In the 1950s, Craig Milum’s dad came to Phoenix to take over a failing laundry business. He turned it around and built it up. Craig started working there in 1963 at age 13.
And he kept working there, including through his college years at ASU, where he met his wife Marilyn. In the late 1970s, Craig and Marilyn took over the business from Craig’s dad. And finally, in 2019, approaching his 70s and after more than 50 years of hard work in the business, Craig retired.
The laundry business sits on what is now very valuable land in the downtown core. Phoenix has zoned it for some of the tallest and densest uses in the city.
In fact, Phoenix wants this area to be a “dense, vibrant, urban mixed-use area that is a center for commerce and high-rise urban living.”
And given all the other private development in the area, including new complexes surrounding it, the land the laundry business sits on is a prime candidate for someone to buy and redevelop into more housing.
Some 70 years after the family bought it, the property’s value now........