Plans for a major office and retail complex on Tempe Town Lake were unveiled Friday, launching the next wave of the city’s ambitious waterfront development.
The $600 million Marina Heights project, which will be anchored by an 18-story local State Farm insurance company headquarters, is being touted as the state’s largest office development and the catalyst that will help transform the lakefront into the hot spot for upscale offices and condominium projects originally envisioned.

Fewer than a dozen people — mostly older teenagers –were waiting outside Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale just after 4 p.m. Tuesday as the restaurant prepared to reopen.
Amy’s employees were busy inside the locked restaurant. A video camera crew was also at work inside the establishment.

Hosting the PGA Tour’s largest golf tournament brings Scottsdale worldwide exposure and puts millions of dollars in sales taxes into city coffers.
But it has come at a price.

Motorists driving in northern Scottsdale may find themselves wondering what is going on at Pima and Happy Valley roads, an intersection where free speech and matters of taste have collided in a bizarre way.
In one corner is landowner Henry Becker. He has feuded with the city for at least a dozen years by erecting on his property unusual figures and signs harshly critical of mayors, council members, a police chief and conservation activists.

Scottsdale’s first run at hosting a motorcycle rally, nearly 23 years ago, was short-lived. City officials, fearing an invasion of biker gangs, persuaded WestWorld of Scottsdale to cancel an event touted as “Sturgis in the desert.”
Scottsdale eventually got a motorcycle rally — the Arizona Bike Week Cyclefest, now in its 17th year — but the crowd has turned out to be more born to be mild than born to be wild.

Sophie Kurys was a thief.
She swiped 201 bases in 203 attempts in 1946, her best year in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, a collection of teams made famous in Penny Marshall’s 1992 film “A League of Their Own.”

Scottsdale is setting its sights on acquiring nearly 4,000 acres of state trust land in the far northern area of the city.
The Scottsdale McDowell Sonoran Preserve Commission is working to prioritize a list of state land parcels that have long been sought for conservation.

Snow, a full slate of rained-out games and even international baseball have disrupted the easy rhythms of spring training in Arizona.
The Cactus League, which started eight days earlier than last year, is off to a slow start. Total attendance is down more than a third from last year as spring training hits its midseason this week.

A Jeep tour operator who is losing access to remote Scottsdale trails has a message for city leaders: “Don’t fence me out.”
Doreen O’Connell of Arizona Desert Events and two other Jeep-tour companies will be locked out of an area of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve near Granite Mountain starting June 1.