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COMMENTARY

An SCA View Interview with John Ritter,

CEO of Focus Property Group

        In a recent panel discussion on New Urbanism on our local National Public Radio station, KNRP, John Ritter, CEO of Focus Property Group, expressed his awareness of and concern about Anthem’s 18,000 units and the traffic plight imposed by the existence of only two points of access, Eastern Avenue and Volunteer. He described Anthem as an example of limited access in and out of the community, which, he said is "exactly what you don’t want to do, [in designing a planned community of this size]."

        As a result of the anticipated increase in traffic flow from Anthem, Mr. Ritter said that they will be redesigning their street system to the I-15 and their town center. You may listen to the entire KNPR panel discussion by going to the KNRP Link, Henderson New Urbanism, and then clicking ONLY on their "Listen to Audio" hyperlink following the word: Discussion. Mr. Ritter’s comments about Anthem can be heard towards the end of the program, which you can scroll to using the controls of your player.

        Just this week, we followed up with Mr. Ritter on what he could tell us about his forthcoming street plans. Mr. Ritter was very open and cordial in discussing his street plans with us. He confirmed that they will be constructing an offsite road just east of Henderson Airport between St. Rose Pkwy. and Volunteer Blvd.1 When completed, that road, Maryland Pkwy., will be an arterial or main highway into their community and to the heart of their New Urbanism town center.

        We also confirmed with Mr. Ritter that they are not planning to add other points of access for Anthem residents beyond those already shown by the City’s long established Master Streets and Highway Plan, a relevant portion of which you can see by clicking here: Highway Plan. Furthermore, Mr. Ritter said that the alignment of those highways through his development will reasonably approximate the alignment currently shown in the City’s Master Plan.

        According to the City’s master plan, in addition to the already existing Volunteer Blvd., there will be two additional points of western access to Anthem:

                    2) Democracy Dr. (far to the south and heading west through Anthem

                  Highlands and out of Provence).

        Democracy Dr., by the way, is not shown connecting directly to Maryland Pkwy., but does so only indirectly and by a circuitous route leading eventually to Bicentennial Pkwy., which connects to Maryland Pkwy farther west (the unlabeled roadway shown in lavender). That means that all future Anthem traffic heading west then north through the Focus Group development, whether on Democracy (out from Provence) or initially on Bicentennial, will eventually settle onto Bicentennial Pkwy.

         However, due to its southern most proximity within the 1940 acre parcel, Democracy Dr. will be unavailable as a point of access to Anthem until the Focus Group development is

 pretty much

 built out.

[For an overall layout of the 1,940 acre

 parcel in relation to Anthem, you may

 click here: 1940 Acre Parcel.]

        With Democracy Dr. essentially unavailable until the far distant future, all Provence traffic will travel only northwest through Anthem Highlands, exiting onto Bicentennial Pkwy., the main entrance to Anthem Highlands and several hundred yards west of Anthem Parkway.

        At that point, residents of Anthem Highlands and Provence will be able to access Anthem Parkway, Sun City Anthem Drive, or (when constructed) they may decide to head west on Bicentennial for a mile to Maryland Parkway and then head north to St. Rose Pkwy.

        Of course, if exiting down Eastern Ave. is not an inviting alternative for those drivers, they could forgo heading west on Bicentennial Pkwy. altogether by heading north on Sun City Anthem Dr. to Volunteer Blvd., then west, and then north on that lavender colored offsite road that Focus will be constructing east of the airport to St. Rose Pkwy.

        While others may have a different opinion on this matter, given the current options available, I believe its reasonable to conclude that our southern most neighbors will most likely choose as their preferred route out of Sun City to go east and north around the Anthem Parkway loop, exiting onto Eastern Ave. simply because of the ease of being able to use two travel lanes in and out of the community. As those southern perimeter communities become increasing populated, this proposition can be easily tested with a traffic survey to see if our Highlands exiting drivers are making a right or a left turn onto Anthem Parkway. This assumes, of course, that Bicentennial Pkwy. will not be constructed for several years, that is, until Pulte and Focus working together on this street construction project are ready and able to proceed as their respective developments will permit.  

        It's clear, however, that with the eventual completion of the Bicentennial-Maryland loop to St. Rose, some traffic relief will be at hand, providing us all with an acceptable alternative to exiting Sun City via Eastern Ave.

           While connecting to Anthem's streets was a foreseeable event for the Focus Group, the additional traffic flow that Focus now anticipates from Anthem’s southern frontier neighbors was apparently not foreseeable. As a result, that additional unanticipated traffic load was not factored into Focus Group's original streets design. Mr. Ritter said that the potential problem for the Focus Group stems from the fact that Bicentennial heads straight into their town center. As a result, he said they will be redesigning Bicentennial to accommodate an increased traffic load. We did not discuss the specifics of their redesign efforts.

        What that future west-heading traffic load might amount to continues to be highly speculative. While the City and Pulte may be correct, it's difficult to imagine that their projected 70% of the trips in and out of Provence-Highlands will head west (on Bicentennial) and will not head down Eastern Ave. We will be most fortunate, even surprised, if their projections prove to be correct.

        Per the City's Plan, Bicentennial Pkwy. is currently designed to be a 154' width street with 3 travel lanes in each direction through to the intersection of Maryland Pkwy. We did not determined whether that particular street design was incorporated into Focus Group's original plan for Bicentennial. Whether the City's current street design ultimately proves to be adequate or inadequate, whether at a width of 154' or wider, to meet the anticipated increased traffic load, only time will tell.

        And finally, Mr. Ritter seemed especially pleased, if not surprised, to learn of the City's contractual requirement imposed on Pulte Homes to construct on their 1940 acre parcel a major portion of Bicentennial Pkwy. and Maryland Pkwy.

Ron Johnson

August 27, 2004

1Correction. Previous references to the detention basin and the likely route Maryland Pkwy. will take between St. Rose and Volunteer have been deleted. Retained is the fact, as envisaged by the City, that the yet to be constructed Maryland Pkwy. between St. Rose and Volunteer will be located just east of Henderson Airport.

  .