A couple of months ago my wife and I stopped into a new business on Palisades Boulevard. We were the only customers and started talking to the owner. He told us that his business was continually hampered by the town staff. He went on to say that he had been warned in advance that Fountain Hills is not business friendly.

Bart Shea has always been a strong supporter of Fountain Hills. Most recently he built the massive base of the Fountain of Light at no cost to the town. Shea Connelly Development has built MorningStar and two buildings in the downtown corridor with residences on the upper floors and businesses on the ground floor. Those businesses have substantially increased the number of businesses in the downtown area and begun to revitalize it. The projects SCD built are tasteful, productive and enhance the town. They are not like the proposed project at Target plaza.

Yet the Target plaza project squeezed through the Town Council (even after it was disapproved by Planning and Zoning) and the town, according to Mr. Shea, delayed SCD on building his remaining two lots. At a recent Town Council meeting, Mr. Shea said that in their latest gambit, the planning director wouldn’t issue the building permits to SCD unless they signed an amendment to the Developer Agreement giving up their Estoppel agreement (the agreement that showed they had met the codes and the terms and conditions of the Developer Agreement). Losing the Estoppel caused their financing to be withdrawn. Only under stress of a threatened lawsuit (over $28M) did the town sign.

The town must think the vacant lots on the Avenue and on Verde River are really attractive.

Is Fountain Hills unfriendly to business? Isn’t it time for a change?

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.