Tucson Development Thread [Archive] - Page 10

combusean

May 22, 2009, 4:18 AM

Two new UA dorms will house 1,000 students (http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=10407378&nav=menu86_2)
Posted: May 21, 2009 08:52 PM
Updated: May 21, 2009 08:52 PM
Posted by Brian White (KOLD)

The construction of new residence halls at The University of Arizona will result in more than 1,500 jobs and will generate more than $13 million in tax revenues, according to an analysis by the UA Economic and Business Research Center.

The $116 million project will provide on-campus housing for more than 1,000 students when the halls open at the beginning of the fall 2011 semester.

Two new residence halls will be built along Sixth Street - one at Euclid Avenue, south of Coronado Hall, and the other at Highland Avenue, north of Apache-Santa Cruz Hall.

The project is expected to have a direct employment impact of 1097 jobs, which are expected to last one year. Direct jobs are positions that are primarily spent working on the design, engineering and construction. An additional 294 indirect jobs - in areas such as warehousing, transportation and other areas - will be created.

"When these workers spend their incomes in the state, they generate another 430 (construction) jobs," said Alberta H. Charney, UA senior research economist and author of the report.

The construction project will generate more than $93 million in labor income and more than $214 million in sales revenue - once indirect and induced impacts are considered.

A summary of total impacts for jobs, labor income and sales revenue is below:

* Direct Impact: 1,097 jobs; $59,132,940 in labor income; and $116,000,000 in sales revenue.
* Indirect Impact: 294 jobs; $12,962,064 in labor income; and $32,832,235 in sales revenue.
* Induced Impact: 571 jobs; $21,505,022 in labor income; and $66,163,302 in sales revenue.

According to the report, construction and design spending and salaries will generate additional tax revenue that will benefit city, county and state government, and communities outside of Tucson.

Nearly $2.7 million in direct tax revenues are expected to flow to the state of Arizona and more than $1.1 million will go to the city of Tucson. Pima County, the Pima Regional Transportation Authority and other cities and counties will receive additional tax revenues through construction of the residence halls.

A summary of direct, indirect and induced tax revenues is below:

* State of Arizona: $9,035,552
* City of Tucson: $1,988,522
* Pima County: $1,087,680
* Pima Regional Transportation Authority: $480,763
* Other Arizona Counties: $236,239
* Other Arizona Cities: $672,239
* Maricopa Association of Governments: $23,818
* Pima Association of Governments: $7,940

"Our efforts to stimulate the local economy are evidenced by the economic impact this project will have on the local community,' said Joel Valdez, UA senior vice president for business affairs.

Students, especially those who are new to the UA, will benefit from the significant expansion of the availability of on-campus housing.

kaneui

May 22, 2009, 4:43 AM

what is the significance of the griffin? It seems sort of random...

Not to beat a dead bird, but from today's Daily Star, here's the artist's logic behind the griffin:

The 12-foot high, sparkly orange griffin that's perched on Scott Avenue Downtown is no newcomer to Tucson. He belongs there. In fact, says the artist, Joe O'Connell of Creative Machines Inc., the griffin is a sort of reincarnation of one of the four griffins who once guarded the 1901 Carnegie Library, which is now the Tucson Children's Museum. When the library burned in 1941, its half-eagle, half-lion griffin guardians were destroyed — except that in O'Connell's version one griffin bounded to the ground and fled.

kaneui

May 26, 2009, 7:03 PM

University construction projects in jeopardy
Arizona Daily Star
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
05.26.2009

PHOENIX — Although Arizona’s university system got approval to use state Lottery money to pay for $1 billion in construction projects, shovels have yet to hit the dirt and uncertainty about the state budget has caused many delays. That means students and faculty may have to endure worn-out facilities, while the universities can’t expand certain programs or keep up with enrollment growth for a while. “Everything is on hold,” said Joel Valdez, senior vice president for business affairs at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The same is true for Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, while Tempe’s Arizona State University has only a small number of “critical-need” projects under way.

The Lottery-funded construction program, billed as a way to jump-start the economy, was signed into law about a year ago. The program includes classroom renovations and a new construction school at ASU, and an expansion of the UA medical school in Phoenix. The program is intended to generate several thousand jobs and has the backing of business and political leaders. But the program has run into challenges. Tension first surfaced last fall when a state legislative committee refused to review $167 million in construction projects, a required first step, citing concerns about spending large amounts when the economy was crashing. Some legislators wanted to preserve Lottery funds in case the state needed to shore up budget deficits.

While the committee later approved the projects, the state budget crisis caused university officials to hold off issuing bonds to cover construction costs. The officials are waiting until the 2009-10 budget is finalized because a pair of bills in the state Legislature could impact their spending authority and the amount of Lottery funds available. A Senate bill would eliminate the program, except for about $167 million in already-approved projects. A House bill would continue to use increased amounts of Lottery funds to help the state’s budget deficit. Passage of the House bill would affect how much universities get because they are last in line to receive Lottery funds, behind state services such as parks and transportation.

Lottery funds are due to start flowing to the universities in fiscal 2010. “Next year is going to be a tough one to predict,” said Karen Emery, deputy director of the Arizona Lottery. She said last year’s Lottery sales totaled $473 million, and Lottery officials expect to finish the year about 2 to 2› percent ahead of last year. An ASU projection shows the university system was anticipating $10.8 million in Lottery money for fiscal 2010, increasing to $33 million the following year. To fund the projects, the universities would issue bonds and cover 20 percent of debt service through university revenues. The state would pay the other 80 percent.

Members of the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversee the universities, remain hopeful. “But we’re also realistic,” said Ernest Calderon, incoming regents president. “We understand there are significant budget challenges ... We’re keeping (construction projects) on the back burner with the hope there will be some sort of breakthrough that will allow us to move ahead.” A handful of projects that aren’t part of the program are under way. They include two residence halls at UA and a $120 million complex for honors students at ASU.

kaneui

May 27, 2009, 1:34 AM

If built according to drawings in the Concept Design Agreement submitted to the city last month, the new TCC Sheraton will feature the following:

- 26 stories, with the penthouse/top floor jutting out over the lower floors with a large bar, including some outside seating (should become a popular place for drinks, with some of the best views in town).

- building height will be 274'--second highest in the city after the 330' UniSource Tower, and slightly taller than the 262' Bank of America Plaza.

- the "stone" facade on the south side of the hotel will actually be precast concrete panels of different shades with punched window openings.

- the hotel will be connected to the newly expanded convention center at numerous places, including a new 1,160-stall parking garage on the south side.

Granted, it's not the most striking design, but with a variety of textures and finishes, and hopefully without any mechanical structures poking above the roofline, it should be an attractive convention hotel (and heaps better than Phoenix's "Gumby Tombstone"). ;)

http://www.ci.tucson.az.us/rionuevo/docs/HotelConceptBook_FINAL.pdf

Sonoran_Dweller

May 27, 2009, 2:27 AM

kaneui

May 27, 2009, 2:45 AM

Are there any renderings with the hotel in the context of the other downtown buildings, like a skyline rendering?

Also...I always forget that you guys are getting a streetcar, the map on page 10 reminded me. When is service expected to begin? Hasn't construction already started?

^Haven't seen any such renders yet, although the hotel will be a few blocks away from other downtown highrises.

For the latest info. on the streetcar and other projects, click on the Metro Tucson link below.

atbg8654

May 27, 2009, 6:09 AM

somethingfast

May 27, 2009, 1:22 PM

obviously getting anything like this is major progress for tucson's skyline...but i have to admit i'm disappointed it's not a new tallest or at least 300'. nice looking building though nonetheless and a sorely-needed addition.

Don B.

May 27, 2009, 4:34 PM

I extracted the rendering of the new Tucson Convention Center Hotel from the above .pdf:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v22/don85259/Misc%20Items/TucsonConventionCenterHotel.jpg

--don

HooverDam

May 27, 2009, 5:12 PM

^Aesthetically speaking that thing kicks the crap out of the Sheraton, congrats Tucson.

kaneui

May 27, 2009, 6:10 PM

^Aesthetically speaking that thing kicks the crap out of the Sheraton, congrats Tucson.

^As painstaking and difficult as the approval process is in Tucson, this hotel is one instance where it actually helped. Initially, there was a design competition with four different plans submitted (see post #440), with all plans displayed for public viewing and comment. Afterwards, the chosen developer and architect (Garfield Traub/DLR) held several community meetings to get additional input on their design, which I feel ultimately improved the final product.

In contrast, Phoenix got its hotel alright, but I think Cheryl Sculley and crew did the whole deal with Arquitectonica behind closed doors without much public input at all. And so, although the interior spaces are well done, the exterior design leaves much to be desired.

Don B.

May 27, 2009, 6:28 PM

^Aesthetically speaking that thing kicks the crap out of the Sheraton, congrats Tucson.

It does indeed. The Tower of Mordor (tm) in Phoenix can't hold a candle to the Tucson proposal. Although I think Gumby Tombstone is actually a more apt description of the Phoenix abomination that dominates our skyline.

I do have a question though...if you look carefully at the .pdf above from which I extracted this image, why does it show the parapet at 391 feet high? From looking at the various diagrams, it looks like this 274' hotel is to be constructed on something about 117' high. But, I can't figure it out, because street level is somewhere closer to the 117' level than "the bottom." Maybe they are digging this thing into the ground (although 117' feet down sounds like a LOT) and 391' represents the total structure height?

