West Valley

photo credit:  azcentral.com

I’ve been watching the photo radar progression over the last few months.  First the local police forces stepped up their radar patrols to catch speeders and slow down traffic.  (I was lucky enough to receive a warning!)  Next came the use of moveable photo radar - a van equipped with photo radar is parked at different locations.  Recently they started installing permanent equipment along Loop 101, similar to what’s been in place in Scottsdale for the last couple of years.

AZCentral.com reports DPS has installed 9 cameras along west valley freeways:  3 on eastbound I-10 in Buckeye; 3 on eastbound Loop 101 between 75th Ave and I-17; and 3 on southbound Loop 101 between Bethany Home and I-10.

** Note - I think I saw 4 cameras yesterday on southbound Loop 101, with the first one being somewhere around Northern.  I’ll double check & post an update next time I drive that way.  (update - there is a 4th camera, located just south of Olive at the Northern Ave exit sign.)

I’ve also seen a continued use of the photo radar vans on the opposite side of the freeways from these cameras.

I’m not here to argue the politics in favor of or against the use of photo radar; I’m just here to remind you to keep your speed in check.

Your relying on cruise control and patience Realtor,

Chris Butterworth

I’m looking to add one or two realtors who know the North, West, or Northwest Valley, to my team. You don’t have to be a writer, but you do have to put your heart and soul into customer service.

We’re getting to the point where we need help servicing our clients. Our other choices are to turn down business, or to lower our service levels - neither of which are very appealing!

Full disclosure: although we have extra business, and we’ll be able to make some referrals, it’s not enough “extra” business to keep somebody busy full-time. (but it could be an extra boost.)

So if you’re a local realtor, and this sounds interesting (or if you know a realtor who might find this exciting), please give me a call/email and we can talk more about it.

Your looking to grow Realtor,

Chris Butterworth

Technorati Tags: Help Wanted

This is a great way to spend an evening. We were there on Sunday last weekend for the season opening lighting of the trees. Well, we missed the actual lighting, and the trees were lit up when we arrived. But it was fun anyway. They had crafts, food, pony carriage rides, a chorus & orchestra in the amphitheater, and thousands of lights in the trees.

Visit the City of Glendale’s site to learn more about the events each weekend.

Our kids both had fun, and it was a good way to catch some holiday spirit.

Your not quite ready to play Santa Realtor,

Chris Butterworth

Technorati Tags: Glendale, Glendale Glitters, holiday festival, Fletcher Heights

Every morning my oldest son & I join thousands of other Phoenicians in the tradition of parents taking their kids to school. However, in our case it’s a little more of a journey than it is for most people; we leave our house in the Arrowhead area (Northwest Valley) and travel to ACT School in downtown Phoenix. Last year my son attended Chrysalis Academy in Tempe, but our route through central Phoenix was the same.

Well, now that we’re about a month into the school year, one thing has become very clear to me: Traffic is much worse this year! I take the 101 South from Peoria/Glendale (not much traffic) to I-10 eastbound (using the carpool lane). Last year I was able to get onto I-10, and I usually had about a mile or so to merge over into the carpool lane before we hit major traffic. This year the I-10 traffic is backing up onto the 101 offramp! (see my expertly drawn illustrations below!)

Statistics? None. Housing permits? Nope. County Recorder’s Office official data? No way. But how can you argue with the change in traffic?

The only thing I can surmise is that there are more people living west of the Loop 101.. An absolute population boom!

- Chris Butterworth

Technorati Tags: West Valley, traffic, population boom, ACT School, Chrysalis Academy 

We have a listing in the terrific community of Wigwam Creek in Litchfield Park. This is a fairly large single level home (2,134 sq ft) with 4 bedrooms and 2 baths, and is being offered at $279,000. You can learn everything about it at www.5438Rattler.com .

Please note: while this web site’s main purpose is to inform our readers, encourage thought, share ideas, and generally make our inter-office discussions public, we also realize you never know who might know somebody who’s looking, and we owe our clients maximum exposure. To our valued readers, please take this in stride; we don’t have any advertising on this website, and our posts about listings represent a very small percentage of the overall content. Plus, you might even find something of value from this listing! Thank you.

- Chris Butterworth

Technorati Tags: Litchfield Park, Wigwam Creek, Listing, House for Sale

This doesn’t relate very well to real estate, except maybe as a testament for how far the Valley has grown. But still, how many times have we second-guessed ownership of our favorite teams? “I would have drafted so-and-so.” “That was a stupid trade.” “I can’t believe they hired that coach!” The list goes on and on..

