A market/grocer space along Central Avenue is one of the features that community members found favorable in the 2023 reimagining of The Central Park (rendering courtesy of Pivotal Group).
After six months of making its way through various public hearings in 2023, The Central Park, an 18-acre development at the northeast corner of Central Avenue and Indian School Road, was unanimously approved by the Phoenix City Council at its Jan. 3 formal meeting.
The project was originally approved in 2019, but the developer went back to the city in 2023 with a reimagined design and a short list of requested stipulation modifications, discussed at length in previous North Central News coverage. At an Oct. 18 Planning Hearing Officer meeting, the hearing officer approved for recommendation six of the seven requests. The only request he recommended for denial is to delete Stipulation 14, which would remove the requirement for ingress and egress (entrance and exit) points to align with existing street network locations.
The Planning Commission reviewed the request Dec. 7 and recommended approval of the Planning Hearing Officer’s recommendation by a vote of 5-0. The Planning Commission recommendation was appealed by a community member Dec. 14, which sent it to a public hearing before the council in January.
While some in the community felt that the developer should be held to all of the stipulations approved in the 2019 project, in particular a diagonal view corridor that highlighted the history of Phoenix Indian School and the surrounding area as well as a more open design, others argued that the project was, on the whole, a positive for the area. Council agreed.
The approved project features 78,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space, to include a market/grocer space, and 245,000 square feet of office space, and 1,450 residential units. Included in the residential mix are 320 senior-living units, 930 market-rate multi-family units and 200 condos.
