The prospective owners of the racetrack say that they plan to continue racing operations for one or two more seasons.

Looking at the CT Realty website, their other projects include logistics park and industrial spaces in California, Texas, Illinois, and New Jersey. A managing partner for CT Realty told news website Axios.com that portions of the Turf Paradise site may be redeveloped “with industrial and multi-family uses” pending city approval. No firm plans have been announced at the time of reporting.

A Developing Area

The area around Turf Paradise has been redeveloping, slowly. Turf Paradise Marketplace including a Super Walmart and Sam’s Club opened just north of the racetrack in 2007.

In 2018, a San Diego developer purchased the 83-acre site of the former Phoenix Northgate development at a public land auction. They swiftly began construction of the Bell 17 Business Park. The site plan calls for 3 Industrial, 3 Flex-Manufacturing, and 5 Corporate Office buildings to be constructed, as well as 2 parking structures and 3 retail pads, totaling approximately 800,000 sq. ft. of uses.

 

A single 101,000 sq. ft. flex building has been completed as of late 2020, which is fully occupied by two tenants at the time of publication in 2023.

Looking Ahead

Redeveloping portions of the Turf Paradise site could continue the improvement of this area going forward. The long term prospects for Turf Paradise may include shutting down racing operations within the next few years.

North Phoenix Development News Update

Back in 2008 when I started this website, I wanted to write about news targeted to the hyper-local Deer Valley and Norterra region of North Phoenix. The problem was, it was the depths of the Great Recession and all new construction and building came to an abrupt halt.

Now more than a decade later, things have completely turned around. Despite the global pandemic, the stock market is reaching new highs every week. Housing values have jumped tremendously in a short period of time as demand outstrips supply. The 2020 Census revealed that Phoenix is the fastest growing city in the United States from 2010 to 2020, with an 11.9% increase in people, and the only U.S. city to see double-digit growth.

The North Phoenix submarket is reflecting these trends as well. New construction in the Deer Valley and Norterra neighborhoods is booming! Here is a development summary of what has been built in the past 2-ish years and what is currently going in.

Amazon Warehouse

A new Amazon warehouse has been constructed on Pinnacle Peak Road, between 3rd Ave and 7th Ave. Located just north of Deer Valley Road, the building is approximately 145,000 square feet of fulfillment space.

Union Park at Norterra

Union Park at Norterra is a massive 400-acre residential development in Northwest Phoenix. Ground was broken in 2018 with the project scheduled to be completed in multiple phases. The project is a joint venture between Sunbelt Holdings and USAA Real Estate. When completed, the mixed-use community will include single-family homes from three builders, multi-family residential, and a retail district, all centered around a recreation center. The community is also home to Union Park Elementary School, which serves PreK-8 students, and opened in fall 2020. At full build out, the community will feature 1,100 homes.

New homes under construction at Union Park at Norterra in North Phoenix.

New Multifamily Residential

• Avilla Deer Valley - 23rd Ave and Pinnacle Peak Road
• Springs at Deer Valley - 23rd Ave and Alameda Road
• The Retreat at Alameda - NWC 19th Ave and W Alameda Road
• Town Deer Valley - SWC 19th Ave and W Alameda Road
• Elux at Deer Valley - SEC 19th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• FirstStreet at Happy Valley - 17th Ave and Happy Valley Road

New Hotels

• Holiday Inn & Suites Express - N 23rd Ave and W Whispering Wind Dr.
• Best Western Plus Executive Residency - N 21st Ave and W Whispering Wind Dr.
• WoodSpring Suites - N 23rd Ave and W Alameda Road

Best Western Plus / Executive Residency is one of three new hotels recently opened in the Norterra area.

