Debate Heats Up Over a Proposed Mall

As she scans the gentle hills beyond her veranda, it’s easy to see why Mildred Smith moved here 12 years ago.

Dozens of houses now poke through the trees to her left, and a state highway cuts through the hillside to her right. But the view’s still good, and it takes only a little imagination to picture when an occasional grazing cow and a handful of homes were the only things adulterating it.

She expected and accepts the development she’s seen so far. But what’s on tap has Smith and her neighbors fuming: whacking the top off the last pristine knoll in her view and building a regional mall.

“That’s gonna be Sears, near as I can tell,” she said, nodding indignantly toward a section of Bullwhacker Hill, less than 100 yards away. “It’s not going to be pleasant. We paid plenty of money for these lots. We thought, ‘Gee, we are so safe over here.’ ”

In this booming, mile-high area, a haven for those seeking to escape the big city, the fight over the mall is a reminder that Prescott isn’t the quaint getaway it used to be. People are flocking here to take advantage of the mild climate and scenic locale, and the commercial developers are right behind them.

Smith and her neighbors, many of them retirees, argue that a master plan for the area never mentioned a mall next door, and they’re trying to place the issue on the November ballot.

Prescott officials say the area needs a major shopping mall, and they insist it should be within the city limits or the sales tax revenue will be lost to neighboring towns or a Prescott-area American Indian tribe.

Developer Westcor Partners wants to build a 565,000-square-foot mall anchored by Sears, JCPenney and Dillards along Highway 69, the main route into town. The city approved a zoning change for the property in early June.

Westcor hopes to open the mall by the fall of 2000, said Randy Scheel, project manager for Westcor.

The city has tentatively agreed to grade off much of the hill, creating a flat spot for the mall and a surrounding parking lot. The dirt will be moved across the highway to level out a spot for two auto dealerships at a total cost of $1.9 million, said Greg Fister, Prescott’s economic development director.

The city plans to spend an additional $8 million over the next 15 years making road and utility improvements for the mall. Even at a cost of nearly $10 million, city officials insist they stand to gain over the long haul.

“It’s a sales tax preservation issue. It’s live or die by sales tax almost,” said Tom Guice, Prescott’s community development director. “Without the mall, the world doesn’t end, but the choices are definitely limited.”

JCPenney and Sears, which currently have stores at a smaller mall in Prescott, plan to move to the new mall. If the mall is outside the city, those tax dollars are gone and others will probably follow, Guice said.

Studies indicate the region will only be able to support one mall for the next 20 years, which is why Prescott is so anxious to make sure it lands within city boundaries.

The city has already lost a jackpot of retail developments over the last six years, including a movie theater, Wal-Mart and Costco. The stores were constructed on Prescott’s back doorstep within the Yavapai Prescott Indian Reservation, so the city doesn’t see any of the tax revenue.

But Lula Cooper, chairwoman of the civic group 69 Corridor Concerned Citizens, said the city is so eager to lure the mall that it will destroy what makes the community so attractive.

“The loss of what we moved here for, the beautiful hills. That is what Prescott is willing to give up,” she said. “They are going absolutely nuts in destroying a beautiful community.”

Even if Cooper’s group successfully blocks the mall rezoning through referendum, a mall will probably go up on Highway 69 anyway. A patchwork of Indian and city land lines the thoroughfare, so a developer could seek tribal permission to put the same mall a stone’s throw from the currently proposed site, Fister said.

“What they are going to be voting on is whether to move the mall. There is no such thing as stopping the mall,” he said.

Both real estate experts and retailers insist the Bullwhacker Hill site is best, Westcor’s Scheel said. Although the terrain isn’t ideal, he said, the high-visibility spot along the highway is exactly what retailers want.

Samara Berry, leader of the referendum drive, said she isn’t trying to prevent the mall altogether; she just wants it moved off the highway and Bullwhacker Hill.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people who haven’t been up here in a year or so, and they are appalled at everything they see along 69. They come up here to get away from this stuff,” she said.