| rev:text
| - Westgate is the right complex in the wrong time.
No, no, I'm not suggesting it would have worked better ten years ago when there was even less out at 99th Avenue and Bethany than there is now, I'm thinking that this place was just built too soon. The sixties had their strip malls, the eighties had their indoor malls, and the past few years have seen the outdoor malls take over. Every shopping center has its day.
Westgate is a gorgeous outdoor mall with all the amenities of an indoor one, except the one most needed in Phoenix--air conditioning.
Oh, did I say Phoenix? I'm sorry, I meant GLENDALE. Please, don't refer to Glendale as Phoenix. They hate that. Seriously. They hate that so much that they bristled when "University of Phoenix" bought the naming rights to the football stadium within their city limits. I'm not joking. Stop laughing. I am serious. Why doesn't anyone take me seriously? Yes, yes, I know you just spit water across your desk from all that laughter...go look it up! Sigh. It certainly seems sort of silly, but to each their own.
Anyway, back to Westgate. It really is a beautiful shopping center, done up with fountains at one end and a kiddie splash area at the other, ringed with hotels and two full-size sports arenas, and replete with ample parking on all sides. The retail shops appear to have commercial office space above them, so you get the feeling you're walking through a dense urban network as you stroll. There are bars, restaurants, an AMC movie theater complex, a place where you can watch drunk girls fall off a mechanical bull...you name it, they've got it.
The way the parking is handled is confusing at best, you'll never be directed to the same parking area twice, even if you're seeing the same event on different days. Some days certain lots are reserved for certain events, some days they're reserved for valet, some days they're wide open. I think the Wizard of Westgate just flips a switch each morning and decides at random how best to prank us hapless customers. They certainly seem to enjoy keeping us on our toes. On days without big events (and even on days with big events, if you park far enough away) the parking is free, which I wholeheartedly appreciate. Being gouged for parking before I even get the chance to get gouged for food really brings me down.
And oh yes, you will be gouged. Nothing here comes cheap, not the water sold inside the sporting arenas, not the burgers slung at Johnny Rockets. If you've shopped at any of the chains that have locations here, check the prices and see if you notice a small hike here.
But alas, Westgate came about at the height of the boom. I recall going to a hockey game when it was bit a dirt lot and thinking "what the hell is a stadium doing out here in Yuma, and what the hell are they thinking when they propose building a shopping center next door?!" What they were thinking is that the boom would continue, tracts of homes would expand westward, and that Westgate would one day mark the center of the population of the Valley.
Not so much. There are still more sheep than people in much of this area, and even the lucrative area right off this portion of the 101 is mainly undeveloped. There are no signs of this changing anytime soon, and the fear I have is that by the time the bust DOES end and expansion begins to fill in the odd emptiness around Westgate, it will have past its prime. Who knows what type of retail area will be popular then (will it be back to indoor malls? Will we only be able to shop online by then? Will we have flying cars that will make the trip out here more bearable?), and who knows whether something newer and shinier will appear a few miles down the road.
Or, dare I say it, closer to the rest of civilization?
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