New Commercial Businesses

• Dollar Self Storage - 23rd Ave and Whispering Wind Dr.
• Discount Tire - 23rd Ave and Happy Valley Road
• Cobblestone Auto Spa - 18th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• Greulich's Automotive Repair - 17th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• AutoZone - 17th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• Brakes Plus - 18th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• SmartStop Self Storage - 17th Ave and Happy Valley Road
• Caliber Collision - 23rd Ave and N Farmers Way
• Mesquite Fresh Street Mexican Food - 17th Ave and Happy Valley Road

New Grocery Stores

• Fry's Food Stores - I-17 and Jomax Road (across from Fire Station 55)

TSMC Supplier Sites

Other big chunks of land in the area are being snapped up for development of supplier sites for the Taiwan Semiconductor Factory (TSMC) which is under construction at Interstate 17 and the Loop 303 Freeway.

A conceptual rendering of what the TSMC factory in North Phoenix may look like.

 

Looking Back: 12 Years of North Phoenix Blog

I started North Phoenix Blog 12 years ago, in May of 2008.

The Internet in 2008/2009
At the time, the Internet was becoming "Web 2.0". New services like WordPress (first released in 2003), YouTube (launched in 2005), and Twitter (launched in 2006) were changing the way that people used the web in their daily lives. Websites were no longer one-way mediums that talked at the reader like a newspaper did. They were becoming interactive, with comments and discussions and user-generated content.

To give some context, 2008 was the height of the MySpace era, as people got on board with the idea of joining a "social network" site. The iPhone 3G had just come out in Summer 2008. Sites like Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress were at the forefront of this new citizen journalism movement, where people who would otherwise go unheard via traditional media outlets found a voice and an audience online. 

Online publications such as The Huffington Post, BuzzFeed and Drudge Report were gaining readers as major newspapers were going out of business left and right during the Great Recession. Technology was making it possible to communicate and build an audience in a way that hadn't been seen since the invention of the printing press centuries earlier. It was an exciting time to be online.

The Hyperlocal News Movement
Phoenix is a huge city, with more than 1.6 million residents sprawled out over an area of 518 square miles. Within the city are distinct neighborhoods - the downtown core, Arcadia, Encanto, Maryvale, and numerous other historic and unique neighborhoods, each with their own history, their own character, their own story.

My goal in starting North Phoenix Blog was to be a hyperlocal source for news and information in a specific area of town: North Phoenix, what you might call the Deer Valley or Norterra area. I wanted the site to be the voice of the community and let residents know about things like new restaurants and businesses opening and closing, and maybe share a bit about the history of the area. I felt that the North Phoenix region was overlooked by larger publications like The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix New Times.

The only time North Phoenix ever got any press was from a professional Real Estate Agent who started a blog as a thinly-veiled marketing strategy. I felt that as a person living in the area, I could do better. So I created a free site with Blogger and got to writing.

A Flawed Plan
Well, it soon became clear that there were two problems with my strategy. First, it was 2009 and the economy was in the worst recession since the 1930s. The formerly fast-growing Deer Valley area had ground to a halt. No new homes or businesses would be constructed for years to come, and established businesses were going bust left and right. For an aspiring blogger, I couldn't have picked a worse time to write about local news, when there was little very news happening.

The second problem is that I work a full time job, and did not have the resources to go and do actual journalism. Stuff like conducting interviews, filing public records requests, telling both sides of a complex issue wasn't feasible to do on evenings and weekends. I was just one guy with a computer and an idea.

The lack of content to write about and the lack of time to put into stories (and maintaining a regular posting schedule) meant that my site struggled to find an audience. I wasn't good at writing time-sensitive pieces about events and activities, and after they have passed, no one cares to read about them. I decided to try a new approach, focusing on content that was not time-specific.

Local News Becomes Local History
One thing I did enjoy writing about was history. North Phoenix was built up substantially in the 1970s and 1980s, and is too new of an area to really have much history. The landscape is primarily made up of subdivisions of low-density, single family homes built on large tracts of land by developers, dotted with commercial shopping centers at major corners. Not exactly a thrilling history.

