Sun Merc, the Sun Mercantile Building, is the warehouse in front of you, designed by E.W. Bacon and built by Wells & Son in 1929. Feel the solidity of the brick and imagine a working mercantile tied to Phoenix’s once-thriving second Chinatown, the era stretching from c. 1890 to c.
1960 of which this is the last remaining building. This modest, enduring structure carries official recognition: it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and became a locally protected historic landmark in 1987. In the mid-2000s the block around you was the focus of a tense preservation fight: a proposed $200 million luxury high-rise hotel and condominium would have built atop Sun Merc, tearing off its roof and preserving only the base.
Historic preservationists and the city’s Asian-American community voiced their disapproval, but the city council initially gave the project the go-ahead. A lawsuit followed, and in the fall of 2007 a judge ruled that "the Phoenix City Council had improper talks with Sarver (the developer) before it decided the fate of the warehouse on the hotel site," effectively killing the project. Notice the neighboring Talking Stick Resort Arena, home to the Phoenix Suns, just beyond this survivor of Sun Merc.