New ideas for new Capitol Mall
Darren Petrucci, director of Arizona State University’s College of Design, is part of team that has drafted preliminary plans for a revitalized Capitol Mall, including new and larger buildings for the House and Senate.

A planned flag walkway for the Capitol along Washington Street could be the start of something big — a revamping of the entire Capitol Mall.
At least that’s the plan, said Don Keuth Jr., president of the Phoenix Community Alliance, of group of civic and business leaders committed to the revitalization of downtown Phoenix.
That revitalization includes improvements to Arizona’s Capitol Mall, west of downtown and bounded by Seventh Avenue, Harrison Street, 19th Avenue and Van Buren Street.
The flag walkway is a first step, Keuth said, following a meeting in which plans to revitalize the Capitol Mall were presented to a gathering of more than 50 people at Arizona State University Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory in downtown Phoenix.
The overall plan, developed by the ASU College of Design faculty and students, was presented by Darren Petrucci, the director of the college’s School of Architecture.
Petrucci told the gathering that the plan would create more walkways, particularly north-south pedestrian corridors on 13th, 15th and 17th avenues. In addition, Petrucci showed three possibilities for new and larger House and Senate buildings.
The presentation was part of ongoing discussions on the Capitol Mall Revitalization Plan.
Much of the spark to revitalize the Capitol Mall has come from Marty Shultz, chairman of the Capitol Mall Task Force. Shultz is a veteran lobbyist for the Pinnacle West Capitol Corp.
Shultz told the group that the goal is to complete improvements called for by the revitalization plan by the state’s centennial in 2012.
As for the flag walkway, Keuth said after the meeting, “The initial plan had a lot of street furniture and kiosks.”
Flags could be in place by summer
It would have taken time to raise funds for those improvements. But a series of flags, also part of the plan, could be in place by summer, with the help of private donations, Keuth said.
The flag walkway would be seen as a starting point for the Capitol revitalization, he said.
“I think this is one of the first pieces,” he said.
Keuth estimated that the cost for 56 Arizona state flags — to be placed along both sides of Washington Street from Seventh Avenue to Wesley Bolin Plaza — would run about $100,000. The figure was based on a quote from a vendor that would make flags and install them on existing utilities poles.
Keuth said four additional poles would be needed for the flags, roughly 6-by-2 feet in dimension.
The flags would hang vertically and be secured on two sides, instead of flapping freely.
In speaking to the group at the ASU Urban Research Laboratory, Keuth said the flags would be part of a celebration of the Capitol.
“Why don’t we celebrate the area≠” he asked. “There’s no celebration down there.”
City flaps around
about flag permit
As it turned out, Phoenix city officials were not in a celebratory mood when Keuth and the alliance first proposed the flag walkway.
He said they quickly learned that outside of central Phoenix, known as Copper Square: “You can’t have permanent banners.”
They were later able to get a permit for the flags, however, with the City Council’s blessing.
Now the alliance is looking for donors to step up to the plate. A donor can get sponsorship recognition for a flag but that sponsorship level has yet to be determined, said Jo Marie McDonald, Phoenix Community Alliance vice president.
Architecture school director Petrucci said the overall plan calls for taller government office buildings and a denser urban-like environment surrounding the Carnegie Library grounds, which are between 10th and 12th Avenue.
This would include favoring buildings over current surface parking lots, he said.
“Obviously, surface parking is not the highest and best use in an urban environment,” Petrucci said.
As for the legislative buildings, Petrucci showed three plans, or schemes. Two would involve knocking down existing House and Senate buildings and rebuilding them directly west of the Executive Tower or as additional wings to the Old Capitol building.
Another plan called for renovating and expanding the existing buildings, giving them a “new shell” and creating a single public entry. The entry would face Wesley Bolin plaza and open to a below-ground corridor that connects both the House and Senate.
“Each of these schemes doubles the existing square footage of the House and
Senate buildings,” Petrucci said.
Shultz urged action on the Capitol Mall plan.
“How can the largest capital city in the United States … how can we continue to accept the mediocrity of our state Capitol≠” Shultz said.