page_title: Central Avenue Corridor
section_title: 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: Central Avenue Corridor / History / 1970s
caption_attribution_description: English: Midtown Phoenix
context_page_description: The Central Avenue Corridor is a significant stretch of north-south Central Avenue, in Phoenix, Arizona. Roughly bounded by Camelback Road to its north, and McDowell Road to its south, this is one of Phoenix's most vital and heavily trafficked stretches of roadway. It is also one of the region's largest centers of employment, with nearly 60,000 people being employed within a three-mile radius of this swath of Central Avenue. Major employers here include major banks and financial institutions, hi-tech companies, and several significant law firms and government agencies.
  This corridor bisects a larger area known as Midtown, Phoenix—the collection of neighborhoods north of downtown, and south of the North-Central and Sunnyslope areas. Block numbers or addresses for Central Avenue landmarks are indicated in parentheses where available.
context_section_description: In 1971, Phoenix cemented the precedent of previous ad-hoc zoning decisions with the adoption of the Central Phoenix Plan, which envisioned unlimited building heights along Central Avenue. The new plan, however, did not sustain long-term development of the Central Corridor. Only a few office towers were constructed along North Central during this decade and none approached the scope of projects constructed during the previous decade. Instead, downtown resurged in popularity during the 1970s, witnessing a flurry of construction activity not seen again until the urban real estate boom of the 2000s.  In 1979, Phoenix adopted the Phoenix Concept 2000 plan which split the city into urban villages—each with its own village core where greater height and density is permitted, further shaping the free-market development culture.  Phoenix officially turned from its roots as a city built around its two main drags to a city of many nodes later connected by freeways. The cluster of high-rises north of Thomas Road became part of the Encanto village core.
caption: The Great American Tower and 3300 Tower, completed in 1985 and 1980.
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