The Sun Mercantile Building, or "Sun Merc," is a warehouse building in Phoenix, Arizona designed by E.W. Bacon and constructed by Wells & Son in 1929. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985 and has been a locally protected historic landmark since 1987.
Sun Merc is the last remaining building from Phoenix's "second Chinatown" period, which lasted from c. 1890 to c. 1960. It is located directly next to the Talking Stick Resort Arena and is used by the Phoenix Suns.
In the mid-2000s, plans were proposed to build a new $200 million luxury high-rise hotel and condominium tower. The project would have been built atop the Sun Mercantile Building, tearing off the roof and preserving only the base. Historic preservationists and the city's Asian-American community voiced their disapproval of the plans.
However, the city council did not agree and the project was given the go ahead. A lawsuit was then filed in court and in the fall of 2007 a judge ruled that the Phoenix City Council had improper talks with Sarver, the developer, before it decided the fate of the warehouse on the hotel site. As a result, the project was effectively dead.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
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