The future of Metro Center after its five-year closure

This summer marks five years since Metro Center Mall closed. What has been happening at the site for the past five years, and what’s coming?

Ann O’Brien, Vice Mayor at the City of Phoenix, joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss her involvement with the project.

Vice Mayor O’Brien worked at Metro Center as a teenager, and it’s in her district. She’s been staying informed about the mall’s redevelopment and sharing information with the community. 

“Metro Center is between Peoria and Dunlap Avenues on I-17, and it was incredibly important. It was built in the 70s, and it was the crown jewel, one of the largest shopping centers west of the Mississippi,” Vice Mayor O’Brien said.

Vice Mayor O’Brien shared the reason why Metro Center closed and their efforts to revive the area.

“As we have seen across the country, shopping centers have closed down due to online shopping and just the busyness of folks,” Vice Mayor O’Brien said. “So five years ago, it shut down, and we’ve been working very hard to find somebody who would buy the property and renovate it, bring it back to its austerity of crown jewel.”

Now, the Metro Center area has plans to be a multipurpose space, Vice Mayor O’Brien said.

“In a nod to Metro Center, the folks at Concord Wilshire that bought the property renamed it Metropolitan, and it will be a combination of housing and retail and commercial property. There will be amenities there, so an amphitheater, a dog park, a place for markets,” Vice Mayor O’Brien said.

The proposed space boasts different types of housing with an emphasis on access to public transit, to best appeal to everyone who may be interested in residing in the new “Metropolitan” area.

When asked who the new area will service, she said, “Somebody like me who’s ready to have a little less responsibility around the house and be able to travel more. It’s our teachers and our firefighters, folks who need to buy a first home,” Vice Mayor O’Brien said.