Home Depot Blinked First
A few months ago, I reported on the Facebook Get Your PHX page about an effort by Home Depot to purchase land and demolish some Haver-style apartments at about 20th St and Indian School Rd.
Some dedicated people got together and fought the effort, siting the fact that this new “smaller” store would (1) affect neighbors directly behind the store and (2) endanger the intimate local hardware stores where you can actually get your questions answered (oops, did I type that out loud?).
In my experience, the Home Depot at 36th and Thomas has done damage to the neighborhoods to the south of that box store.
The dedicated and empowering Carolyn Lavender wrote a public statement after her and others’ community organizing efforts paid off and Home Depot decided to pound sand.
Here are some excerpts:
I would like to formally announce that Home Depot is no longer trying to build at 22nd Street and Indian School Road, Phoenix. Attached is the letter from the lawyers as confirmation.
Jerry Jacobs of DM Ventures, the owner and investor who currently owns the commercial strip and the empty lot, will continue to rent to the current businesses that are there for the near future. He will come up with a new plan for the properties. We hope to be part of this conversation so that there will be a plan that we support.
We believe that the 22 Haver inspired mid-century apartments owned by MODE are no longer being sold and are safe from demolition at this time. But this still needs to be confirmed.
Thank you so much to everyone who participated in this fight. This was a true community effort that we can all be proud of. We are grateful to Mac McDonald and the Loma Linda Neighborhood Association for making us aware of the Home Depot plan through Nextdoor.com and a meeting at the school.
Community members and neighbors attended the Loma Linda meeting, a meeting held by the lawyers at CCV church, multiple Camelback Village Planning Committee meetings, a Councilperson Laura Pastor coffee talk gathering, and an invitation only meeting held by Laura Pastor in her offices.
A number of organizations provided valuable assistance in this effort including the Greater Coalition of Phoenix Neighborhoods, Modern Phoenix, and Local First Arizona. 240 individuals joined this opposition mailing list.
Robrt Pela of New Times researched and wrote an in-depth article on this fight that didn’t get published due to delay from Pastor’s office and the Home Depot withdrawal. This doesn’t even fully describe the amount of energy and effort that everyone provided in this fight. Home Depot tried to build a store at 22nd Street and Indian School and backed out due the large community response.
