Last week, Greg Bland and I made the trip to Phoenix, Ariz. for the Construction in Indian Country Conference (CIIC). The Arizona State University Del E. Webb School of Construction hosts the conference each year.
CIIC took place at the lovely Wild Horse Pass Hotel & Casino, located on the tribal land of the Gila River Indian Community. At the conference, we reconnected with past clients and introduced ourselves and talked with several new groups working on projects in Indian Country.
It is fascinating to learn about the many projects that are happening all around the country. If you haven’t attended CIIC in the past, this conference is a great place to network with tribes developing both large- and small-scale projects. The projects we design at Travois are primarily housing, but we enjoyed visiting other exhibits to see photographs of hotels, schools, hospitals and other economic development projects.
Along with the great people we met at the conference, we had a wonderful time eating the best that Phoenix has to offer — most of which is fantastic “hole-in-the-wall” Mexican food. We enjoyed meal after meal of enchiladas, fajitas and a lot of guacamole!
The one night we strayed from Mexican cuisine, we decided to see for ourselves if Phoenix is in fact home to America’s best pizza, which we read about here. Pizzeria Bianco has a cozy and quiet atmosphere in a historic district of downtown Phoenix. Bianco’s homemade sausage and all natural ingredients did not disappoint and are the only toppings for the wood-fired pizza crust. We would have to say, the next time you find yourself in Phoenix, make it a point to check out Pizzeria Bianco.
We had a lot of visitors to our booth and want to thank everyone that stopped by to say hello. As always, if you are looking for information about designing or building a project, please be in touch.