What a weird way to describe height of a structure, though...

--don

PHX31

May 27, 2009, 7:20 PM

It's OK. Better than Phoenix' Sheraton in looks from the outside, but I'm still very impressed by the inside of the Phoenix Sheraton.

Locofresh55

May 28, 2009, 4:52 AM

It does indeed. The Tower of Mordor (tm) in Phoenix can't hold a candle to the Tucson proposal. Although I think Gumby Tombstone is actually a more apt description of the Phoenix abomination that dominates our skyline.

I do have a question though...if you look carefully at the .pdf above from which I extracted this image, why does it show the parapet at 391 feet high? From looking at the various diagrams, it looks like this 274' hotel is to be constructed on something about 117' high. But, I can't figure it out, because street level is somewhere closer to the 117' level than "the bottom." Maybe they are digging this thing into the ground (although 117' feet down sounds like a LOT) and 391' represents the total structure height?

What a weird way to describe height of a structure, though...

--don

Don,

As far as what I heard, there is supposed to be like a 5 level garage underground. Still doesn't explain the 117', but that's what they're trying to do. Tallest or not, a new building like this will standout in the weak skyline of Tucson.

kaneui

May 28, 2009, 5:25 AM

Don,

As far as what I heard, there is supposed to be like a 5 level garage underground. Still doesn't explain the 117', but that's what they're trying to do. Tallest or not, a new building like this will standout in the weak skyline of Tucson.

The Concept Design Agreement linked earlier shows a 4-level, tiered parking garage, with only the lower two levels as subterranean: the 1st level floor at 100', 2nd level at 107', 3rd level at 117' (ground floor), and 4th level at 127'. (Where they begin those measurements I have no idea.)

Leo the Dog

May 28, 2009, 2:02 PM

Looks like there is a restaurant/bar on the top floor??

I wish the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown had something like this on the 31st floor.

aznate27

May 28, 2009, 7:00 PM

^Aesthetically speaking that thing kicks the crap out of the Sheraton, congrats Tucson.

I totally agree. I really like the design.:tup:

Mrblue21

May 28, 2009, 7:01 PM

Guest opinion: Downtown mustn't lose historic Santa Rita Hotel
By Demion Clinco
SPECIAL TO THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.26.2009

During the 1970s, many Downtown Tucson buildings, including the 1917 Santa Rita addition, were covered with layers of stucco and new facades, obscuring their original designs.

Today, many of these buildings are being "excavated" and restored to their earlier glory. For example, many of the original details of the Compass Bank at 120 N. Stone were revealed after a concrete covering was removed. The Roy Place (Walgreens) Building at the corner of Stone and Pennington is now being restored.
Regrettably, buildings such as the Thrifty Drugstore on Congress Street were torn down before it was known that the original building was well-preserved beneath the false facade. In that case, a beautiful concrete art deco building was lost.
Irreplaceable landmark buildings like the Santa Rita addition are invaluable to the future of Downtown. They create a unique sense of place and shape the character of our city.
If the Santa Rita Hotel has the possibility of being restored, this is an extraordinary opportunity for economic revitalization and celebration of the city's individuality.
This project has the power to define the future of Downtown redevelopment. Restored and integrated into a new project, it can set a higher architectural standard and demonstrate our community's commitment to preserving our shared past.
If this building is demolished without serious conversations and honest evaluations of its reuse, a gloomy message is delivered to all potential Downtown investors.
Any citizen can stand on Scott Avenue and discern the clues to the original Santa Rita Hotel. Through the cracking plaster of the Santa Rita's western facade, the original window configuration just below the surface can be seen. The design concepts of 1917 are still available to be recovered.
The Santa Rita Hotel also represents a tremendous quantity of embedded energy that can be conserved if the building is restored. In our energy-dependent economy, the greenest building is the one that is already built.
The irony is that the current plan for the property calls for a new Tucson Electric Power Co. headquarters built to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum standards, but the plan does not include the re-use of the existing 1917 Santa Rita building.
Preserving and restoring the Santa Rita Hotel and other early Tucson buildings is not an argument for stopping or limiting economic reinvestment in Downtown. Actually, it focuses investment in the architectural heritage that makes Tucson special.
It is a myth that economic reinvestment and historic preservation are mutually exclusive. The only Downtown reinvestment projects that have succeeded are rooted in historic preservation, including the Hotel Congress, the Rialto Theater, the Temple of Music and Art and the Historic Depot. If TEP can come to the conclusion that preservation is a community need, everyone wins.
It always seems so easy to find reasons why a building needs to be torn down. Instead, we should be looking at all the reasons why it should be saved. We all observe that the "revitalization" of the 1960s and 1970s was a catastrophic mistake. It is an enormous irony that those mistakes — the literal covering up of the facades — are today being used to justify demolition.
We will lose the distinctive quality of our Downtown if we perpetuate the mistakes of the 1970s. Let's invest in Downtown, minimize our energy expenditures through green revitalization and restoration, maximize the return on our investment dollars, and preserve our heritage for future generations.
If you share my view, please visit www.ci.tucson.az.us/mcc.html or write or call your City Council member.
Write to Demion Clinco at demionc@yahoo.com

kaneui

May 29, 2009, 2:50 AM

Mexico continues to pump significant dollars into Tucson's economy, particularly at high-end retailers in places like La Encantada. This impact is undoubtedly reflected in plans for a new hotel in the Mercado District, which will be under the Quinta Real brand, a chain of upscale Mexican boutique hotels.

Mexican tourists worth $1 billion a year to Tucson
By David Hatfield
Inside Tucson Business
May 28, 2009

In spite of security measures that have made it more difficult to cross the border and some volatility in peso valuation, visitors from Mexico continue to come to Arizona and spend money — nearly $1 billion a year in the Tucson region — according to an extensive study done by the University of Arizona’s Economic and Business Research Center in the Eller College of Management. The amount of money visitors from Mexico are spending in Tucson is up nearly 3½ times the $280.3 million that a previous study calculated in 2001, the last time similar research was conducted. Even when considering the impacts of inflation, spending by Mexicans in Arizona is up 150 percent, said Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi, senior regional scientist, who co-wrote the study with Alberta H. Charney, senior research economist. A major contributor to the increased spending, especially in the Tucson area, is that 87 percent of the more than 2.7 million annual visitors from Mexico are staying at least one night and on average spend 2½ nights. Some of that is attributed to newer border crossing requirements that make a day-trip to Tucson more difficult.

But there have also been some specific marketing targets, says Felipe Garcia, vice president of Mexico marketing for the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau (MTCVB). Promotions of concert and other nighttime events encourages visitors from Mexico to come to Tucson and spend the night. Garcia said the MTCVB through its office in Hermosillo and through the mail has facilitated a system allowing consumers to use their Mexican-issued credit cards for advance purchase of tickets to events in the Tucson area and have them delivered to them before they leave their homes. The study, which was done from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, was posted on the Arizona Office of Tourism website last week. The previous study was done during the calendar year 2001 and was skewed by the 9/11 events that year. While data gathering for this latest study was finished before the biggest outward signs of the economic recession took place late last year, both Pavlakovich-Kochi and Garcia said there are indicators that tourism from Mexicans to Tucson is holding up better than the tourism market in general.

Pavlakovich-Kochi said whenever there is volatility in the value of the peso, people will react accordingly but not generally with long-term effects. She said when it appears it may be devalued, there is a tendency on the part of Mexicans to hurry to make purchases before it drops and then wait a few weeks to make certain it stabilizes before buying again. Garcia said the MTCVB saw evidence of that earlier this year when hotel registrations they were tracking through their Hermosillo office fell off during January and February but recently have begun to rebound. “This current economic crisis may be global but in Mexico, the attitude is ‘we have seen this before’,” Garcia said. “My grandmother used to have an expression ‘just put more water on the beans.’ It was her way of saying that when more people showed up for dinner make what we have work. I think that’s the attitude in Mexico, we’ll make what we have work.”

The study found an increasing number of visitors from Mexico were arriving by air in both Tucson and Phoenix. And those visitors tended to spend more money. Both Pavlakovich-Kochi and Garcia said they were discouraged by the fact that the only direct airline link into Mexico was lost in October when Aeroméxico Connect pulled out of the Tucson market in October 2008. While Pavlakovich-Kochi worried that more of those people might now go on to Phoenix, Garcia said he was less concerned about that because although, there is direct air service to Phoenix, fares tend to be high. He said he is more impressed with a service being offered in San Diego where passengers can fly discount airlines within Mexico to Tijuana where they are met in luxury buses and taken to downtown San Diego. The on their return trips, they actually check-in in San Diego and are taken directly to their flights in Tijuana. Garcia is not quite sure how such an operation would work in Southern Arizona but he says his office continues to work on trying to bring some kind of low-fare air service from Mexico to Tucson International Airport.

While the latest study shows there is a continuing trend away from Mexican tourists spending their money in U.S. towns closer to the border and coming farther north into Arizona, the overwhelming driving force remains the Mexican culture’s strong familial ties. Because of that, Pavlakovich-Kochi said, tourism from Mexico is less susceptible to some of the negative effects of other tourism. “From Mexico it will be more constant because of these historic familial ties,” she said.

