They stand behind fencing that blocks off the sidewalk along Ninth Avenue between Madison and Jackson streets. Just a few days earlier, people were living in tents pitched all along the block. By November 12, those people had been displaced.
It was a strange new development in the ongoing conflict over the Zone, which is the encampment of unsheltered people that surrounds the Human Services Campus in downtown Phoenix. In November, the city estimated that approximately 900 people lived on the streets in the area just south of Jefferson Street between Eighth and 15th avenues.
In the Zone, tensions have been intensifying between neighbors, the city, and people who live on the streets in tents and makeshift structures. A lawsuit brought by more than a dozen property owners in the area in August challenged the city's policy to allow the tents to remain in place.
The city later made public plans to restart thrice-weekly cleanups in the Zone, which were stopped in January after intense criticism. In mid-November, after Phoenix New Times reported on the plans, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the city and alleged the sweeps would violate the rights of unsheltered people. Now, the city is trapped between dueling lawsuits.
And — in the middle of all of this — a rogue property owner put up dinosaur sculptures along Ninth Avenue.
City officials downplayed what happened to unsheltered people who were displaced to make way for dinosaurs.
Katya Schwenk
City of Phoenix Won't Identify Rogue Dino Creator
Construction began around November 11. The city believed that a gas line was being installed on this stretch of Ninth Avenue and allowed work along the block to proceed, according to Kristin Couturier, a spokesperson for the city of Phoenix. Then welders showed up and affixed the unauthorized dinosaurs and other metal sculptures on city property."City staff was asked to assist in temporarily moving people who were residing in the direct area of the proposed gas line construction to alternative locations, including shelter or other indoor locations," Couturier told Phoenix New Times.
"The city was unaware of any construction other than the installation of the gas line. The Street Transportation Department has informed the property owner that the structures are not authorized or permitted and need to be removed from the public right-of-way," she added.
But the disruption to the unsheltered people in the path of the dinosaur installation was significant, and their belongings were trashed, according to a volunteer for local nonprofit Feed Phoenix. "On that day, police and city workers had cleared unsheltered residents out of an area of the Zone. I then saw the police and city workers collecting and throwing away items," Eric Brickley wrote. The allegations were included in written testimony presented on Wednesday during a court hearing for the ACLU lawsuit.
Couturier declined to identify the property owner to New Times, and the city has ignored repeated requests over several weeks for further information. No permit for gas line construction in the area can be found on the city's Planning & Development Department online permit database. And although New Times has requested copies of any permits issued and communications between the city and the property owner, the city has not provided the records or said when it expects to release them.
With little information available, rumors about who is responsible have been swirling.
On social media, a prominent activist known as Leftover Gains on her Instagram and TikTok accounts, blamed the dinosaurs on Ian Francis Likwarz, who more often goes by Ian Francis. He owns a stretch of warehouses along Madison Street near the dinosaurs on Ninth Avenue and is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit brought by property owners against the city. Some critics have called for a boycott of Sazerac, the popular downtown bar Francis owns, over the sculptures.
But there's no indication that Francis was involved. The dinosaurs do not abut his property, and he flatly denies that he had anything to do with the sculptures. "Those sculptures are not on my property. I know nothing about them," he told New Times in an email. "It looks like some people are painting me as a target in their own personal witch hunt, spreading misinformation."
Phoenix City Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari, whose council district includes the Zone, posted on Instagram on December 7 that city officials informed her that Francis was not responsible for the dinosaurs. Ansari did not name the owner — and said she was frustrated by the sculptures.
"My office is well aware and unhappy with how all of this unfolded. The owner was allowed to work on gas lines. These installations have no benefit to the surrounding community [and] were put there illegally," Ansari wrote in her comment on social media.
"They have received a letter of denial from the Streets Dept. In that letter, they have been asked to remove these installations from the right of way in 30 days. My preference would be sooner, and if they don’t comply, the city can and will take action," she added.
Ansari's chief of staff, Maria Lopez, declined to make Ansari available for an interview with New Times. Lopez said there was "nothing new to report as of now" regarding the dinosaurs.
It's been more than a month since the sculptures were erected, so a 30-day deadline for removal may soon be approaching, if it has not already expired. When a reporter visited on Tuesday, there was no sign that the dinos were going anywhere.
The dinosaurs are drawing criticism from advocates who assist homeless people living in the area.
Katya Schwenk
Who's Responsible for This Jurassic Art?
Who is responsible for the dinosaurs' appearance remains a mystery — at least publicly. Two entities own land directly adjacent to the Ninth Avenue sidewalk where the sculptures are located, according to maps from the Maricopa County Assessor's Office. The southern half of the block is owned by California-based Phoenix Kitchens SPE. The company is a plaintiff in the ongoing lawsuit by property owners in the Zone, but little information about the business is provided in the complaint.The northern half of the block is owned by Electric Supply. The company's president, Bill Morlan, told New Times in a phone interview that he and his company aren't responsible for the dinosaurs. "I was not the one who put them up," he said.
Morlan declined to identify who was responsible. Asked if his neighbor to the south, Phoenix Kitchens, put up the sculptures, Morlan said, "I cannot say. Have you reached out to them? Give them a call."
The company has not responded to New Times inquiries. California corporation filings show that Phoenix Kitchens SPE is owned by Maker Kitchens, a Los Angeles-based ghost kitchen company that operates across California and states in the Southwest.
Maker Kitchens, according to a recent slide deck, leases 22 kitchens to delivery-only restaurants and food concepts in its site on Jackson Street. In January, industry blog Food on Demand reported that the company anticipated its Phoenix location would be up and running by the end of the year.
Neither Bennett Goldberg, a partner at Maker Kitchens, nor CFO Tyler Eichhorst responded to emails and LinkedIn messages from New Times. An email to the company's press inbox went unanswered. When New Times called a company phone number, the person who answered ended the call upon learning a reporter was calling.
As long as the dinosaurs and fencing remain, the city easements along Ninth Avenue are inaccessible. Elizabeth Venable, an organizer with the Fund for Empowerment, which advocates for the rights of unsheltered people, called the structures hostile architecture. She compared the property owner's actions installing the dinosaurs to those of cities that remove benches and set up spikes on the ground to prevent people from occupying spaces.
"It brings forth the question of, if you don't have enough resources to help people, why try to keep them out of public space?" she said.