As it turns out, the focus of a blog about one specific area of the city was TOO narrow. So I started branching out with other posts about the Phoenix area and Arizona, such as:

• Arizona Trivia and Little-Known Facts
• 101 Things to Do in Phoenix
• You Grew Up in Phoenix in the 80s If You...
• You Lived in Phoenix in the 60s, 70s, and 80s If...
• The History of Lake Pleasant
• Discovering Arizona's Point of Origin
• Duppa Homestead - The Oldest House in Phoenix

These posts did a lot better, and actually got some good page views and even some real comments. I was finding an audience with these nostalgia/history posts, which wasn't where I expected to be when I started the site.

The Competition
Another problem that I didn't see coming was the competition. As I mentioned, the idea of "hyper-local news" was a pretty new concept in 2009. Today in 2020, there are lots of ways people can find out what's happening in their community.

Reddit has a local news and discussion forum (subreddit) called /r/Phoenix with 75,000 members.

NextDoor.com has become the premier social network for people to discuss issues online with residents of their specific, local neighborhood.

Facebook Groups allow people to join, share, and discuss topics of a shared interest, such as local history. There are a few great Facebook Groups dedicated to Phoenix history, including one with nearly 6,000 members.

NoPhoNews, a local news website launched in 2017, is the online version of a niche print publication founded in 2005. They have basically done what I set out to do, covering local news and issues in the North Phoenix area.


The Future
After 12 years and 200+ posts, I don't know where to go next with North Phoenix Blog. There are still plenty of ideas I would like to write about, but there are also other projects I would like to work on as well.

I will continue to write for the site on an occasional basis, as I have done for the past couple of years. There is no regular posting schedule, but I will publish articles as I find ideas that strike me as worth writing about. 

Looking back over the past 12 years, it has been a great ride writing about the city I love and hearing the responses from readers who have a real appreciation for local history has been very rewarding. Thank you so much for reading, and I look forward to bringing you more articles going forward.

Developer Plans Bell 17 Business Park for North Phoenix

Four years ago, I wrote a post called The Mystery of Phoenix Northgate that explored the history behind a large, vacant parcel of land near 19th Avenue and Bell Road in North Phoenix. Several commenters wrote in to share their knowledge of the ill-fated development.

A New Chapter for Phoenix Northgate
The land eventually became State Trust land, which is often sold at auction. Earlier this year in June 2018, the Arizona State Land Department sold the 93.25 acre parcel at auction for $26.5 million dollars. The buyer was a San Diego, California developer called Sunbelt Land Holdings. Proceeds from the sale of State Trust Land go into a fund that benefits Arizona's K-12 public schools.

Concept Illustration of the Bell 17 Business Park by CBRE.

After sitting dormant for decades, progress on the land across from the famous Turf Paradise race track now appears to moving along quickly. The Phoenix Business Journal reported on November 13th that Sunbelt Land Holdings had purchased another parcel of land, 51 acres in size, near 40th St and the Loop 202 freeway, for $25.8 million.

Sunbelt plans to develop master-planned business parks on both sites. The North Phoenix location is tentatively called Bell 17 Business Park, according to a sign on the property. Initial plans call for 1 million square feet of developed space, spread out over 12 to 16 buildings. The development will include both office and retail space, according to the Business Journal.

The project is expected to break ground in the year 2020. The developer has selected Balmer Architectural Group Inc. for the project, but has not yet announced a general contractor.

Neighborhood in Decline
The neighborhood surrounding 19th Ave and Bell intersection has been struggling with crime and other issues for about a decade. The opening of a new Wal-Mart store on the southeast corner in early 2007 brought an increase in transients and other petty crimes to the area.

Four Phoenix Police cars on a typical night at the 19th Ave and Bell Road Walmart store.

An article published in the Arizona Republic on December 14, 2016 studied the number of calls that Phoenix Police received from 2011 through mid-2016. Records obtained by The Republic showed that three of the top five addresses with the most police calls were Wal-Mart stores. The 19th Ave and Bell Road Wal-Mart ranked 4th in Phoenix for highest number of police calls during the time period. Locations #2 and #5 on the list were large apartment complexes.

Furthermore, a 2016 property crime report published by the Phoenix Police Department shows a "Very High" concentration of property crimes centered on the intersection of N 19th Avenue and W Bell Road in North Phoenix.