By the numbers for Tucson

• $968.7 million in direct spending, up from $280.3 million in 2001

• 92.6% - come for leisure and visiting friends and relatives

• 59.9% of their money is spent shopping, 10.1% is spent on restaurants and 9.5% is spent on lodging

• 87% spend at least one night

• 2.7 - average number of people in traveling party

• 2.6 - average number of nights spent in Tucson

• 94.8% are from the state of Sonora; and specifically 22.4% are from Nogales and 10.4% are from Magdalena

• 9,426 jobs, such as restaurant and sales positions, are a direct result of Mexican visitors’ spending

• 5.2% of taxable sales are directly attributed to Mexican visitors

By the numbers for Arizona

• 65,000 Mexican residents come in to Arizona each day

• 24 million came from July 1, 2007, to June 30, 2008, in 13.4 million parties

• $2.7 billion in direct spending, up from $857.4 million in 2001

• 84.2% do not stay overnight

• 15.8% stay at least one night; more than one-third of them stay three nights

• Of those who spend at least one overnight, 61.0% stay in a hotel and 39.0% stay with friends.

• 55% come by car, 44.9% are pedestrians, and 0.1% come by air.

BrandonJXN

May 30, 2009, 5:53 PM

Someone answer me this:

Is the streetcar 100% approved?

Same with the Sheraton?

kaneui

May 30, 2009, 7:54 PM

Someone answer me this:

Is the streetcar 100% approved?

Same with the Sheraton?

Approved, yes; 100% financed--not quite. As noted in the Metro Tucson project list, the $163M streetcar project has received $25M of the $75M it hopes to receive from the feds, with more expected from the economic stimulus package and other sources. The remaining $88M will come from the Pima County Regional Transportation plan approved by voters in 2006; however, the city may decide to sell bonds to access that money earlier. Phase II of the Downtown Infrastructure Improvement project--which includes work for the streetcar line--is scheduled to begin in June.

The TCC expansion and new hotel are still awaiting final design and cost estimates, with costs expected to drop due to reduced construction demand. Although local state legislators still support the funding of the $239M hotel/TCC expansion through Rio Nuevo, recent TIF revenues have dropped significantly and may not be sufficient. In any case, the city had planned to issue additional bonds to fund the hotel separately, and use the TIF monies for other Rio Nuevo projects. However, with Tucson's bond rating dropping (i.e., increasing the interest rate paid on future bonds), it remains to be seen whether the total cost is still viable.

With the economic downturn and the legislature's threat to dismantle Rio Nuevo, the city has put the arena and most of the museums and other projects west of I-10 on hold, refocusing its efforts solely on the convention center, hotel, and streetcar. The streetcar continues to be a critical link, as many private downtown development proposals--both in the Mercado District on the west end and the Rialto area on the east end--are hinging on its completion.

kaneui

Jun 1, 2009, 9:46 PM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/StAugustinePlacita-1.jpg
Placita under construction
(photo: Val Canez)

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/CarrilloPlacita-1.jpg
Ballet Folklorico San Juan performs at the Monsignor José Arsenio S. Carrillo Placita
during its dedication ceremony. The placita is open to the public.
(photo: James Gregg)

New placita brightening Downtown
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.01.2009

Downtown Tucson was clogged with cars and music Sunday as more than 1,000 people celebrated the opening of a vibrant little plaza named for a longtime local priest. The Monsignor José Arsenio S. Carrillo Placita and Hall, notable for a 26-foot-high steel band shell decorated with butterflies, birds and flowers, adds some bright color to an urban core that's known for struggling with its looks. While city officials have long talked of spicing up Downtown with their Rio Nuevo redevelopment plan, the placita adjacent to St. Augustine Cathedral on South Stone Avenue was funded entirely with private donations. The $1.3 million outdoor space, which has lighting, brick pavers, benches and drinking fountains, will be available to rent for special occasions. But officials with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson want it to also be a place for the general public to enjoy. "The hope is that it be a place where we can sing together and dance together and enjoy our community together," Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas of the Tucson diocese said Sunday as he stood underneath the purples, reds, yellows and oranges of the wrought-iron band-shell decorations. "This is a great example of what Downtown can and should be," said Mayor Bob Walkup, who attended the event.

The plaza area, which is directly north of the cathedral, was once home to a gas station. "The changes we see in the placita here are profound. It is different and it is beautiful," said Richard Elías, a fifth-generation Tucsonan and chairman of the Pima County Board of Supervisors. Carrillo, 79, is pastor emeritus of St. Augustine Cathedral, where he worked for 40 years. He returned to the cathedral Sunday to take part in a special Mass to celebrate the placita's opening on Pentecost Sunday. "I don't think any project would do a better job than the placita that is out there now," Carrillo told parishioners, who packed the cathedral's pews and gave him a standing ovation. "It was worth waiting for." Carrillo, who now lives with his younger brother, Tony Carrillo, also worked at Holy Family Church in Tucson and at Immaculate Conception Church in Douglas. The former vicar general for the diocese was a founding member of the Pima County Interfaith Council. A native Tucsonan, he was one of seven children born to Guadalupe Sotomayor Carrillo and Federico Carrillo. Federico, who suffered from leukemia, supported the family by selling fruit and vegetables throughout Tucson's barrios with the help of his children. Monsignor Thomas Cahalane, pastor of Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church, called the placita and its band shell a "tall and colorful expression" of the person that it's named for — a man he says has been a spiritual leader for so many Catholics.

The placita was a labor of love by Tony Carrillo, who created a placita committee that spent three years raising money for the project by holding concerts and selling concrete pavers for $350 apiece. The whole project included not only landscaping the placita, but adding a handicapped- accessible bathroom to the parish hall and sprucing up the parish hall's entrance and ramada area. Tony Carrillo has said his motivation for the plaza is much greater than recognizing his brother's long service — it's to bring back the vibrant Downtown that he and his siblings remember while growing up. Ultimately, Tony Carrillo's committee would like to renovate the cathedral's 1915 parish hall, a building with a big kitchen, large stage, balconies and enormous potential. Monsignor Carrillo asked that it be dedicated not just to him, but to all of the diocese's priests — especially to those who have worked at the cathedral. "I hope it becomes a center for celebrations in the spirit of the community," he said. "For our sense of joyfulness."

kaneui

Jun 1, 2009, 9:56 PM

TMC to expand pediatric care with new project
By Stephanie Innes
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.01.2009

Come next year, health care for Tucson's smallest hospital patients is expected to vastly improve. Not only is University Medical Center set to open its $50 million to $55 million Diamond Children's Medical Center next spring, Tucson Medical Center now says it, too, will expand pediatric care with a construction project that's set to be completed in 2010. The TMC project is smaller in scale than UMC's. The TMC project is estimated to cost $8 million to $10 million. It will add 16,000 square feet to the hospital's existing 38,000-square-foot pediatrics area. The improvements will also include renovating another 12,500 square feet, converting all pediatric hospital rooms to private and having round-the-clock children's emergency hours — up from 16 hours per day. In addition, the hospital will create a designated pediatrics entrance with a driveway drop-off area off Grant Road and a large, colorful and child-friendly vestibule with a play area and designated space for adolescents. Construction on the one-story expansion is slated to begin in the fall and be completed by next year.

The pediatric expansion is the first major capital project that TMC has undertaken since building a 16-bed hospice called Peppi's House in 2006. "It's been a priority for our board for a long time now. We've got an old pediatric unit. . . . We decided to do it now because the hospital is doing well. We want to start putting some of the money back into the hospital, which is the only place you put money when you are a nonprofit," said Judy Rich, president and chief executive officer of TMC HealthCare. "It's a simple project. We're not building operating rooms. We're not building radiology departments or an intensive- care unit — we've already got all that. All we're building is just rooms. It's simple construction."

The UMC Diamond Children's Medical Center will take up the top three floors in a six-story tower on the UMC campus. Among the planned additions are a dedicated children's emergency department, a new pediatric cancer and bone marrow unit, extended-stay intensive care for long-term patients, and a children's classroom. Future plans call for a children's operating room. When the project is completed, UMC officials expect to have 24 pediatric intensive-care beds, 12 emergency room pediatric beds, 36 neonatal intensive-care beds, and 56 regular beds for pediatric patients. "It's not going to be what UMC is doing," Rich said of TMC's project. "We see a place for both."

As recently as two weeks ago, TMC has had to turn away pediatric patient transfers from other hospitals because of a lack of bed space. Rich pointed to February 2008, during a brutal flu season, when there were no available pediatric intensive-care beds. TMC, which is Tucson's largest hospital, already has a children's emergency room, which it opened in 2002. The only additions to its bed count will be in regular beds for pediatric patients — that number is going from 38 to 54. The hospital already has 12 pediatric intensive-care beds, 15 emergency-room pediatric beds and 42 neonatal intensive-care beds. "Just from a very rational perspective, do you ever want to get in a situation where there's just one place in a population of a million people to take a child?" Rich said. "We deliver 6,000 babies here every year. You can't deliver 6,000 babies a year and not have a place for them to go later on."

aznate27

Jun 2, 2009, 8:45 AM

Does anyone know the status on TMC's plan to build muti-story buildings on it's property? There was a lot of buzz about it a couple years ago, but haven't heard anything since...

kaneui

Jun 2, 2009, 8:54 PM

Does anyone know the status on TMC's plan to build muti-story buildings on it's property? There was a lot of buzz about it a couple years ago, but haven't heard anything since...

