Last week Arizona Governor Doug Ducey helped announce online real estate giant Zillow’s decision to add many more employees and 25,000 square feet of more office space in the Galleria Corporate Center. Click here to read the full story.
One a moribund shopping center the Galleria has re-emerged in recent years as a notable hub of technology workers. It’s been a remarkable turnaround for a property that now helps anchor Old Town Scottsdale.
Its proximity to the impressive bars and restaurants in the Scottsdale Entertainment District can’t be ignored. Indeed, the Galleria is owned by one of the two pioneers that ignited the area into something that can’t be found anywhere else in Arizona.
By now, the successful combination of the two should be obvious to all. Young, enterprising companies like those populating the Galleria want to be near urban action. After work, numerous watering holes abound. If breakfast or lunch is more your speed many outstanding local establishments are within walking distance.
The Entertainment District grew fast and successfully. Community leaders like Bill Crawford pointed out and effectively worked with city officials to work through some of the growing pains.
Critics that remain, and there are some unfortunately, remind us of John Lithgow in the movie Footloose. He played a strict, influential preacher in a small rural community that didn’t want to his daughter or her friends at the local high school be allowed to dance, or have dances.
Well, thanks in part to the appeal of the Entertainment District, Scottsdale is now dancing to an effective economic development tune and Zillow’s decision is yet another example.