Proposition 6

All Arizonans and especially residents of the near Westside will want to be involved in the planning process, funded by Proposition 6, to carefully examine relocating and/or redeveloping the Arizona State Fairgrounds, at its current site since 1905.

Proposition 6 also provides major funding to continue the city’s line-up of time-tested and proven historic preservation matching grants: the Historic Exterior Rehabilitation and affiliated Low Income Historic Housing Rehabilitation Programs, and the Demonstration Project Program. A new historic preservation initiative will also help save threatened historic buildings citywide, with downtown historic warehouses as a high priority.

The Historic Exterior Rehabilitation Grant Program is an award-winning program that has brought $2.6 million dollars in hard cash to inner-city historic neighborhoods. Since 1989, more than 300 historic residences in 29 central city historic districts have received matching grants to restore building exteriors. If you are new to Phoenix and are under the impression that historic neighborhoods such as Fairview Place, F.Q. Story, and Willo have always looked as good as they do now, think again. Twenty years ago, these neighborhoods were in sharp decline, and were chock full of crime-ridden rentals and blighted boarding houses. Pioneering urbanites -- combined with the power of the Historic Exterior Rehabilitation Grant Program -- have made historic district living hip again, albeit through decades of hard work.

A similar bond program for "landmark" historic structures -– the Demonstration Project Program -- has brought dozens of historic office buildings, retail centers, churches, and historic park facilities back to life. If you are familiar with historic Gold Spot Market at 3rd Avenue and Roosevelt Street (pictured above), you should know that public bond monies matched private dollars to return this historic retail center to economic use.