In 2007, the city rezoned the TMC campus to allow structures up to 150' high in certain areas, but any new development plans for high-rises have yet to be submitted.

https://www.tmcaz.com/?q=TMCHealthcare/Campus_Development

aznate27

Jun 2, 2009, 11:36 PM

In 2007, the city rezoned the TMC campus to allow structures up to 150' high in certain areas, but any new development plans for high-rises have yet to be submitted.

https://www.tmcaz.com/?q=TMCHealthcare/Campus_Development

Thanks for the info. I think it would be nice to give that area some height.

kaneui

Jun 3, 2009, 7:30 AM

United Streetcar LLC lands $26M deal
Subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works will build streetcars for city of Tucson, Arizona

May 29, 2009
BY SAM BENNETT
Daily Journal of Commerce - Portland, OR

United Streetcar LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works of Clackamas, snagged a $26 million contract with the city of Tucson, Ariz., to build seven streetcars. The city of Tucson also has an option to purchase up to seven additional cars. Chandra Brown, vice president of Oregon Iron Works, said her company is the only modern streetcar manufacturer in the United States. By modern, she means that cars comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act and possess such amenities as air conditioning and bike racks – as opposed to a historic re-creation of a streetcar.

Brown said the company builds and assembles the cars, including the undercarriage and wheels, in Clackamas. Other parts, such as the seats and windows, are purchased – making the new contract a win also for companies that serve United Streetcar, she said. “It’s a niche market for us,” said Brown, noting that Oregon Iron Works makes products for boats, airplanes and bridges.

Brown said Rep. Peter DeFazio secured federal support for a prototype made-in-America streetcar, along with the support of the entire Oregon delegation and U.S. Congress. In addition, she said, Rep. Earl Blumenauer has lobbied for streetcar systems to return to American cities, and his efforts helped make the Tucson project possible. She said her company’s street cars can go as fast as 44 mph.

kaneui

Jun 4, 2009, 3:03 AM

The U of A is considering starting a downtown campus in the former Walgreens building at Stone and Pennington, currently undergoing a facade restoration:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/Walgreens-today.jpg
The former Walgreen’s building that could house a downtown campus.
(photo: Tucson Citizen)

UA plan would create downtown Tucson campus
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
June 03, 2009

The University of Arizona believes it can have an impact on redeveloping downtown Tucson and help itself at the same time by putting a campus on the southeast corner of Stone Avenue and Pennington Street in a building that housed a Walgreens until 2003. “The university needs to be present downtown,” says Jan Cervelli, dean of the UA’s College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. “The future of both Tucson and the University of Arizona are inextricably intertwined.”

She envisions the facility being used as a ‘communiversity’ where the university becomes an integral part of planning, growth and development with the long-term goal to establish downtown as a center for learning. Initially, Cervelli sees the building being used by her architecture colleges where planning and preservation studies could be taught. Eventually that could be expanded to law, business, public health, public administration, fine arts and communications.

Pima County, which has owned the 22,000 square-foot building since 1987, is currently in the process of removing a façade to expose the original brickwork from when it was constructed in 1929 to house a Montgomery Ward store. The county is only about two months into the façade removal but is already finding the $780,000 it has for the project from 2004 voter-approved bond money won’t be enough to see it through. “There was more damage to the original façade than we had thought,” said Reid Spaulding, director of facilities management for Pima County. “It’s been kind of disappointing. The goal now is to get the tower element complete now but we don’t have much left for the sides of the building. But that’s just the life of historical renovation.”

The UA’s Cervelli sees that as an opportunity. “It’s actually perfect for architecture students,” Cervelli said. “A lot of people wouldn’t like it, but students learn the best when they are hands on.” To help make the plan work, Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry told Cervelli he would support allowing the UA to use the building rent-free, only paying for the cost of operating utilities. “The original plan was to sell the building,” Huckelberry said. “Really its highest and best use, being a corner property downtown, would be a retail venture like a restaurant on the lower level and professional offices on the second floor, not a government user.”

But he said the current economy doesn’t make it likely the county would be able to sell the building at a good price. “I think it should help get people and activity downtown and diversify the mix of interests going on there,” Huckelberry said. He said the proposal will likely come before the county Board of Supervisors July 7. With the UA facing its own budget issues, Cervelli says the county’s offer might still be a burden but she says she is committed to fundraising and meeting with the utility companies to move her proposal along. If everything works out and gets approved this summer, Cervelli said the college could be able to move into the building this fall with an interdisciplinary urban design studio. “The thought is we would be able to work on projects in collaboration with the city and county,” Cervelli said.

Huckelberry said he expects the UA would use the building for up to five years. “It’s probably a little more space than they need right now, but after a few years we hope it will be a success and they will outgrow it,” he said. At that point Huckelberry said he hopes the economy will have improved and the county would then put the building up for sale to get it back into the private sector. The building is also referred to as the Roy Place Building, named for its original architect and designer. Other buildings designed by Place included the domed Pima County Courthouse, 115 N. Church Ave., and Hotel Congress, 311 E. Congress St. Walgreens operated in the building, at 44 N. Stone Ave., from 1956 to 2003. After the county acquired it, the Public Defender’s office moved in. Six months ago, the Public Defender’s office moved across Stone Avenue into the Bank of America Building, which was bought by the county in late 2006. In her proposal, Cervelli says the lack of a vibrant downtown Tucson will hamper the UA from achieving its goal of becoming one of the country’s top 10 best public research universities.

kaneui

Jun 4, 2009, 3:14 AM

Westcor's two big Tucson projects, a regional mall in Marana and a 12,000-acre master-planned community on the southeast side, are now on hold:

Westcor shuts Tucson office but says So. AZ plans will resume
By Nicholas Smith
Inside Tucson Business
June 03, 2009

Westcor has closed its Tucson development office but says its two high-profile projects are still on the table. They’re just being delayed until economic conditions improve. The shopping center developer and owner says it still plans to build a center and auto mall in Marana and pursue a master-planned community on Tucson’s southeast side, but the future of those projects relies heavily on the return of the housing market and the availability of credit. “With the changes in the market, it’s not the right time to bring out a development, we’re not there yet,” said Westcor Vice President of Development Garrett Newland.

One of the signs the project will resume is an increase in residential permits meaning that there was enough of a reduction in the housing supply to warrant new construction. “As that oversupply starts to work its way through the system and we get back to a more normal supply/demand situation in residential that would be helpful,” Newland said. “Financing, tenant’s ability to finance their store, is another indicator, when loans start flowing more than they are right now.”

Despite the delay, the company has not ruled out developing the area. “Southern Arizona has always been a very important region for us, and again I have to go back to our philosophy that everything is market driven,” said Westcor Assistant Vice President of Development Relations Karen Maurer. The company developed and owns La Encantada Mall and is the dominant mall owner in the Phoenix area. Times have been better for Westcor. The mall operator’s parent company, Macerich, has taken on billions of dollars in debt through acquisitions including Phoenix’s Biltmore Fashion Park, which set the company back $158.5 million. The Tucson office was closed in February, when Macerich laid off 149 employees, or 5 percent of its total workforce, costing the company $5 million. The layoffs included 40 Arizona jobs.

The company’s 73 shopping centers have depreciated in value by more than $984 million, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We simply centralized our Southern Arizona operations into our La Encantada office and continue to see the development projects from the Phoenix offices right now,” Maurer said. The Shops at Tangerine project in Marana is a 281-acre development on the northwest corner of Interstate 10 and Tangerine Farms Road which will feature 800,000 square feet of retail space and a 115-acre auto mall. Marana town leaders are hoping the Shops at Tangerine will complement the proposed Major League Baseball Spring Training facility on the opposite side of the interstate. Despite being approved by the Marana Town Council in January 2008, the commercial project has yet to make it out of the planning stages. “With everything that’s been going on with Westcor, I don’t even honestly know what their plans are as far as development,” said Marana Assistant Planning Director Lisa Shafer.

No set timeline for the Shops at Tangerine had been set, although when the project was first proposed, it had an estimated completion date of 2011. Though nothing has been built so far in Marana, the development’s site has already cost Westcor $36 million to buy the land and the mall developer has already spent $24.5 million on pre-construction planning. Shafer said Westcor has several options of how to proceed which include platting out the development to sell or putting together a formal construction plan. “To see something come out of the ground they’re going to have to do a development plan,” Shafer said.

The other major Westcor development in Southern Arizona involves 12,000 acres of land on the southeast side of Tucson that planners hope will one day be home to a 250,000 people. The developer and the Arizona State Land Department signed an agreement in January 2008 to begin work to develop a master plan for the area east of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, along Houghton Road. That was supposed to lead to the State Land Department auctioning off the first 3,000 acres of land for development by early this year. But in November 2008, both the state and Westcor agreed to hold off on the auction. “The planning permit that they were operating under basically could be parceled out into a number of phases,” said State Land Department Deputy Commissioner Jamie Hogue.

