Friday, September 3, 2010

Downtown feasibility studies complete

The Az Republic revealed some detail regarding the idea of bringing more of the HEAT initiative to Downtown Mesa. HEAT is the acronym for the area of emphasis for business attraction in all of Mesa. (Healthcare, Education, Aerospace and Tourism).


A "healthplex" was suggested in the study; it would include doctors' offices, diagnostic centers and healthy restaurants and spas. Seems logical (although a big ole bummer) since our health-care assets- Cardon Children's Medical Center, A.T. Still University and Banner Health's medical simulation center are close by.


The Higher Education study confirmed that Arizona is under-served by colleges, especially private schools. A suggestion was made to have a delegation head out to Notre Dame to see what it would take to get them thinking about a western campus in Downtown Mesa. Councilman Kavanaugh said such efforts go back more than a decade when in 1997 Mesa went to Lewis University with the same concept.

Councilman Finter hit the nail on the head about both of the studies- "Everything I'm reading so far, I knew".

So the ideas were confirmed and maybe the dream whittled down a bit. But we still don't have tens of millions of dollars in the bank to plant the seeds like the Mayor said. What about the 84 million potentially on the table for Wrigleyville west. Would concentrating on the "T" in HEAT for Downtown be a bad idea?

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