What is Pima Plaza?
Most of Old Town’s Western look grew one storefront at a time. Pima Plaza was the exception: a whole block planned at once.
It’s the block of First Avenue between Scottsdale Road and Brown Avenue. In 1952, a year after the town incorporated, nine local businessmen planned both sides of it as one shopping center built around a “square.” The city’s Arts Colony historic context calls it the first downtown shopping area planned as a whole block, with several buildings and many tenants. There was no building code or zoning ordinance yet, so the owners made up their own rules. They set the buildings back to leave room for covered walkways and front courtyards. They put out hitching posts for the people who still rode horses into town. And they turned the middle of the street into a plaza with four rows of parking and one-way lanes on each side. Scottsdale had never done that, and the Town Council argued with the owners for several months before approving it.
On the south side, Bill Weirich built two buildings at the corner of Brown, designed by Ray Parrish. They became the Westernaire Shops after a naming contest for schoolchildren, and their courtyard was built around a big old tree where Pima riders had long tied their horses. Next door, Raleigh Feltman hired Ralph Haver, who designed a modern gabled building in board-and-batten and shake. That’s the redwood row that’s still there at 7221–7237 E. 1st Avenue. Across the street went the Klevan Building, also called the Artco-Western Park Building.
The name is older than the shopping center. Around 1918, this stretch of First Avenue was where Akimel O’odham farmers from the Salt River community tied their wagons, and people called it Pima Plaza. In 1952 the developers reused the name.
How to walk it
Park once. Use the free public garages in Old Town and walk. It’s one short block.
South side, west to east. Start at Scottsdale Road and walk east.
- The Feltman Building, 7221–7237 E. 1st Ave. Ralph Haver’s building is the reason most people come. The city’s preservation plan for the Kimsey Building lists Haver’s trademarks: low front-facing gables, deep overhangs on a post-and-beam frame, glass in the gable ends, and board-and-batten to warm up the modern lines. Modern Phoenix called the building “a temple of redwood.” The Arts Colony context says Haver mixed his modern style with Western materials, and the result was “a prestigious location for local businesses and shops.” The city’s mid-century driving tour dates it to 1953. Our Ralph Haver note covers the date dispute and the rest of his Scottsdale work.
- The southwest corner of First and Brown. This is where Weirich’s two Westernaire buildings went up around the old hitching tree. Parrish gave them false-front parapets and shake-shingle walkways on the street side, and squeezed-mortar block walls with large display windows behind. We haven’t confirmed how much of either building, or the tree, survives. Look for a courtyard and a big old tree at the corner.
North side. Cross over. The northwest corner of First and Brown is where the Klevan (Artco-Western Park) Building was built. At the far west end, at the northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and First Avenue, are the Ranch House Shops, which opened in 1950 with eight shops including Goldwaters. They’re older than the plaza, but the city’s context counts them as part of it. By 2004, the context notes, both buildings had been remodeled from their original Western look with Southwestern features and materials.
The street. The most original part of the 1952 plan was the street itself: parking down the middle, one-way lanes on each side, and shaded walks in front of the shops. Compare what you see with that plan. The idea of putting cars in the center and keeping storefronts shaded and walkable is what made the block worth a months-long fight.
Then the comparison. Walk ten minutes north to the Kimsey Building on Indian School Road, which the city’s own tour suggests. It’s the same architect a decade later, with glass where Pima Plaza has redwood. For the cowboy sign and the rest of the town’s Western branding, see The West’s Most Western Town.
From wagon row to shopping square
The first Pima Plaza wasn’t designed. Around 1918, at the height of the cotton boom, Akimel O’odham farmers from the Salt River community were a regular part of the town’s commerce, and they tied their wagons along First Avenue. People started calling that stretch Pima Plaza. This site’s 1910s chapter has more on those years. The 1952 developers reused the name, and one of them built around the place it came from. The Arts Colony context says Weirich’s courtyard was planned around “a large old tree, where the Pima Indians often hitched their horses.”
Thirty years later downtown was in the middle of remaking itself. The town incorporated in 1951. In 1952 the Chamber of Commerce put up the wooden cowboy sign at Scottsdale Road and Main welcoming visitors to “The West’s Most Western Town,” and older buildings were getting board-and-batten fronts and shake roofs. The context describes downtown development as more and more planned through the 1950s. The Ranch House Shops at Scottsdale Road and First Avenue opened in 1950 with eight shops, Goldwaters among them, in what the context calls a Modern Western design with redwood fronts, shake shingles and a courtyard on the street side. It was one of the first downtown buildings designed for several tenants. Pima Plaza went further and planned a whole block.