The first such phase, conducting land use planning and analysis, is complete. The project will resume when a land auction is held, though that is likely to happen much later and not necessarily with Westcor. “This is the first step, unfortunately the economy is such that most all development is ground to a halt so I couldn’t tell you what point we’ll gear back up and have an auction,” said Arizona State Land Commissioner Mark Winkleman in an interview before he retired from the post on May 22.

kaneui

Jun 4, 2009, 6:48 PM

Although the legislature-approved budget spares Rio Nuevo, the TIF district would be taken out of the City Council's hands and run by a restructured oversight board appointed by state officials:

GOP budget plan keeps Rio Nuevo
But state senators would ax City Council control of the project

By Daniel Scarpinato
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.06.2009

PHOENIX — Despite months of threats they might cut funding to Rio Nuevo, Republican state senators were considering a budget agreement late Wednesday that ensures that Downtown Tucson's redevelopment project will remain intact. But a vote on the package was delayed for hours, as lawmakers negotiated late into the night on other elements of the budget and GOP leaders scurried to wrangle the necessary votes for it to pass.

Under the Rio Nuevo compromise, the Tucson City Council would no longer be in control of the project — a slap in the face to the body Republicans blame for Rio Nuevo's lack of progress. An already existing oversight board would have jurisdiction instead. But that board would be totally restructured. Under the language of the agreement, the governor, the speaker of the House and the Senate president would appoint its members rather than the City Council. At least two-thirds of the members must live in the Tucson city limits. To further create a barrier between the city and Rio Nuevo, the agreement prohibits city employee salaries from being paid by the district. The district's boundaries and funding mechanism are unchanged in the deal. The original language of the bill —the Republicans' solution to an at least $3 billion budget deficit — actually did the opposite. But city lobbyists and Tucson lawmakers said Senate leadership ensured the last-minute changes would be made to shore up needed votes. Nevertheless, a Republican caucus meeting had been pushed back hours into the night, stalling the vote on a budget fix that had razor-thin support to begin with.

After becoming a symbol of government waste and inefficiency in the eyes of Republican lawmakers, Rio Nuevo ultimately remained in the Wednesday night agreement for two key reasons. The state sales tax revenues directed to the district have gone down so much they would do little help to balance the state's deficit. And Tucson Republicans refused to vote for the original budget language, which essentially destroyed the project. The budget needs approval from both the House and the Senate. And Gov. Jan Brewer has all but said she will veto it because it does not include a sales tax hike or what she considers to be appropriate funding for K-12 education and state health-care services for the needy. Brewer's own budget proposal left Rio Nuevo alone.

If the Senate budget language becomes law, the oversight committee would be required to finish a planned hotel and convention center expansion. After that, it could spend revenue as it wished. A previous Republican proposal required that all the money be spent on those two projects and a new arena — a departure from the original 1999 plan sold to Tucson voters. "There's nothing in this proposal that impairs anything that the voters perceived to be voting on, or that they've expressed interest in over the years," said Jason Baran, a city lobbyist.

But there's a larger issue at stake. Rio Nuevo redirects state sales taxes collected in the Rio Nuevo district to Tucson — funds that would otherwise end up in the state treasury. Those revenues barely cover the city's debt service obligations on outstanding bonds, meaning there's little opportunity to spend more on other projects. "There's no money to take," said Sen. Jonathan Paton, R-Tucson, a supporter of the Rio Nuevo changes. The Senate's language, he added, "will provide accountability for the money they bonded for."

Baran said the construction of the hotel and convention center could help increase revenues in the district. In addition, the agreement requires the state auditor general to audit the district every three years. And the district itself must perform its own audit yearly. It also mandates a searchable online database of district expenditures. Democrats oppose the budget on other grounds, primarily because it includes more cuts to state programs than they support. "I'm a no," said Sen. Jorge Garcia, D-Tucson, the Senate minority leader. "The whole budget doesn't do any good. It makes a lot of unnecessary reductions, when we don't need to go down this road."

In total, the Senate budget includes $650 million in new cuts. That's on top of $600 million made just three months ago. Under the plan, K-12 education would take a $220 million cut and universities would see $40 million in lost revenue. It shifts $95 million in school costs by forcing cities to contribute part of their share of vehicle-license taxes. And Republicans want to contract out some state prison operations to private companies, a $100 million revenue stream. They are also aiming to get $495 million in cash by mortgaging prisons.

kaneui

Jun 5, 2009, 9:18 PM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/MaranaMLBcampus.png

3-team Marana complex key in pitch to bring Orioles here
By Sarah Trotto
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.05.2009

The Pima County Sports and Tourism Authority's spring-training proposal to the Baltimore Orioles suggests the authority issue $150 million in bonds for construction of a three-team complex in Marana and renovations to two current baseball facilities. The plan is similar to proposals the authority submitted to Tucson's two current spring-training baseball teams, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies, back in March. In the proposal to the Orioles, dated Tuesday, a facility in Marana involving three major-league teams would cost $125 million. Improvements to Hi Corbett Field and Kino Sports Complex would cost $25 million. The Orioles could immediately move into Kino Sports Complex, the former site of the Chicago White Sox, and train there on a year-to-year basis, according to the proposal. Long-term, the Orioles could move into the new facility in Marana as the "premier tenant," give input for facility designs and possibly negotiate a no-rent agreement. Facility construction would begin in October 2010 and be completed in January 2012, according to the proposal.

The Orioles have received the 32-page document but have not responded to the authority, Chairman Tom Tracy said. The Orioles did not reply to messages asking for comment. "It has a lot of benefits for them for the short and long term, and we're not asking them for any upfront money at any level," Tracy said. The Orioles currently train in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., about 1,085 miles from Baltimore. The team is also negotiating with Sarasota and Lee County in Florida. Tucson is almost 2,400 miles from Baltimore. Funding the plan depends both on the Legislature's passing a bill that would allow the sports authority to levy taxes on taxable retail sales, hotel rooms, car rentals, and restaurant and bar bills and on Pima County voters' approval of that tax. The authority estimates the tax, ranging from 0.15 to 0.45 percent, would bring in $16 million or $17 million a year. "If you look at the total package and see how it's done, on a $100 retail purchase, it costs you 15 cents, so it's not a big tax," Marana Mayor Ed Honea said. "Will it be tough? Sure, in the present economy, but if we do a good job of explaining it in our presentation, there's a good chance we can sell it."

To accommodate three teams at the Marana complex, the sports authority proposes each team play 10 games in Marana and five games at a renovated Hi Corbett. Improvements would include a new scoreboard, bermed outfields, additional parking, new clubhouses and upgraded concession areas. The proposal does not acknowledge the spring-training futures of the Diamondbacks and the Rockies. Both teams are exploring a move, possibly to a shared complex in the Phoenix area. "There are a lot of major-league teams that have an interest in Southern Arizona. They have an interest in being our tenant at a new, three-team facility," said Tracy, declining to name the teams. "We would dearly love the Rockies or Diamondbacks or both to be a part of that. If they are, that's great, and if they're not, it doesn't change our plans one bit."

The sports authority says it's also wooing professional Japanese baseball teams. But if the Orioles, the D-backs and the Rockies all train here next spring, there would be no room for a Japanese team, Tracy said. While Orioles major-leaguers have trained in Fort Lauderdale, their minor-leaguers trained about 200 miles away in Sarasota. "We offer a newer and better facility, and they can combine their major-league and minor-league operations in one location," authority Executive Director Dan Schneider said.

Sonoran_Dweller

Jun 6, 2009, 5:18 PM

I much I would hate them to build another new ballpark, when there are others in the city, I hope that this is something that could keep the D'backs in Tucson. I really don't want them to come to Phoenix.

HooverDam

Jun 6, 2009, 9:55 PM

I think the ship has sailed for Tucson and Spring Training for the time being. All the teams and players hated being isolated down there and having a team in Tucson goes against the biggest draw of the Cactus league, proximity and travel time. If youre going to be driving 2 hours each way to most of your games, you may as well stay in Florida.

Also, the Orioles? That makes no sense unless the Orioles are planning a move to Vegas that no one knows about. I cant imagine their fanbase would be happy with their spring training trips being quadrupled in length.

The Cactus league ought to be courting the St Louis Cardinals & Houston Astros, the only teams west of the Mississippi that we don't have. We already have their rivals, so theyd be pretty good draws here I think.

EDIT: VV Oh yah I always forget about the Twins, we should try to get them too! Twins, 'Stros, Birdnals, bring 'em in.

NIXPHX77

Jun 6, 2009, 10:15 PM

The Cactus league ought to be courting the St Louis Cardinals & Houston Astros, the only teams west of the Mississippi that we don't have.
And the Minnesota Twins, I'd say.
I would rather see the Dbacks stay in Tucson. and the Rockies. and get any 3rd team, even if it's the Orioles, tho I'd love to see a NY team myself!
If the Dodgers can make a go of it in FLA for 50 years, i'm sure an East Coast team could do fine in AZ for spring training.

kaneui

Jun 7, 2009, 3:34 AM

Lots of wrinkles remain for developers Scott Stiteler and Don Martin to iron out with the city to get their projects on the east end of downtown moving:

Are plans for downtown arts and entertainment district unraveling?
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
June 05, 2009

An agreement for a proposed $10 million downtown arts and entertainment development could be on the brink of unraveling. The project in question is the Downtown Tucson Development Company’s plans to develop three acres at Sixth and Toole avenues. Among other things, it would include a downtown restaurant venue for acclaimed chef Janos Wilder. But the original plans have been changing over the past six months. Officials from the city, Downtown Tucson Development Company and the Rialto Theatre held meetings last week to try to resolve their differences but were unable to come to do so in time to be included as part of Tuesday’s (June 9) City Council meeting. If an agreement is not reached by June 16, the city is facing a requirement to pay the Downtown Tucson Development Company $900,000 as partial reimbursement for nearly $1.5 million it has already spent on the project.

