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New Scottsdale Desert Discovery Center Plan Still Draws Some Critics

Desert Discovery Center
(Image courtesy of Swaback Partners)
The pavillion in the artist rendering of the Desert Discovery Center.

Tuesday on The Show, we talked about the new scaled-down plans for the Desert Discovery Center in Scottsdale’s McDowell Sonoran Preserve.

The project is now called Desert EDGE. John Sather is the project’s lead architect.

"As we advanced this into the current design stage that we’re in, we began to, A, listen to the public and, B, look at the site more intensely and look at creating really a smaller and smarter footprint, which in the end, resulted in a building that’s significantly smaller than the previous proposal," said Sather.

But despite that public input, not everybody is sold on the idea. Jason Alexander is one of the directors of the group No DDC, which advocates for making sure any commercial construction in the preserve is put to a public vote, and he joins me.

Mark Brodie is a co-host of The Show, KJZZ’s locally produced news magazine. Since starting at KJZZ in 2002, Brodie has been a host, reporter and producer, including several years covering the Arizona Legislature, based at the Capitol.