Don't tease and never deliver. I hope you also got some candid interviews with residents.
CuldeSac
Sometime this February, I was in the Southwest and decided to swing by Tempe, Arizona to check the place out and get a feel for environment. As such, I went to visit the place on a weekday and want to show what I saw there.
A little snack before my tour.
As I arrived, coming off Historic Route 80 and pulled into CuldeSac, what hit me was just how much parking a supposed car free community had. Now supposedly, this is just for the retail shops but as you will see from the photos, the capacity of the parking lot doesn’t meet the numbers or the lack thereof withing the shopping area of the community.
Look at all the parking and EVIL pickups.
So we can see from these photos that nearly every single parking spot in the lot off US 80 is taken as well as street parking on E Wildermuth Ave. Now, the defense some might say is that this is for business parking…well again, this was a weekday and you will be dispelled of that…now:
Egads!, it that an option for overnight parking and an additional parking lot?
So while the community wants to promote itself as a car free community, we see that it not only offers overnight parking but an overflow lot that while not crowded is still in use for a weekday. Perhaps we can see that the place is alive and bustling full of people having a great time.
Reminiscent of
Silent Hill or
The Langoliers
At least I can get the snip or get my tubes tied.
Well, not quite. When I walked around the grounds while not as dead as
Night of the Comet only had a couple people out and about while none of the outdoor public seating was being utilized. A visit inside some of the businesses had a handful of more people, a large corporate group at the Mexican Cantina, a couple at the Vietnamese Pho restaurant, and about 10 people at a coffee shop on the property. So perhaps we have 20 people that are patronizing the local business but that’s far less than the cars in all the lots and street.
But what of the people in the shops of CuldeSac?
Just based on the feel of the coffee shops and the surrounding businesses, I got the feeling of mostly trust fund kids that if my assessment of what they were reviewing on their laptops and discussing was correct. This isn’t that much of a stretch as the ASU-Tempe Campus is only a couple miles down the road and accessible via light rail. These people weren’t fit nor grossly overweight but they were just what one would think as nerdy at least for the guys with the women being mid. I did see a couple WFH types but you know what I didn’t see?
A ghostly empty playground.
Children.
In the one hour, I was there and I never saw a single child with no day care facilities on the grounds with the playgrounds being desolate. Devoid of laughter of the next generation. Additionally, none of the facilities, such as the gym or community space, were really being used. So much for the idea that suburbs were lonely and that a more urban form of living would present something different, but perhaps most of the residents are attending classes.
Now, earlier posts wondered about the expansion of the community, and I did ask some of the residents about it.
Per the residents, the expansion is going to be new townhomes but they don’t know if it’s going to be for sale as condos or just for rent. Of particular interest, is that they plan to put in MORE Parking when the townhomes are complete with additional rumors that there were talks to make a hole in the wall with the adjoining apartment complex to provide even more parking for the businesses…and residents.
So in review, the businesses are a ghost town that get a trickle of traffic and would be envious of the traffic a Dutch Brothers coffee shop gets in a suburb area, the housing is populated by college kids with some childless WFH types that don’t really exercise. Finally, for a community that is centered on being car free, its residents are pushing for more parking and the community managers are agreeing.