This article originally appeared in BEX.
After a nearly two-year struggle, multiple revisions and accommodations to neighborhood and regulatory resistance, abundant mis- and disinformation, and its emergence as a poster child representative of the ongoing reformative development versus the forces of Not In My Back Yard, a highly revised and scaled back version of the Greenbelt 88mixed-use proposal to revitalize a dying shopping center at Hayden and Osborn roads in Scottsdale gained approval from the City Council this week.
Having run thousands-upon-thousands of words here about the project’s details and the resulting fight in at least half-a-dozen articles and columns, as well as the extensive coverage from area general news outlets, we will skip the blow-by-blow recap and just provide the highlights.
Lucky Plaza is a shopping center at the SWC, anchored by an office supply and a sporting goods store, along with smaller retail and restaurant tenants. The big box stores have indicated they will not remain on the property long-term. Most of the site is owned by Todd Silver through his business entity Village Property Management LLC. Because of its age and the consumer shift away from brick and mortar retail, particularly big-box stores, the center is in a state of decline.