Well, now’s your chance to do something about it. For the low, introductory price of $75,000, you can be the owner of the West Valley Blades, a professional golfing team.

Read more about it here.

And if you do happen to buy this team, just remember where you heard about it. Pass a couple of free golf lessons my way, and I’ll be shooting in double-digits in no time!

- Chris Butterworth

As Steve mentioned earlier today (he beat me to the punch!), the Dodgers will be playing spring ball in Glendale in 2009, along with the White Sox if they can find another team to fill their spot in Tucson. This is good news on several levels – more baseball locally, more economic impact, more support of future growth, more national recognition for the area, etc. etc. etc. But what blows my mind is just how fast this area has exploded. I’m trying to picture another area which has changed more in a 10-year period than the area in Glendale along the 101 Corridor.

This whole area was nothing but farm-land at the turn of the century (although the Peoria Sports Complex wasn’t too far away at Bell & 83^rd Ave.) Then, one by one, new developments appeared, and each one seemed to make the ones before it look like they had been there forever. The completion of Loop 101; Glendale Arena (now known as Jobing.com Arena); Cabelas; Westgate; and the Arizona Cardinal’s Stadium (now known as the University of Phoenix Stadium). The construction of Zanjero; several hotels (John Q Hammond Renaissance Hotel, Springhill Suites, Residence Inn); and Parkwest. And the proposals for Glendale Main Street and the Bidwills’ skyscraper. And now another main attraction…

We’ve written about some of these before:

Glendale Main Street

Glendale’s Sky Scraper

Stadium Area Development

Glendale Hotels “on the clock”

If you haven’t been out to this part of town in awhile, you’re not going to recognize it!

- Chris Butterworth

As I wrote in a previous post back in January (Click Here to read) the AVP Volleyball Tour that travels the country highlighting the best players in sand volleyball made a stop in Arizona this past weekend.  Previously they had called Tempe home, but changed the venue this year to The Westgate City Center in Glendale.  I must admit, I’ve only been out to Westgate a couple of times.  Once to the then Cardinals Stadium (now known as the University of Phoenix Stadium) for The Men’s Luxury Toy Expo and Auction with my father so we could gawk at all of the different ways to spend money on completely useless items.  I’ve also been out there to see a Phoenix Coyotes hockey game at the Jobing.com Arena earlier this year.  Both times we neglected to take a good tour of the entire Westgate City Center area. 

Being that my wife is a volleyball nut, playing on scholarship at NAU, and now coaching various club and high school teams around the valley, we, of course, had to make some time to go and watch some pretty amazing athletes play beach volleyball.  We went Saturday night (neither one of us had any interest in sitting through the 100 degree heat during the day) and got to see 3 matches.  The highlight of the night was getting to see Misty May and Keri Walsh, pictured above, (both of which my wife played against in college) beat up on there opponents advancing to the Quarter Finals of the tournament. 

Even more than getting to enjoy the beach volleyball atmosphere and getting the opportunity to see Olympic gold medalists do what they do best, we also had a chance to walk around and experience the Westgate City Center just a little bit.  I was quite impressed with what they have to offer.  It’s not just a gathering of sports venues and the obligitory grouping of restaurants that typically accompany, but they also had shopping (both boutique and national stores), night clubs/bars, a movie theater, hotels, residential development and commercial office space all set in a small downtown setting.  It reminded me of a combination of The Arizona Center and Kierland.

If you haven’t had a chance to visit I’d recommend doing so.  It’s worth it.

-Steve Nicks

I’ve lived in Peoria for nine years now (after having spent most of my life in Arcadia), and although I’ve been to Saguaro Ranch Park before, I didn’t realize just how historic it is. This park, located on the west side of 59^th Ave just south of Peoria, has a rich history of over 100 years, coinciding with the construction of the initial stretch of the CAP canal!

The City of Glendale has done a great job of restoring many of the buildings to their original and working condition, and does a good job of keeping the park true to its original “farm & ranch” roots. Mixed in with the play areas, picnic tables, barbeques, and soccer fields are live orchards and farm birds – we saw peacocks, chickens, and roosters (which cockadoodle-dooed at us all morning!)

One big difference between when the park was established & now is our food supply, and how much we’ve all become city slickers. On the way to the park I told my boys we were going to a park that had chickens. My three-year-old’s eyes lit up, then he said “I hope they have chicken nuggets!”

