Sun Mercantile Building
Sixth and Jackson streets, Phoenix

Developers haven’t found the right fit for the 1929 Sun Mercantile Building, just south of Bank One Ballpark, and with good reason: A spot so rich with history deserves an idea rich with potential. Designed by E.W. Bacon, the 14,000-square-foot red brick building was built and owned by Chinese businessman Tang Shing – the only known Chinese native to construct a warehouse in Downtown Phoenix – and has long stood as a reminder of the city’s former Chinatown.

Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, this gateway to the city’s warehouse district nearly disappeared when the Phoenix City Council voted in 2005 to allow developers to construct an 11-story condo tower in and above the building. The Downtown Voices Coalition and a dozen other community groups filed an appeal in Maricopa County Superior Court to halt the proposed changes, but it’s only a matter of time before another developer sets its sights on Sun Merc with avaricious intentions.

We like McPherson’s solution: After closing its doors in Heritage Square last year due to a lack of funding, the Phoenix Museum of History could use a home. He asks, “With the state’s Centennial coming up, why not put the city’s history museum in a historic building?”

Hayden Flour Mill

Hayden Flour Mill
100 N. Mill Ave., Tempe

The historic Hayden Flour Mill in Tempe is no stranger to the word “development.” In 2001, Tempe-based MCW Holdings had ambitious plans to turn the silos into upscale lofts as part of a larger live-work space. It then filed for bankruptcy and lost temporary control of the project to the City of Tempe.

Then, in 2006, Phoenix-based Avenue Communities (developer of the ill-fated Centerpoint mixed-use project in downtown Tempe) purchased the Flour Mill property from the City of Tempe for $7.4 million. That same year, Archaeological Consulting Services began excavating the property to recover Indian artifacts and parts of a canal that powered the mill in the late 1800s, all in an effort to preserve the historic significance of the mill, which operated continuously from 1874 to 1997.

Avenue Communities submitted plans to the city in 2008 for a retail, office and commercial development, but plans are on hold until the market rebounds, according to a Tempe city spokeswoman.

Other silos in the country have been given new faces (the Quaker Oats mill in Akron, Ohio, houses a hotel and a dormitory for the University of Akron), and as long as the history of the Hayden Flour Mill is adequately preserved, we’re on board for bringing it back to life in a fun, creative way.

Sunkist Packing Plant
254 W. Broadway Road, Mesa

High farming costs and low crop yields this spring forced the closure of the iconic Sunkist Packing Plant in Mesa over the summer, sounding a death knell for one of Arizona’s five “Cs.” It’s sad enough to see the Valley’s last remaining citrus packing plant go, but we’ll be utterly heartbroken if the beautiful red brick building it occupied isn’t put to good use in the future.

The 70,000-square-foot warehouse sits on a little more than 7 acres next to Mesa’s railroad tracks. It’s not the first neighborhood we’d want to stroll through at night, but the ample space could make for the perfect setup for a green manufacturer or, as McPherson suggests, a destination shopping experience similar to Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square.

Zocalo Mall

Zócalo Mall
Northeast corner of 83rd and Peoria avenues, Peoria

You know a piece of property has seen a real estate boom and bust before when it’s located next to 19th-century transportation. Still, it may be the train depot and the railroad line that add just the right amount of charm to revive this much-maligned pocket of downtown Peoria.

The Zócalo Mall sits just a short walk away from Peoria City Hall and Peoria High School, overlooking the West Valley’s goofiest intersection where Grand, 83rd and Peoria avenues meet. An 80,000-square-foot Albertson’s grocery store previously occupied the mall, left it, and created a redevelopment opportunity for Arizona’s increasingly lucrative segment of Hispanic shoppers. Developers proposed an indoor mall with about 240 corporate and mom-and-pop vendors, a sports bar, bakery, daycare center and an entertainment area for mariachi and marimba bands, among other things, according to a February 2006 story in The Arizona Republic.

Promises, promises. Today, the store stands vacant, surrounded by quirky small businesses, a Blockbuster Video and a Pruitt’s, which sits in 110,000 square feet once occupied by Wal-Mart. Drivers frequently cut through the parking lot to avoid stoplights and the nearby train crossing. Pruitt’s sales manager Kyle Milne says the railroad is thinking about closing an entrance to the plaza altogether. It maintains that entryway, he says, and since the plaza is so dead, sealing it off would save the railroad money in the long run.

What a shame. The train, the busy street traffic, the high school nearby, City Hall around the corner… it seems like a great opportunity to tame a white elephant.

Costco building
Northeast corner of 59th Avenue and Bell Road, Glendale

This sprawling ode to mass consumption was a shrine for consumerism – until they started putting those shrines up everywhere. When this former Costco wholesaler saw Wal-Mart open across the street, it knew its days were numbered.

That was almost 10 years ago, merchants say, but you wouldn’t know it. The company that developed this plaza in Glendale wrapped the corner with small restaurants and retail stores, leaving motorists blind to the dead husk of this big box inside the plaza. Merchants say the redevelopment of this store has been one of Glendale’s best political dramas. City officials denied Costco the chance to install a gas station there, furthering the store’s demise, merchants say. When Wal-Mart proposed moving into the empty shell with a Super Wal-Mart, officials and residents said no because that would likely leave an empty Wal-Mart across the street. A new YMCA also was discussed, but that proposal went down faster than a free sample.

With large chain retailers in every direction, what’s to be done? Royce Kidd, who manages Il Primo Pizza and Wings inside the plaza, has few ideas but at least offers some direction. “Anything that’s going to bring a lot of traffic,” he says. “That’s how little places survive – lots of traffic.”

With ample parking, seven roll-up doors and quick freeway access, the site would be ideal as a distribution center or – better yet, for those “little places” – a manufacturing hub that provides hundreds of jobs.