This data is similar to the crime map published by real estate website Trulia, which pulls in data from SpotCrime.com and CrimeReports.com. Again, there is a high instance of crime in the vicinity of 19th Ave and Bell compared to surrounding areas.

Famed local steakhouse Bill Johnson's Big Apple closed their North Phoenix location in May 2014. The restaurant was quickly transformed into Pawn 1st, a pawn shop, which is still in operation.

A nearby motel at 17th Ave and Bell Road (across the street from two different cash loan/title loan stores) is well-known to police and locals as a hotspot for prostitution. With a pitiful 1.5 star rating on Google, numerous reviewers mention prostitutes drug dealers, and homeless transients as a problem. With 335 reviews on Google and the vast majority of them being "1-star" ratings, there are enough of them that it simply cannot be a coincidence or an isolated incident.

Possible Turnaround?
Will the construction of a new master-planned office park at 19th and Bell help turn this struggling area around? It is hopeful that the addition of higher paying professional jobs will clean up the area, which is surprisingly rough considering its location in the otherwise quiet sprawl of the North Valley suburbs. We'll be sure to keep you updated on this project as it moves forward.

August 2020 Update
The Phoenix Northgate entry monuments from my original blog post have been torn down. Construction has started on the first building of the proposed 93 acre business park. "Building 5" is scheduled to be completed in October 2020, with 101,058 square feet of space for office or light industrial use. Leasing is being handled through CBRE.

Construction of Building 5 at the Bell 17 Business Center. August 2020.
Photo by: North Phoenix Blog

The massive building is 481 feet long by 215 feet wide, and could accommodate two floors of office space, or warehouse space with its 26 foot clear height. The site plan for Bell 17 Business Park calls for 11 buildings totaling 781,928 square feet when fully built out.

Bell 17 Business Center site plan

Buildings 1, 2, and 3 will be for General Industrial and are 61,600 sf, 62,400 sf, and 38,300 sf (respectively). Buildings 4, 5, and 6 are for flex office space. Building 4 will be 74,250 sf, building 5 is currently under construction at 101,058 sf, and building 6 will be 86,400 sf.

Buildings 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are intended for Corporate Office clients. They will be: 88,000 sf (Building 7), 101,200 sf (#8), 54,720 sf (#9), 50,160 sf (#10), and 63,840 sf (#11).
I am hopeful that this new project will bring higher paying, professional jobs to the area. If that happens, the surrounding area may see a revitalization from a crime hotspot in the North Valley to a place where people can work and live comfortably.

North Phoenix Hotels Converting to Senior Living

I have noticed a trend in the North Phoenix area of hotels converting into senior living facilities.

The first one was the former Embassy Suites at 2577 W. Greenway Road. Built in 1986, this all-suites hotel offered 168 guestrooms where every room was a 2-room suite. The website went offline in 2015, and the 17-acre property began the transformation to its present status as "Park Terrace at Greenway." Prior to its closure, the hotel's ratings took a nosedive, with an average score of 2.0 out of 5 on Yelp with 74 reviews. The new property offers four different floor plans for seniors, ranging from 504 square feet to 1,208 square feet.

The next to go was a 166 room hotel located at 2641 W. Union Hills Dr. It has operated under many names over the years including the Ramada Midtown, Park Plaza Phoenix North, Comfort Inn Phoenix North, and most recently, Plaza Inn & Suites. It is now renovated and operating as "Bridgewater Assisted Living." Like the Embassy Suites, this one had pretty bad reviews as a hotel. The website HotelPlanner records that the property had 2.5 out of 5 stars with 196 reviews prior to its closure.

The most recent North Phoenix hotel to convert to a senior home is the former Country Inn & Suites, located at 20221 N. 19th Ave. The 126 room property was built in 2000 and sits on 5 acres of land. Unlike the other properties, this one had great reviews prior to its closure - 4 out of 5 stars with 441 reviews. A banner on the property announces the new name as Deer Valley Senior Living.