The biggest hiccup has come from the Rialto Theatre Foundation Board that is opposed to the deal unless 4,000 square-feet of space it’s currently using is turned over to the city or the Rio Nuevo Facilities District. The space, which is separate from the theater itself, is owned by the Downtown Tucson Development Company which is letting the Rialto use it rent-free. Michael Crawford, president of the Rialto Theatre Foundation Board, said it was putting the cart before the horse to approve the agreement if ownership of the space isn’t turned over first. He called it a deal killer otherwise. “They can sell it to the city or donate it to the foundation and get a tax credit,” Crawford said. “But I won’t spend the money to renovate space that is vital to the theater without owning it first.”

Scott Stiteler, a principal in the Downtown Tucson Development Company, told the council his company can’t simply give away the space for free. Don Martin, the other principal said the meeting last week went well but awaits the Rialto board’s decision this week. “Our predevelopment agreement says everything has to be done by the 16th, but we’re reasonable, as long as we are in front of mayor and council by the 16th and we need to give another week or two for the Rio Nuevo board to approve it, that’s fine,” Martin said. “What we aren’t going to do is drag out negotiations with the theater indefinitely while they hold our agreement hostage.”

In last week’s city council study session, Stiteler appeared upset by some of the changes over the past six months. Councilwoman Nina Trasoff asked Stiteler and Martin to come to the June 2 session to give an update of the project and of the draft development agreement so there could be some discussion. Stiteler told the council of the issues he has been facing, including a phone call from restaurateur Wilder who was worried that the city wouldn’t have the infrastructure in place for the project. “I spent half an hour on the phone with him defending the city and the progress,” Stiteler said.

But using his company’s renovation of the former Martin Luther King public housing into One North Fifth as an example, Stiteler said the city is falling behind on delivering infrastructure improvements. “Our agreement was that we did the building and the city would do the streetscaping,” he said. “We got the project done ahead of schedule and it still sits with a fence around it. Our boats need to rise and fall together.” Although Stiteler said he believed he had calmed Wilder’s concerns, changes being made to the proposed agreement are making it less appealing to his company. “It’s starting to worry us about the quality of the agreement,” he said. “But we’re still here.”

Pending the outcome of the negotiations for the Rialto Theatre space, the current proposed agreement lines out responsibilities for both the developer and the city. Among them, the Downtown Tucson Development Company would agree to:

• Immediately spend about $5 million for renovations, including the buildings in the block housing the Rialto Theatre and the 200 block of East Congress Street.

• Invest another $4.5 million for artists galleries and affordable housing in the warehouses along Toole Avenue and the Warehouse Arts Management Organization district.

• Donate $400,000 over four years to the youth center Skrappy’s and the city’s façade improvement program.

• Give $50,000 a year for two years to an art organization of Downtown Tucson Development Company’s choice.

For its part, the city would agree to:

• Acquire the property at 197 E Toole Ave. from the Arizona Department of Transportation and deed it within 30 days so it can be operated as a nonprofit.

• Finish street, utility and streetscape improvements in the entertainment district and Toole Avenue.

• Complete a parking garage at Fifth and Toole avenues and finish the Fourth Avenue underpass.

In exchange for the agreement, the Downtown Tucson Development Company will receive land credits from the city equal, 20 percent of which would be due immediately on signing of the agreement because the concept plan for the project has been completed. “It’s not as though we haven’t done anything yet,” Stiteler said. “We’ve been working on this idea for 30 months now.” Stiteler said his company has its sights set on acquiring two pieces of property from the city: the old Broadway Volvo location at 930 E. Broadway and 35,000 square feet of the Ronstadt Transit Center on East Congress Street. At the June 2 study session, Trasoff and council members Karin Uhlich and Regina Romero had worried the city couldn’t deliver on its end of the agreement. But that was not the sentiment from Mayor Bob Walkup, who told Stiteler and Martin, “This is too important for the city to fail. The city is committed to make this work. We will deliver it to you.”

Vicelord John

Jun 7, 2009, 3:49 AM

And the Minnesota Twins, I'd say.

oh yeah but by like by 3 blocks!

dintares

Jun 7, 2009, 4:57 AM

kaneui

Jun 10, 2009, 10:27 AM

By Rob O'Dell
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.10.2009

Downtown deal approved

In other business, the council voted 5-2 to approve an agreement with developer Jim Campbell to develop the former Greyhound Bus Station at the east end of Downtown on East Congress Street. Councilwomen Regina Romero and Karin Uhlich voted no.

Campbell needs the city to build a $3 million parking garage on East Congress, across from the former Greyhound site, where he plans 104 units for University of Arizona students and more than 46,000 square feet of shops, bars and a gym. The agreement has performance measures that allow the city to take back the land if Campbell doesn't build on the site.

atbg8654

Jun 10, 2009, 5:08 PM

Did we not learn from the mistake of not originally building a ballpark downtown?! If people wont go to TEP because its too far what makes them think well drive all the way out to Marana? BUILD IT DOWNTOWN

Although I would like to see a ballpark downtown, I believe the whole point of building it in Marana is so it can appeal to the teams in Phoenix more since it will save on commuting time. Now if they stopped using either TEP or Hi-Corbett for some reason, then I think a dt ballpark is necessary. I think having the ballpark up Marana will be more successful then TEP because there is a better accommodating demography in the surrounding area (ie more families, higher incomes).

kaneui

Jun 11, 2009, 6:13 AM

NolaV

Jun 11, 2009, 3:14 PM

thank you for keeping informed of the developments in the Rio Nuevo district, as a long time merchant it is indeed refreshing to know those of you that "do" keep me updated, again thanks!

Locofresh55

Jun 11, 2009, 11:13 PM

It looks like the Downtown Tucsonan magazine is being replaced by Zócalo Tucson, which has its premier summer issue online, and will begin publishing each month in the fall:

http://www.zocalotucson.com/

Thanks Kaneui. I was wondering what happened to the downtown tucsonan as there hasn't been an issue since March.

kaneui

Jun 12, 2009, 11:19 PM

Well-heeled home buyers in the new Mercado District--enticed by Rio Nuevo's promises of a cultural plaza with numerous museums, as well as a Tucson Origins Heritage Park with a reconstructed mission, convento and gardens--now have their views of downtown blocked by a pile of dirt excavated for an unbuilt parking garage.

With most of the westside Rio Nuevo projects on hold, the silver lining in this cloud is the new streetcar line expected to reach Congress St. and Avenida del Convento, where the new Mercado San Agustín will be opening this fall:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/MercadoGarage.jpg
The hole left after the city began construction on an underground garage.
(photo: Joe Pangburn)

'Hole' heartedly committed
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
June 12, 2009

In what might be characterized as a Tucson version of Boston’s infamous “Big Dig” highway project through its downtown, developers at the Mercado District at Menlo Park off Congress Street west of the Santa Cruz River have since the summer of 2007 been looking at a football field-sized hole dug 25 feet into the ground, with an accompanying mound of dirt. They and residents of the area are now wondering just how much longer this version of a big dig will be there. The hole was supposed to be for an underground parking garage on top of which would be part of the Tucson Origins park that would include a rebuilt Mission San Agustin and a separate part of the part would include a cluster of museums. It was all part of the 1999 voter-approved Rio Nuevo district. But construction has come to a stop. And city officials aren’t saying when or if anything will come of the hole and the dirt pile.

The City of Tucson spent about $1 million to start an agricultural area along the bank of the Santa Cruz River associated with the Mission San Agustín called Mission Gardens. But about all that is there is a wall that collects grafitti. Meanwhile, the hole and the mound of dirt remain eyesores to the families who purchased homes in what they thought would be a cultural center. The mound of dirt presents of view of downtown Tucson where only the top three floors of the UniSource Tower can be seen. “We’re sort of resigned to accepting that it is unlikely the city will be moving forward on the projects on this side,” said Dante Archangeli, owner of Tucson Artisan Builders. “I doubt it will ever happen,” said fellow builder in the Mercado District Paolo DeLorenzo. While the builders aren’t using the city’s plans as a selling point anymore, the hole and the dirt mound don’t do anything to help get people into the development. “We aren’t looking for any kind of benefit from the city,” said Archangeli. “We just hope they could take away the things that detract from us here. We are a Rio Nuevo project and we are out of the ground and we are doing well. I think people forget that.”

As far as the city is concerned, the priority for spending Rio Nuevo money is on completing a downtown hotel and convention center. For the time being, it won’t be spent on the Mercado projects. “The state Legislature has told us that the priority for Rio Nuevo is the downtown hotel and convention center,” said City Manager Mike Letcher. “We had to start aligning our resources to meet that priority.” Letcher said this summer the council will begin discussing possible public-private partnerships, outside of Rio Nuevo funding, to complete the cultural improvements. “A lot of that will be driven by the construction of the modern streetcar,” Letcher said. “Those projects are critical cultural assets the community has as a priority.” It is an issue that has to be addressed.” Commercial development in the area is largely tied to the completion off the modern streetcar route through to the front door of the current and future developments.

