The panhandlers and street preachers don’t bother me. People like that are part of the fabric of urban life. There’s very little aggressive panhandling on Mill compared to other urban areas nationwide. It’s good to discourage vagrancy, but if it’s taken too far, we’d end up with Mill Avenue being a suburban Disneyland. No thanks.

I also like the way Mill is configured right now with one lane of traffic in each direction and a lane of parallel parking creating a buffer between people and moving vehicles. That type of design enhances walkabilty and values people over cars — something more city streets should do.

Finally, I’m not sure why Tempe Town Lake is a bad idea. From the north side, you can launch your own non-motorized boat (canoe or kayak typically) as long as you buy a low-cost permit from the City. I’ve done that many times. From the south, the Lake provides a gathering place and a focal point for events.

As mentioned in my first post, the City of Tempe has done some amazingly stupid things will Mill and its subsidized competitor, Tacky Marketplace, but not everything done over the last few years has been a mistake.

I worked on Ash/Mill for 6 years and went to ASU before that and they’ve always tried to make Mill more trendy like scottsdale and bring in wine bars and martini bars that always fail. Look at the corner that ziggy’s used to be on… they can’t keep ANYthing in that downstairs or upstairs place… always crappy restaurants.

Mill has a few issues off the top of my head….

- BUMS… quit Fkn begging and get them out of there
- Super crazy religious nutzos screaming in megaphones
- Dave said it good… crazy vulture towing guys scare everybody away
- They stopped validating parking… wrong move
- The added tons more parking meters and the parking cops are on that sh*t in a second if you’re off
- Birds… TONS of birds that sh*t on everything including people… the sidewalks are COVERED with bird crap – that doesn’t look good.
- The multi million dollar towerS that are unfinished and a complete eyesore…
- Tempe Beach Park is cool but nothing to do there unless there’s a concert or event.
- They don’t allow anything on the lake… you can rent paddle boats… boo that’s boring nobody cares.
- Because of the single lane I avoid Mill in a vehicle like the plague ever since they did that – stupid.
- The old Harkins closed…
- Did I mention the bums and that smelly hippy shop that everybody except the bums hate?
- Parking sucks and unless you know the spots you can’t find any… hardly marked.

Mill dies at night anymore when ASU is out… it’s almost like downtown Phx at night when school isn’t in… weekends stay okay busy but not close to normal during school.

Anyways… blah. Best times on Mill anymore are when ASU games are in town… Everything is ASU Gold :)

As for Mill, it has been one bad move after another:

– A move toward chains followed by the City of Tempe’s truly insane decision to subsidize competing chains two miles away at Tacky Marketplace.
– A move toward speculative luxury condo development when rentals would have been a safer bet.
– Poor handling of the parking situation. As much as I would prefer for everyone to get to Mill via rail; some will insist on driving. Although parking is actually abundant, the perception of scarcity and overzealous tow trucks kept a lot of people away.

You make a good point about festivals at Tempe Beach Park, but those are generally self-contained. Relatively few customers stay around to support other Mill businesses. The bright spots are the small businesses you mention. We need more of those. Let Mill be Mill instead of a grandiose vision that is not attainable.

You can’t survive in any economy when you don’t treat your customers right.

Tempe’s ongoing greed has turned what was once a nice place to walk and go to diverse shops into a corporate jungle and yes, in a way a mall/power center.

Hopefully, changes will be a comin’..

=m