Click here to learn more about this park & its rich history. I recommend checking it out when you’re looking for a neat place to picnic.

- Chris Butterworth

In a post I wrote a few months back, I commented on the lack of hotels/entertainment the West Valley has in order to support the upcoming Superbowl XLII & Fiesta Bowl attendees.  Now it’s nearly May, and it looks like Glendale finally might have some places for the visitors to lay their head at night.  According to a recent article, Steve Ellman  announced on Monday, April 23rd, that a 9 acre parcel in Westgate has been sold to the developers of the Hampton Inn and Suites.  Although the 9 acre parcel will eventually be home to a total of 2 or 3 hotels, only 1 (a 149 room hotel) will be ready in time for the big game.  Also in planning and construction stages are 3 other hotels near Westgate including a John Q. Hammond Renaissance Hotel (expected to open early fall 2007), a Springhill Suites as well as a Residence Inn (both expected to open sometime between July & September 2007) in the Zanjero developement near Cabelas.  Obviously many visitors will have to find other hotels in the area in which to stay, but hopefully the four mentioned in this post will be up and running smoothly prior to the arrival of our guests.  Who knows… maybe the Cardinals will surprise us this year, and make it to the big game!  Maybe that would help ease the burden on the hotels. 

If you are planning a trip to/around Glendale, AZ for this game or any other reason, here are a few others (already completed) to check out:

• Wigwam Resort
• Springhill Suites Glendale/Peoria
• Holiday Inn Express Litchfield Park/Goodyear
• Homewood Suites by Hilton Phoenix/Avondale
• Hampton Inn & Suites Goodyear

Enjoy your visit and be sure to check out my series of posts on Arizona Sights & Wonders for a list of places to see while you’re here!

Get ready folks!  Those of you who travel the 303 will have some bumpy roads & detours to manipulate in the near future.  The Maricopa County Department of Transportation will be installing traffic lights at the intersection of Waddell & Loop 303.  For those of us who travel this strip very often, this intersection can be deadly, especially for anyone trying to cross the 303.  Unfortunately, I see this as only a band-aid solution.  Something is definitely needed to increase the safety of all drivers, however, I wish short-term solutions would be coupled with something more long-term. 

The current improvement calls not only for traffic lights, but left turn lanes as well in all 4 directions.  These improvements will begin shortly and will call for the following closures:

• Waddell Rd. will be closed from Cotton Lane to Sarival through May 4th… Loop 303 will remain open during this time
• Loop 303 will be closed between Cactus Rd. & Greenway from May 7th - May 25th, but Waddell will be open

For more information on these closures, you can call the MCDOT hotline at 480-350-9288

Click here to see the article

When I was an undergrad at the University of Arizona in the late ’80s, there was a lot of talk about Low Pressure Sodium lights. (These are the darker, yellowish, not-so-bright streetlights that you see in some parts of town.) Everybody was talking about how great they were, well mostly my professors and some newspaper articles – keep in mind I didn’t know many locals. I was told “They use less energy”, and “They allow the Hubble Telescope to see further into space,” and “They’re the future of lighting.” Well, my friends and I never quite agreed. Frankly, we thought, as far as lighting goes, they’re awful. Lights should be … well, light.

Fast forward to today. There has been such a revolution in lighting over the last few years.. Car headlights are brighter and more focused. Cell phones’ display screens are amazing (who hasn’t seen a concert where cell phones in the crowd have replaced cigarette lighters from years past?) Fluorescent bulbs have become more “natural”. I have a tiny little flashlight, that I bought for $3 at a checkout counter, that shines a terrific, clean, pure white light. But the kicker was last holiday season – did anyone else notice how awesome the LCD Holiday Lights looked? It just seemed outdated to not be able to use any of this technology for larger purposes.

Well, fortunately the City of Glendale agrees with us. It turns out they have been quietly replacing every Low Pressure Sodium streetlight (all 18,500 of them!) with brighter white lights, while at the same time adding a shield to focus the light downward (to help darken the sky for astronomical purposes) and a tracking monitor so they can respond immediately when a light bulb burns out. Here’s an article posted on AZCentral.com.

Good for Glendale – I hope other cities follow suit, and make yellowish low pressure sodium lights another one of those ’80s fads that has run its course. (kind of like Members Only jackets, Valley Girl expressions, and Rocky movies… oh wait!)

- Chris Butterworth