180 Apartments May Rise on Mesa General Site Article originally posted on HERE on July 19, 2023 The former Mesa General Hospital building – where generations of Mesa residents were born or received cardiac care and other services – was demolished without fanfare in February and is slated to see new life as a 180-unit apartment complex. The northern portion of the property currently housing the 48-bed KPC Promise Hospital of Phoenix was not affected by the demolition. Site owner MED CAP AZ obtained a permit to raze the 58-year-old hospital on Mesa Drive and University last January even though the apartment project is still working its way through the planning process. Developer Paul Alessio said the property owner considered reusing the building as a health care facility. But after inspecting the interior and determining the amount of work that would need to be done, they decided “It just wasn’t marketable in its current state.” The building had been mostly vacant since 2013, when the Arizona Regional Medical Center closed. The medical center was the successor to Mesa General Hospital, which closed in 2008 when operator Lasis Healthcare left the facility. Alessio said the city requested the demolition because out of concern that the vacant building had “become a hotbed of transient activity.” While working on the project, Alessio said he felt how much history was in the site. When he visited the site, Alessio said people would stop and talk to him about the hospital. “We’d get really cool stories about how that person was born there, their children were both there. … Everybody has kind of a cool connection to that site. Everybody’s got a story,” he said. MED CAP AZ is proposing to develop a four-building apartment complex on 6-acres at the site. The hospital building, which opened in 1965, did receive a Historic Preservation review before the permit was issued. Mesa Planning Director Mary Kopaskie-Brown said that in Mesa, “only properties that have – or are proposed to have – a Historic District or Historic Landmark overlay require a demo permit review by Historic Preservation.” Just being over 50 years old doesn’t justify a review, she said. The fact that the demolition sailed through without comment from the Historic Preservation Office or other discussion miffed Mesa Preservation Foundation president Vic Linoff. “This is a building that fell through the cracks. It met the basic 50-year (U.S.) Secretary of Interior age criteria, and should have been evaluated before demo,” he said. “I have been trying for years to get the city’s GIS (Geographic Information System) to be flagged with any property that meets the 50-year criteria, so that it can be evaluated by the city Preservation Office,” he continued. Kopaskie-Brown says the city is working on creating a list of properties eligible for historic status. “We are considering including a GIS layer that will alert city staff if there are historic district/landmark considerations,” she said. Beyond the process questions, city officials and some neighbors hope the new Mesa Drive Apartments planned for the hospital site will help revitalize the neighborhood, which sits on the “fringe” of downtown Mesa, as one planner said. In comments submitted to the city, a neighboring apartment complex owner told city planners that “over the years, I have witnessed the former Mesa General Hospital lot deteriorate and become a negative influence within the community.” “I cannot express to you my hope for additional revitalization within the community,” he wrote, praising the designs of the apartments. The proposed Mesa Drive Apartments would consist of 60 studios, 78 one-bedroom apartments and 42 two-bedroom apartments. According to a public participation report, residents who attended a neighborhood meeting “embraced the ‘Front Porch Living’ interactive lifestyle the site plan depicted,” and encouraged the development to be open to the surrounding neighborhood. Mesa’s Economic Development Department and Downtown Transformation Office both offered support for the project while encouraging the developers to aim for high density and high quality. The Downtown Transformation office provided lengthy and detailed comments in early discussions requesting changes that it believed would elevate the quality of the project. The developer described its vision for “porch living” in pre-submittal talks with the city, saying each apartment would have a courtyard-facing private area to encourage community engagement. Alessio said the complex will try to “honor the neighborhood” and will be open for pedestrians to traverse through. He added the architecture will match what exists in the neighborhoods, with balconies, lush courtyards and no gates to keep people out. Alessio said his company has a lot of interest in what he called the “downtown adjacent” parts of Mesa. “You’re close by (downtown), but with a little less activity, but walkable to activity,” he said. “People like that opportunity where it’s a little bit quieter, a little bit more community-based.” The market-rate units will try to attract health care workers, police, firefighters and educators, Alessio said. He also noted the apartments will be close to city offices, so city employees may be attracted to the property. The Planning and Zoning Board signed off on the Mesa Drive Apartments plan in late June and the project is headed to the city council, possibly in August.