Why are so many hotels making this transition? Allow me to make some educated guesses:
1. With so many newer hotels in the Happy Valley/Norterra area, the supply of hotel rooms in the North Valley is greater than the market demand, causing low occupancy and cutthroat rates.

2. With so many baby boomers retiring, there is an increased demand for senior and assisted living care facilities. Converting a hotel saves on cost versus building a brand-new property from the ground up, and it's also faster.

3. Hotel properties typically include all of the facilities needed for senior care, such as on-site laundry service, meal preparation, and large lobby/conference room areas that can easily be repurposed as activity rooms.

4. Don't quote me on this, but I believe that in Phoenix, the same type of zoning that allows for a hotel also permits multi-unit housing. The properties can quickly be turned around without a re-zoning hearing.

5. North Phoenix has two age-restricted communities already, which are the Friendly Village of Orangewood at 27th Ave and Union Hills and the Sand Dollar Apartments.

Will more North Phoenix hotels convert to senior living in the coming years? If the current trend is any indication, then the answer is likely a "yes."

Deer Valley Park to Get New Dog Park

One of the larger neighborhood parks in North Phoenix is Deer Valley Park, located at 19th Ave and Wahalla Ln., just south of the Loop 101 Agua Fria Freeway. The 38-acre park offers amenities including a Community Center, public pool, tennis courts, and playground equipment. But recently, a new project has begun at the park.

New Dog Park under construction within Deer Valley Park

An unused section of Deer Valley Park has been fenced off and construction crews are hard at work building a new Dog Park! The funding was approved in a 2008 measure called the Phoenix Parks and Preserves Initiative.

When completed, the new dog park will have 3 one-acre pens with grass, shade trees, and benches. There will also be a new ramada with drinking fountains and lighting installed. Construction is expected to be completed in Fall 2017.

Based on other dog parks, I presume that the three pens will be designated for small, medium, and large size dogs. Below is an artist's rendering of what the completed dog park pens will look like.

Dog Park Artist Rendering

This is another great feature that will make Deer Valley Park a valued asset to the community and to the North Phoenix area.

ADOT Proposes New Freeway Interchange at I-17 and Happy Valley Road

If you work in North Phoenix near I-17 and Happy Valley Road or Pinnacle Peak road, you are probably aware of the long waits to get on and off the freeway every weekday between 3pm and 6pm. The long wait times and backups are frustrating to many drivers, but a new plan recently unveiled by the Arizona Department of Transportation may resolve the daily congestion in a unique way.

Recently, ADOT announced a proposal to replace the Happy Valley interchange with a new type of system called a diverging diamond. A cost estimate has not yet been provided. If approved, the new interchange could begin construction as soon as 2018.

Aerial Photo of the current I-17/Happy Valley Roundabouts.
Photo by: North Phoenix Blog

Currently, the Happy Valley Road exit has two roundabouts which were completed in 2001 at a cost of $2.2 million. At the time, these were touted as a safer and more economical to a traditional interchange, which would have cost between $8 and $12 million.

While the roundabouts are safer, they are not an ideal solution for the volume of cars in the area. New home construction, job opportunities at USAA, Cigna, and W.L. Gore, and two major retail shopping centers have added tremendous growth to the Norterra/Happy Valley area since 2001. ADOT has acknowledged that "a diverging diamond interchange would be better able to manage the growing volume of traffic at Happy Valley Road and reduce the amount of time drivers spend waiting at traffic signals."

Relatively few of these diverging diamond interchanges have been built in the U.S. so far, with approximately 80 diverging diamonds completed in 26 states since 2009, according to the ADOT article. They work by diverting the flow of local traffic to the opposite side, allowing for direct entrances to freeway ramps without waiting for an additional signal.

Example of a diverging diamond interchange.
Photo by: NCDOT

The advantages of the proposed interchange include less time waiting, less fuel wasted, and dramatic safety improvements due to fewer potential points of conflict. The design is supposed to be even more efficient than a roundabout, which was originally built as a superior design to a traditional 4-way intersection.

The proposal also calls for replacing the interchange at I-17 and Pinnacle Peak Road, which is a narrow two-lane bridge constructed in 1964.