Nine businessmen
The context names the people behind it. Bill Weirich, Paul and Raleigh Feltman and O’Malley Investment Company started on the south side of First Avenue in 1952. The owners on the north side, Bob Herberger, Tom Darlington, Dan Norton, James Beattie and K.T. Palmer, “soon joined them.” Darlington and Palmer went on to found Carefree together in 1955 (see our Tom Darlington page). The context gives the north-side owner only as “Bob Herberger.” That is probably the department-store owner on our Bob and Kax Herberger page, but the context doesn’t say so.
Weirich and Feltman were the core. According to the context, Weirich had moved to the area “a couple years earlier seeking better health” and was “a successful real estate developer with properties all over the Valley.” He often partnered with Raleigh Feltman, “another prominent developer who had recently moved to the area.” Three years later, after the Baltimore Orioles agreed to train in Scottsdale, the two were among nine businessmen, with Charlie Briley of the Pink Pony, who pooled $56,000 to build a baseball stadium near downtown.
Planning before there were rules
The plan is the most interesting part. The town had no Uniform Building Code or zoning ordinance in 1952, so nobody required setbacks, sidewalks or parking. The Pima Plaza owners “took it upon themselves to incorporate planning principals in their site design,” in the context’s words:
- Setbacks on both sides of the street, leaving room for covered walkways and front courtyards.
- The plaza. The center of the street became a square, with “four rows of parking organized around one-way streets on each side of the block.”
- Hitching posts, because horseback riders “still rode into town regularly.”
The context says the parking plan “was a first for Scottsdale, gaining approval only after several months of heated battles between the property owners and the Town Council.” It doesn’t say what the council objected to. Possible objections include traffic on First Avenue, giving up a public street for private customers’ parking, and the cost, but we’re guessing. The town’s minutes from 1952 would answer it. They’re held by the City Clerk, and so far as we know nobody has published that part of them.
Three buildings
The Westernaire Shops. Weirich’s corner at the southwest corner of First and Brown was two adjoining buildings. They took their name from a naming contest for schoolchildren. Architect Ray Parrish used the downtown Western look, with shake-shingle walkways and false-front parapet walls, over a modern building of “squeezed mortar block walls and large, display windows.” The courtyard was built around the old hitching tree. Parrish also designed Weirich’s house, which, according to the context, was featured in Life magazine.
The Feltman Building. Raleigh Feltman hired Ralph Haver, then early in a career that would make him the most prolific architect of postwar Scottsdale. The context describes Haver’s usual approach, a front-facing low-pitched gable over walls of windows, combined here with Western materials: “board and batten siding and shake shingle walkways.” The result was a two-story complex that “became a prestigious location for local businesses and shops.” The city’s driving tour gives the address as 7221–7237 E. 1st Avenue and the date as 1953. The Kimsey Building preservation plan and Wikipedia say 1952. Our Haver note covers that dispute.
The Klevan Building, “also known as the Artco-Western Park Building,” went up across the street on the northwest corner of First and Brown. The context doesn’t name its architect.
The owners marketed the three buildings as the “address of discriminating tenants,” and by the mid-1950s, the context says, “a number of retail shops, galleries and offices had opened along the street.” The plaza also hosted town events. The Kiwanis Club’s 1958 Christmas carol community sing was held here (see lost Scottsdale events).
Western, then Southwestern
The Western look didn’t last. By the mid-1960s, the context says, architects, businessmen and the City Council were all debating whether Scottsdale should keep building in Western style. A Phoenix Gazette headline of March 26, 1965 asked: “Western Motif – Are You Agin It, Or For It?” New buildings went Modern or Southwestern, and older ones were remodeled. The context names two Pima Plaza buildings as examples: the Ranch House Shops and the Artco-Western Park building “have also been updated from their early Western Styles to incorporate Southwestern features and materials.” The context doesn’t list the Haver building among the remodeled ones.
None of the block is on the Scottsdale Historic Register. The city’s mid-century driving tour does include the Feltman Building, as an early Haver to compare with his later Kimsey Building.
What’s still unknown
- The council fight. Who objected, on what grounds and for how long, from the 1952 Town Council minutes at the City Clerk’s office and the Scottsdale Progress, which began publishing in 1948.
- The Westernaire Shops today. Whether Parrish’s two buildings and the hitching tree survive, and in what form. The city’s building permits for the corner parcels would tell.
- The parking plaza. When the center-of-street parking was changed, if it was. This needs city traffic and engineering records.
- The Klevan Building’s architect and fate.