What is this?
You’re not alone if confused. It’s a proposed design for a new Chinese restaurant in north Scottsdale. The photo has not been manipulated. It is not a joke.
Some perspective. Thanks to the dogged efforts of many over the past two decades in the northern part of Scottsdale the area is uniquely somewhere. A celebration of the desert with notable design standards.
By what logic does this design advance such an achievement? It disrespects it. If the Design Review Board does not do what it should the Scottsdale City Council should intervene.
Such policy leadership has precedent. Consider the entire City Council sat as the Design Review Board for the Scottsdale Waterfront. In approving the Blue Sky apartment project the council insisted on design approval as well.
Some years ago then Councilwoman Betty Drake objected to a design she thought too foreign near the Western art galleries near Main Street. The revised design was undoubtedly better, and more in keeping with the area without losing flair. Today it is a successful mixed-use project just north of Indian School on Scottsdale Road.
So what say you Mayor Jim Lane and Councilmembers Bob Littlefield, Guy Phillips, Virginia Korte, Suzanne Klapp, Linda Milhaven and Dennis Robbins?
A Supreme Court Justice once famously defined pornography as knowing it, when seeing it.
Well, we all know what this design is, as we see it. And if not substantially altered it must be rejected. Because if this stands at Pinnacle Peak and Miller Road, it can stand most anywhere in Scottsdale. And that would be a shame.