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MYSTERY SHOPPERS

GLENDALE — Back in 2000, 42-year-old Ed Beasley — then assistant city manager in Glendale — ventured south on I-10 to take a shot at Tucson's vacant city manager job.

The big issue on Tucson's plate then — as it is now — was Downtown redevelopment, specifically how to turn Rio Nuevo, which had just been approved by voters, into reality.

Beasley, a career bureaucrat who seems more like a caffeinated businessman, impressed the council as excited and energetic.

But ultimately, Tucson's elected leaders turned to Berkeley, Calif., manager Jim Keene, passing up Beasley and calling him too young and inexperienced to run a city the size of Tucson.

Although he's not willing to say it, you could call Tucson the best thing that never happened to Beasley.

A year and a half later, he moved up to the top spot in Glendale, a job he still holds, and by most measures, has flourished in.

Meanwhile, Keene has come and gone — from Tucson and several other jobs.

And though Tucson still struggles to breathe life into an unimpressive Downtown eight years later, Glendale has transformed from a quiet bedroom community on Phoenix's suburban west side to a sports and recreational mecca that's attracting national attention.

By Beasley's own admission, Glendale was regarded just six years ago as unsophisticated and less capable than such places as Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix.

But today, as Glendale's buzz grows in the face of an economic downturn, other cities around the state are growing envious — including Tucson.

Glendale, population 246,000, has achieved much of what Tucson wants: A 18,000-seat hockey arena that attracts major rock concerts, a $455 million football stadium that allowed the city to host the 2008 Super Bowl, two distinct downtowns and a state-of-the-art spring training baseball stadium that is yanking the Chicago White Sox away from Southern Arizona.

And they've done it all while competing with a half-dozen surrounding cities for business and attention in less time than it's taken Tucson to even launch its own plans for Downtown in a county it dominates.

"A lot of times people ask, 'Well, why was Glendale able to move so quickly?' " Beasley said in a recent interview in his office.

"If a community from a political-will standpoint says, 'We have to do this now' — whether it's transportation or Rio Nuevo or whatever — 'We have to do this now or we're going to end up having the quality of life that we don't want for our citizens.' "

Glendale officials set deadlines. And then they did something municipal government is not known for: They stuck to those deadlines.

The arena was completed in one year. The 63,400-seat football stadium: three years.

The new White Sox stadium, which will be shared by the Los Angeles Dodgers, broke ground last November, and officials are confident it will be completed by March, even if the Sox aren't able to negotiate out of a contract with Pima County in time to play there.

Why the big focus on sports? It was attainable, and not as vulnerable to economic shifts as other industries, Beasley explained.

"Since the Romans and the Greeks, and at the beginning of time even the cave men, what has been there whenever there was good or bad? Sports," he said. "When there's bad times, people always go back to their heroes."

Though Glendale used funding from a $400 million citizen-approved bond package as well as a Maricopa County hotel and rental-car tax to make itself the state's sports center, it's also steered clear of giving government too much responsibility or control.

The baseball stadium, for example, will be maintained by the teams, not the city, to avoid the rising costs that have made it difficult for Pima County to keep Tucson's stadiums up to par.

With questions about whether the White Sox will be out of their local contract on time, Glendale will fine the Sox if they and the Dodgers don't play a combined 20 games.

And with an almost blank slate of undeveloped, annexed land, officials have sought to create hubs of activity.

"If you have a city that only has one experience, what happens when that experience no longer becomes economical or even interesting to people? It dies," Beasley said.

"That's why you always have to kind of keep reinventing yourself, but also stay true to that which you believe."

That explains much of the contrast in Glendale between the old and the new.

There's the city's quaint and conservative downtown lined with street-front antiques stores. Five miles away, the football stadium that houses the Arizona Cardinals looks like a giant steel spaceship that landed in the middle of farm land.

The area is Glendale's future: the nearby arena, condos, hotels, a major outdoor shopping mall and access to freeways.

It's alive and growing — a situation officials in Tucson and Phoenix say they hope to replicate in their urban cores.

Of course, Beasley and his Glendale colleagues have had growth trends on their side.

The city's population has increased by 48 percent in the last decade as new residents are landing in the outer areas. Glendale is now the fourth-largest city in the state after Phoenix, Tucson and Mesa.

And Beasley's go, go, go attitude — his vision of a city constantly transforming — may mesh better in a sprouting suburb like Glendale than in Tucson, where old habits die hard.

Still, Tucson City Councilman Steve Leal, who sat in on those 2000 interviews and supported Keene, doubts his choice looking back.

In Arizona, where mayors hold little executive control other than a bully pulpit, city managers are a major force in governance. Leal suspects Beasley could have replicated Glendale's successes in Tucson.

"There was a general sentiment that (Beasley) seemed to have a lot of promise but seemed too young," said Leal. "Clearly that wasn't the case."

Leal — also critical of current Tucson City Manager Mike Hein — said Keene "came across like Jimmy Stewart."

"Who knew he was going to be such a control person that he scared people away?" he said. Of Beasley, Leal said: "Clearly, it appears Mr. Beasley's talents were really meaningful."

Tucson Mayor Bob Walkup was also involved in the decision to hire Keene over Beasley. He still thinks Keene, who was hired last month to run Palo Alto, Calif., was the "right guy for the moment."

"Glendale and Tucson are kind of two different situations," Walkup said. And he said that although Glendale has attracted big projects, it's yet to be seen whether the city's successes will be lasting and meaningful.

Walkup also stressed Hein's leadership in moving Downtown redevelopment forward.

"We're in the final stages of putting this whole thing together," Walkup said.

Beasley doesn't look back, either.

"I believe God puts you where he wants you and where he thinks you need to achieve," he said. And he called Keene his "best friend in the profession."

"I've always had a affinity for Tucson," said Beasley, who is careful not sound as if he's speaking down to the Old Pueblo. He wants to see Rio Nuevo succeed, and using a sports analogy, said Tucson needs "a win."

"When I came to Glendale people didn't think it was possible. I always said, 'If we can create the situation to make it probable, then we can create the impossible.' "