ADOT is also considering divided diamond interchanges at two other locations, both along the Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway.

Read the original ADOT News Release.

The Mystery of Phoenix Northgate

You might think that North Phoenix, with its suburban tract housing and its shopping centers and strip malls, might not be a very interesting place. But within the confines of suburbia lies a mystery that remains unsolved to this day.

I'm talking about a place called Phoenix Northgate - a massive chunk of vacant land located near 19th Avenue and Bell Road, directly across the street from Turf Paradise.

Read Entire Post >>

Sonoran Boulevard Now Open

On Saturday, May 25th, 2013, the Arizona Department of Transportation officially dedicated a new route that will allow drivers to connect easily from Interstate 17 to Cave Creek Road.

Known as Sonoran Boulevard (formerly Dove Valley Parkway), the road provides a connection between Cave Creek Road and Interstate 17, right in between Carefree Highway and Deer Valley Road.

Read Entire Post >>

I-17 Pedestrian Bridge at Jomax Road Complete, Remains Closed

If you've driven on Interstate 17 in North Phoenix within the past year, you may have noticed the new pedestrian bridge that crosses over the freeway between Jomax Road and Dixileta Road. The bridge will allow pedestrians, cyclists, and horseback riders to continue along the multi-use path that follows the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct.

The bridge was scheduled to open in the fall of 2012, however, that never happened. For some reason, the fences never came down. Currently, a locked gate prevents people from using the bridge, whose construction has been finished for approximately four months now.

I don't know what is going on with the bridge, but I am sure that the residents of North Phoenix would appreciate a safe way to cross the freeway while they are out for a jog or a ride.

I want to know: what's the deal? How come the bridge is done and not open?

Exploring the Union Mine in North Phoenix

There are many reasons why people choose to move to Arizona today. The mild winters, safety from most natural disasters, and a lower cost of living than California continue to draw people to Arizona from all over the country and the world.

As we look back on 100 years of statehood, it's important to remember the reasons why people came here in the first place. One of the most common reasons was simply: gold.

The search for the soft, yellow metal has lured countless numbers of people to search every corner of the state. The evidence of this gold-lust can still be found today in the form of mines, holes, shafts, and adits.

Read Entire Post >>

Phoenix FBI Headquarters Close to Completion

Regular readers of this blog may know that I have been keeping an eye on a very large office building under construction in North Phoenix for the past 2 years. Now, the new Phoenix FBI Headquarters is close to completion!

The massive building is close to completion with the windows, signage, flags, and security fence installed. I drive by this location frequently, and decided to take a photo for this post. I pulled over and hopped out of the car to snap a quick photo.

While I had been stopped by the side of the road for less than two minutes, I was quite surprised to see a Phoenix Police officer had pulled up behind me. He was standing next to his vehicle with a blank expression on his face. "What's going on here" he said flatly.

Read Entire Post >>

Arizona's Largest Christmas Tree Arrives at Anthem Outlets

With Christmas just six weeks away, the Outlets at Anthem shopping center is getting into the holiday spirit. The outdoor shopping mall boasts that it has the largest Christmas tree in the state of Arizona on display!

This year's tree is a white fir that stands 114 feet tall, according to the Arizona Republic. In comparison, the Norway Spruce tree on display in New York City's Rockefeller Center measures just 74 feet tall. That makes the Anthem tree the tallest fresh-cut Christmas tree in the country, according to officials.

To celebrate, the Outlets at Anthem will be hosting three days of family-friendly activities during the weekend of November 18th-20th, 2011. Here is the calendar of events:

Read Entire Post >>

19th Avenue Bridge to North Valley Parkway Nearing Completion

In a major city like Phoenix, it's common to have heavy traffic on arterial streets as well as freeways. 19th Avenue is one of Phoenix's busiest arterial streets. The road begins near South Mountain Park and runs north for an impressive 26 miles before terminating at Jomax Road in North Phoenix.