The first commercial component of that center is the Mercado San Agustin, on the corner of Congress Street and Avenida del Convento, is out of the ground and has been 100 percent leased since September 2008 despite not opening until this November. The project is the first wholly ground-up new commercial building to be built in downtown Tucson in more than 25 years. It is also downtown Tucson’s first public market and about to be officially the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified building. The $6.5 million, nearly 15,000-square-foot project developed by the Gadsden Company is designed to foster small business growth. “It’s a mix of wonderful tenants,” said Adam Weinstein, a principal of Gadsden. Tenants include: La Estrella Bakery, Casa Marita Restaurante Argentino, Sonora Snow Cones, El Tutu Taqueria, Marisol’s Mexican Imports, Nurturing Nature, Kokopelli Woodworking and Caravanserai among others.

The second commercial building in the Mercado District of Menlo Park is the Monier Brickyard Building, a $35 million, 300,000-square-foot building with space for retail, office and residential. This project is directly south of the Mercado San Agustin. “This project has always been timed to the completion of the modern streetcar,” Weinstein said. “Since there have been delays and timetables pushed back on that with the city, this project has also.” Weinstein said his company has letters of intent for nearly 40,000 square feet of the 90,000 square feet of office space in the project. “But until the added value of the street car is in place, these companies won’t relocate there,” Weinstein said. “We may be in a position to lay track on the west side first because we have so much open land as opposed to other areas.” Track on the west side should start to go in the ground in December according to Weinstein and be complete within a year. The four-mile line will be run from the University Medical Center near East Speedway and Campbell Avenue to the Mercado District at Menlo Park by late 2011.

The largest development for Gadsden will be separate from the Mercado District, but sits just across the street. In August of last year, the City Council agreed to sell 14.3 acres of vacant land for $3.3 million to the Gadsden Company to build the Convento Neighborhood, a $300 million, eight-block community with homes, retail, office and a hotel. This is the lot where the city piled the dirt from the exacavation area. “It used to be 70,000 cubic yards, now it is down to 20,000 cubic yards,” Weinstein said. “We are diligently working with the city to have the dirt removed by year’s end.”

Ron Lewis, director of general services for the City of Tucson as well as the downtown operations team leader said the dirt was originally intended to be used to grade the city’s proposed development. “Currently, we don’t have a plan yet to remove it at any time,” he said. “The stock pile will remain there until other projects become active and we can reasses how much dirt will be needed for those.” Transportation director Jim Glock also said at this time there was no plan for the future of the hole.

kaneui

Jun 12, 2009, 11:46 PM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/MercadoHomes.jpg
Twenty houses have been built so far in the 100-lot Mercado District at Menlo Park.
(photo: Joe Pangburn)

Making Mercado
By Nicholas Smith
Inside Tucson Business
June 12, 2009

If there’s an emblem of the current state of development for Rio Nuevo it could be the large pit and adjacent mound of dirt at the site of the proposed museum complex. Right next to it is a housing development that could be the emblem for Rio Nuevo’s successes. The Mercado District of Menlo Park, on Congress Street west of Interstate 10 and the Santa Cruz River, has been steadily growing since construction began in September 2006. There are 20 homes completed, several about to be finished and more than a dozen families already living there.

Gene Einfrank is one of those residents. “Even without the proposed development, we are very happy here,” said Einfrank, who works as a television producer with the city. Moving about a year and a half ago, he was one of the first residents in the Mercado. Einfrank was attracted to the design of the neighborhood, proximity to downtown and the cultural aspects of the project, but at the same time, realizing that the city cannot do everything at once.

When the Rio Nuevo project was approved by voters in 1999, the Arizona State Museum, a new science center and a recreation of an historic Tucson convent were set to lie in the shadow of “A” mountain. Last month, the City Council agreed to a deal to build a 25-story hotel that would go up in conjunction with a remodeled convention center, effectively shifting the focus away from the museum projects. Dante Archangeli, a Mercado builder with Tucson Artisans Builders, calls city leaders’ attention toward the Rio Nuevo projects as schizophrenic and hopes the modern streetcar line connecting the Mercado District with the rest of downtown doesn’t fall by the wayside. “It’s unfair for us as builders, but it’s really unfair for the people who moved down here,” Archangeli said, adding that the unfortunate thing about the west side projects is some of them, like the Mission Gardens, are half-finished and subject to vandalism. The Mercado development operates independently of city money, relying on private investment, though it is still subject to the ups and downs of the real estate market. “It isn’t the lack of interest, the only reason you don’t see any other specs being build right now is because builders aren’t willing to take a risk anyplace in Tucson to built new spec houses,” said Mary Lou Thompson, a Realtor with Avalar Advantage Realty. She represents one of the Mercado properties and is considering opening an art gallery in the development.

As far as new revitalization projects west of downtown, the Mercado is the only sign of life, said Paolo DeLorenzo, who’s Innovative Living Design and Development is building three Sonoran row houses at Mercado in addition to seven more multistory units. The development is set to contain nearly 100 residential spaces, many of which will double as storefronts in keeping with the Mercado District’s goal of “live, work and play.” Five different builders have houses completed or in various stages of construction and each has a different contribution to the design of the community. “I went for more of an urban look a downtown look,” said Barry Coleman, a partner with City Lofts. “They’re two story brick buildings that kind of have a warehouse look and the inside looks like it’s been converted into a loft whereas the other builders are going to more of a barrio and a Mexican look.” Coleman has finished the first of three loft-style buildings and expects to start on the others once the first one sells.

Archangeli and his Tucson Artisan Builders have finished six houses and have seven left to build on. Getting more support from the city on things like removing an immense pile of dirt to the east of the Mercado could make the area more attractive to buyers and, in turn, generate more property tax revenue. Since December 2006, Archangeli has already paid $106,000 in taxes relating to his Mercado projects. Of the four houses posted on the Multiple Listing Service, prices range from $400,000 to $900,000, according to the Tucson Association of Realtors. The Mercado houses are going for several times the worth of the nearby older homes.

kaneui

Jun 17, 2009, 4:35 AM

Maybe the City Council has decided to stop handing out more sweetheart deals to inexperienced local developers? (However, they still may owe Stiteler and Martin $950k....ugh.)

Council delays vote on Downtown project; developers say they're pulling out
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.16.2009

The Tucson City Council has postponed action on a proposed development agreement for the east end of Downtown due to concerns the deal doesn’t do enough to protect the Rialto Theatre. Following the 7-0 vote Tuesday night developers Scott Stiteler and Don Martin said they will pull the plug on further negotiations with the city, and on plans for immediate Downtown development.

In voting to delay approval of the agreement, council members also requested clarification on the obligations and rights Downtown Tucson Development Co. when it comes to building or refurbishing 20,000-square-feet of retail space in what is being dubbed a Downtown Entertainment District. In return for developing the property, which the development company owns, or would acquire, they would receive several city properties with a total value of $4 million.

The council voted to bring the deal back for further consideration on July 7, although that would be moot if the developers follow through on their statement they’re pulling out. Although she voted with the majority, Councilwoman Nina Trasoff voiced concerns developers Stiteler and Martin could back away from the deal, and/or invoke a clause in a pre-development approved last December that would require the city to pay them up to $950,000 for work they’ve done on the plans thus far.

aznate27

Jun 17, 2009, 3:30 PM

Tucson just can't pull it together. We have the most useless city council in the history of this city! Now Stiteler and Martin will profit for doing NOTHING!!!! It was a scam from the begining.:hell:

Leo the Dog

Jun 17, 2009, 11:01 PM

oh yeah but by like by 3 blocks!

Well, St. Paul is east of the Miss. River. And they are the Minnesota Twins aka "Twin Cities".

kaneui

Jun 18, 2009, 12:16 AM

The Screening Room theater on Congress, one of the four facade restoration projects provided matching grant funds by the city, will have a new marquee by October:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/ScreeningRoom.jpg
Rendering of the Screening Room's new marquee, designed by Ibarra Rosano
Design Architects, who worked with the same sign-makers who did the
Rialto's marquee. The Rialto will host a fundraiser, Bad Fest, on Friday.
(render: Ibarra Rosano Design Architects)

A bright new face for Downtown theater
Opinion by M. Scot Skinner
SKINNER@AZSTARNET.COM
06.18.2009

The Screening Room, a 105-seat theater on East Congress Street, has made a name for itself by hosting the largest film festival in Arizona. By the end of October, it will finally have a face: a big, bright new marquee that will brighten up the middle of Downtown like a smile. "People drive by, but it doesn't look like a movie theater," says Giulio Scalinger. "That has been a hard thing for us." The Screening Room's marquee will assume a proud place in between the shimmering marquees at the Rialto Theatre and the Fox Tucson Theatre.

Until then, however, Scalinger will continue to be the public face of the Screening Room. He's also the program director. "Downtown has taken a downturn, and we don't do as much original programming as we used to do," says Scalinger, who hates that he is surrounded by depressing evidence of that downturn. The Screening Room is sandwiched between two sad, empty storefronts and has been for several years. Those buildings were once beacons for art lovers and theatergoers; Dinnerware gallery was on one side, a.k.a. Theatre on the other. Can you blame Scalinger for getting excited about a sign?

