Arizona Public Service Company, or APS, continued community meetings for its new downtown substation to address growing electricity consumption in the wake of increasing development downtown.
There are two proposed locations for the roughly 40,000-square-foot substation: at the Northeast corner of Third and McKinley streets, across from Songbird Coffee and Tea House, or at the Northeast corner of First and Portland streets, across from Sutra Studios.
“We will get greater capacity in this entire area, so it serves us for a very long time with all of the growth that’s happening,” Kendra Lee, an APS program manager, said about the substation.
To help decide between the two, APS held an open house to gather public input Wednesday afternoon at Roosevelt Community Church. Roughly 50 people at a time cycled through the building while APS representatives discussed options and gave presentations.
All feedback for the two sites written on the provided chalkboards was positive nearing the end of the event. The location of the substation will be finalized in December 2018 and construction will begin in July 2019.
“The purpose of our open houses was to get input from the neighbors, the community and the property owners,” Karrin Taylor Robson, founder and president of Arizona Strategies, a land use strategy team, said. “We’ve been working with the property owners and we think we can acquire them. Tonight was really to get more input from everybody on which of those two sites would be the preference.”
APS also hired consulting firm Espiritu Loci to help integrate the new substation into downtown. Members of the community were able to pick from design elements including landscaping and artwork that they would like to see used in the space.
“There are some pop-up bars or things like that we’ve tried to incorporate and find space for,” Adam Zastrow, a planner, said. “So that the site can actually still be utilized and have active space.”
There was friction early in the process, which began with community meetings in February 2018. Tonatierra, an indigenous cultural embassy, was included as an early site option. Indigenous advocates like Salvador Reza set up signs outside of the open house Wednesday protesting APS’ decision.
“They still haven’t taken us out of the map,” Reza said. “More than anything else, to us, it’s a ceremonial center here in the downtown area for indigenous peoples.”
APS is no longer considering the site for development.
“They said ‘no,'” Trevor Barger, the founder of Espiritu Locia, said. “It’s as simple as that.”
APS is also planning to rebuild substations at Second and Garfield streets and at Fourth Avenue and Lincoln Street. Another substation is tentatively slated to be built for Fourth and Grant streets in 2023.
Contact the reporter at Rebecca.Spiess@asu.edu.