Soon, a new bridge will open that will allow drivers to continue into the North Valley Parkway neighborhood and on to Carefree Highway. This new bridge will provide a much-needed alternative to the congested Interstate 17 and Norterra Parkway routes.

Read Entire Post >>

Desert Car Kings Debuts on Discovery Channel

It wasn't that long ago that film crews from the Discovery Channel visited Exponent Systems in Phoenix to record a few segments for the show Mythbusters. Now, Discovery is returning to the same part of town to begin recording a new program centered around Desert Valley Auto Parts, the massive classic car junkyard we first wrote about back in 2009.

The show is called Desert Car Kings and it gives viewers a look at what goes on at Desert Valley Auto Parts. There are plenty of flashy graphics and gratuitous overhead shots of the massive yard as the employees set about restoring a 1963 Ford Thunderbird in the debut episode.

Read Entire Post >>

Happy Valley Park and Ride Opening in January 2011

Are you tired of fighting the stop and go traffic as you drive to work each day? If you live in North Phoenix and work downtown, those frustrating days of commuting may soon come to an end. That's because Valley Metro is now putting the finishing touches on a new park-and-ride facility which is scheduled to open next month.

The Happy Valley Park and Ride is a new facility under construction at 24700 N. 29th Avenue in North Phoenix. When completed, it will allow commuters in the far north part of town to leave their vehicles in a covered, security-patrolled lot and take an express bus to downtown Phoenix. This will not only help reduce congestion on the freeways during rush hour, but it will also help the environment by reducing pollution from vehicle emissions.

Read Entire Post >>

Ryan Companies Breaks Ground on FBI Headquarters

Earlier this year, we reported on the new FBI headquarters which is scheduled to be built in North Phoenix. Now, progress is underway on the new facility. The general contractor for the project, Ryan Companies, celebrated with a Groundbreaking Ceremony on October 7th, 2010. Heavy earth moving equipment is on site as contractors prepare a level grade so the foundation can be poured.

The total contract for the new Phoenix FBI office is $154.5 million dollars, with $62 million dollars of that total going towards the building's construction. The rest is to cover the 20-year operating contract the FBI has with the building's operator. The building is scheduled to be completed in March of 2012.

Read Entire Post >>

The History of Lake Pleasant

Water has always played a critical role in man's ability to survive in the desert. One of the earliest water sources in central Arizona territory was none other than Lake Pleasant. Today the Lake Pleasant Recreation Area plays a very important role in water storage and irrigation, just as it did back in the frontier days.

The Pleasant Dam
As far back as the 1890s, the Lake Pleasant region was bustling with the activity of miners and ranchers. A settler by the name of William B. Pratt built a small dam across the Agua Fria River to hold water for the miners in the area, but unfortunately a flood washed away his dam the following year.

Read Entire Post >>

Exploring the Reach 11 Recreation Area

There are a hundred reasons why this weekend was not the perfect time to go for a bike ride.

It was 104 degrees outside. I didn't have anyone to go with me. I didn't have the right type of bike. My brakes weren't in good working order. I didn't have the right clothing/shoes/whatever.But I really felt like getting out of the house for a while, so I decided to go for a ride anyway. Rather than just ride around the city aimlessly, I chose to check out the Reach 11 Recreation Area in North Phoenix. Although I have driven by the place many times, I had never been there before. My spirits were high as I loaded my bike in the car and headed over to Cave Creek Road and Deer Valley Road to check it out.

Read Entire Post >>

North Phoenix Blog Celebrates 2 Year Anniversary

This month, we at the North Phoenix Blog are celebrating our second anniversary! For the past two years, we have tried to provide our readers with informative and interesting articles as well as original photography.

There were a couple of reasons why North Phoenix Blog was started. The first reason is that I wanted a way to improve my writing skills. They say that the key to great writing is to write about what you know, so the natural choice was to write about where I was born and raised.

The second reason was because I feel that there is not enough GOOD news out there in the world. Take a look at the AllTop headlines on the left-hand side of the page. Every day the major news outlets including the Arizona Republic, the Phoenix New Times, and the local news stations bombard us with heaps of bad news.

Read Entire Post >>