Glendale Beet Sugar Factory 293/365

Anyone who has ever driven from Phoenix to Glendale (our closest suburb to the west) has no doubt seen this towering five-story red brick building. Construction started in 1903 and after many construction setbacks, financial difficulties, and water resource needs, the Glendale Beet Sugar Factory began processing beets in the summer of 1906 but shut down after only one month because of operating expenses. The endeavor never succeeded in refining beets for sugar, partly because the area could not yield a large enough crop to sustain operations, and the plant operated only sporadically. By 1916, refining activities had stopped and the building lay vacant until 1935 when it was purchased by a builder and developer from Tucson who paid 22 years of back taxes in order to purchase it. Between 1938 and 1981 the facility was used to process grapefruit into concentrate for Squirt soda. Today it is only a shell and has been abandoned and neglected since 1986 and is in urgent need of protection/restoration. Several plans have been discussed in the ensuing years but to date no developer has been found to invest the millions needed to restore the building for any type of use. The heirs of the building’s purchaser in 1935 still own the building according to current records. It was added to the National Registry of Historic Places in 1978.