The nonprofit theater is paying for it with the help of a $65,000 Downtown-improvement grant from the city. But the Screening Room, which earned the grant after a long application and design process, won't get the money until it matches the amount with its own fundraising. "We're only about $10,000 away," says Scalinger. Enter board member Michael Keith, a Downtown builder who quickly put together a fundraiser that he hopes will put the theater over the top. On Friday night at the Rialto, you can do a good deed by buying a ticket to Bad Fest. It's a multimedia event, of course. Several screens will show movies bad and not while several Tucson bands (good ones) perform on the Rialto's stage, starting with Marianne Dissard at 7 p.m., followed by Jimmy Carr's Awkward Moment, Calle Debauche, Monster Pussy and Flagrante Delicto. T-shirts will be given to those with the best bad hair, the best bad attitude, the best my bad and several other bad categories. Admission is $15 if you show up between 6:30 and 9 p.m. or $5 if you enter after that.

The concept came from David Aguirre, a man with his finger in every artistic pot between the Santa Cruz and the snake bridge. "The idea fountain, I like to call him," says Keith, the general contractor for the marquee project. The Screening Room hopes the marquee will bring added attention to the Arizona International Film Festival it hosts each spring. "Our intention is to kick the festival up to the next level by working with the Fox and the Rialto," says Keith. In the meantime, we can help shine some light on Congress Street by being bad on Friday.

http://www.azmac.org/scroom/index.html

dintares

Jun 19, 2009, 8:30 AM

The Screening Room should do like The Loft and sell beer there and have movies playing more frequently.

atbg8654

Jun 19, 2009, 10:02 PM

Bye bye Colorado Rockies...Only in Tucson would these types of things happen...two vacant ballparks rest here

kaneui

Jun 19, 2009, 11:55 PM

Even though Rio Nuevo survived the legislative ax, the financing of the cenvention center expansion and new hotel is anything but certain:

Many factors affect downtown hotel funding
By Nicholas Smith,
Inside Tucson Business
June 19, 2009

If all goes according to plan, it will be hard to dismiss the successes of Rio Nuevo when people look at the Tucson skyline in three years. That's when the 525-room, 26-story Sheraton Tucson Convention Center Hotel is set to be finished. Until then, there are several things that can happen that will affect the funding of the project. Fortunately, you don't need a financial degree to understand how the city will pay for the $167 million hotel. Picking which method to fund the hotel is a bit like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. Select option one and you'll be exempt from bond taxes, but have to redirect the bed and sales tax away from the city to make up the difference. Select option two and you'll reduce ownership risk, but also cut the city out of any profits made by the hotel.

A report released in April outlines four different funding scenarios for the project. Of the three tax-exempt bond options, two of them will require the project to keep the taxes and fees that would otherwise go toward the city. The fourth, but least likely option, involves taking on private investors that would reduce the risk ownership to the city, but would also cut Tucson out of any profits from the project. The hotel and convention center project took an important step forward on May 12, when the Tucson City Council approved a $240 million agreement with Garfield Traub Development to begin construction on the project. Earlier this year, the council voted to shift the focus of the Rio Nuevo development program away from the original museum projects and toward the more "revenue generating" hotel and convention center construction.

The hotel will sit along South Granada Avenue, just north and physically connecting with the convention center. Before shovels hit the ground, a renovated east entrance to the convention center need to be completed to replace the entrance set to be torn up when hotel construction begins in March 2010. As the $240 million figure is preliminary, a more accurate estimate on the cost will come late in the year when the projects architects finish designing the hotel to come up with a guaranteed maximum price, on which funding can be based. After that, bond ratings and the interest rate they attract come into play.

The question that comes out of the plan is whether it is financeable, said Tucson Deputy Finance Director Silvia Amparano. Last month, the city's general obligation bonds received separate ratings from several agencies. Fitch rated them AA, but the rating outlook was changed from stable to negative. Moody's gave them a AA3 rating, while Standard & Poor's downgraded the GO bonds to AA- from AA. The lower interest rate we can get, the more we can borrow, Amparano said. In the most desirable plan, the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District issues the bonds, but $4.5 million in additional revenue will be needed. In the other two tax-exempt scenarios, the City of Tucson will issue the bonds. One scenario involves a lower interest rate but will have to make up $1.1 million while the other has a higher interest rate but requires no extra revenue.

If you look at all of the publicly owned convention-center-hotels, and there have been quite a few of them, no two of them are the same as far as the financing goes. Most of them have one common thread and that's the district-owned revenue bonds to finance the project, said Steven Moffett, president of the hospitality division at Garfield Traub Development. I think our bond rating is by and large driven by our ability to generate sales tax revenue, number one. And then this hotel and this rating is going to be based more on the performance of the hotel more than it's going to be placed on the performance of the district, said Greg Shelko current director of the Rio Nuevo district.

Most likely, the financing the hotel will be based on the projected revenue for the project. The Sheraton hotel is expected to bring in $45 million in total revenue by its fifth year of operation, according to the April pre-development report. It's using the revenue and the taxes it will generate to pay for itself, Shelko said. Once completed, the hotel will be operated by Sheraton, but owned by the Rio Nuevo district, which would realize the profits. If the district owns the property for the long haul past debt retirement it owns a very valuable asset at that conclusion and has built up some very residual cash on deposit, Shelko said, adding that the district could decide to sell the hotel outright to get more cash for other Rio Nuevo projects.

By the numbers

Room count: 525

Meeting space: 35,095 sq. ft.

Cost: $167 million

Construction start: March 2010

Tentative opening: June 2012

kaneui

Jun 20, 2009, 12:06 AM

Even a last-ditch effort at the state legislature for stadium funding couldn't keep the remaining two MLB teams in Tucson from giving official notice of their imminent departure to Phoenix for spring training after 2010:

Rockies and Diamondbacks to Tucson: We're outta here
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.19.2009

The Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks have notified the city and county they’ll be moving their spring training operations out of Tucson after next year. A notice delivered to the city on May 19 from the Rockies cites the fact that, with the Chicago White Sox departure to Glendale, there are now fewer than three teams training here as the reason for the move. Ten days later, the Diamondbacks notified Pima County that, in light of the Rockies' departure, they too would be leaving, as their contract requires Tucson/Pima County to have at least two major league teams training here. The Star obtained copies of both notices today.

Information on where the Rockies plan to move was not immediately available, although the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community made a pitch to build a two-team complex on tribal land east of Scottsdale to accommodate the Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks. Tribe officials indicated the facility could be ready for play by 2011, when the teams told the city and county they plan to be gone.

A statement issued by city Parks Director Fred Gray says the city will consider any move before the 2012 season a breech of the team’s contract to use Hi Corbett Field. County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the Diamondbacks' notice has been turned over to the county’s legal advisers. He noted that if the Rockies' move is found to be a breech, that would void the Diamondbacks' grounds for pulling out. The team’s contract with the city runs through Dec. 31, 2011. The Rockies have trained in Tucson since the team began play in 1993. The Diamondbacks, likewise, have trained in Tucson since their inception.

kaneui

Jun 20, 2009, 12:17 AM

Bye bye Colorado Rockies...Only in Tucson would these types of things happen...two vacant ballparks rest here

^At least the revived Tucson Toros will be making use of Hi Corbett:

Toros season off to strong start - on and off field
Mae Lee Sun
Inside Tucson Business
June 12, 2009

Already a month into their new season, the Tucson Toros have exceeded expectations. The independent league baseball team has split their first 10 home games with an average attendance of 4,000 fans and has sold their first player to a major league team. Earlier this month, the Toros sold right-handed pitcher Andrew Romo to the San Francisco Giants. The Toros began their season in mid-May and will play home games at Hi Cortbett Field in Reid Park through Aug. 27. The team is due back in town Friday (June 19) for a three-game home stand against the Yuma Scorpions.

It was 1997, the final season for the Toros at Hi Corbett Field. The team had been a Triple-A minor league baseball franchise since 1969. The next year, after affiliating with Major League Baseball’s new Arizona Diamondbacks, Tucson’s minor league team became the Sidewinders and started playing at Tucson Electric Park. That ended last year, after owner and native Tucsonan, Jay Zucker, sold the team because it was an ‘underperforming’ market Pacific Coast League standards and new owners wanted to take it Reno.

Technically, though, when the Toros moved out of Hi Corbett, the team went to Fresno, Calif., where the team is now known as the Fresno Grizzlies, the Triple-A team for the San Francisco Giants. The Sidewinders were actually birthed from the Phoenix Firebirds, who had been the Giants’ minor league team. And since the Sidewinders have subsequently become the Reno Aces, Zucker saw an opportunity to bring the Toros back to Tucson — and to Hi Corbett Field — as an independent minor league baseball franchise within the Golden Baseball League. Zucker spent $1 million on the expansion franchise fee for the Toros to join the Golden Baseball League. In the 10 years he owned the Sidewinders, Zucker says it wasn’t profitable. Although he bought the team for $8 million and sold it for $15 million, when the losses and deferred compensation and capital gains were all factored in, he says there wasn’t a lot left over.

The city’s more centrally-located Hi Corbett Field in Reid Park is a better location will reduce overhead by 40 percent, compared with TEP, Zucker said. “And, with the demise of Spring Training in Tucson, the Toros are a desirable alternative,” Zucker says. “They appeal to all segments of the market which is why we think we’ll be successful.” After adding in start-up costs of about $1.5 million and a budget for player, coach and staff salaries of nearly $2 million, Zucker says he’ll be happy if they break even.

Part of his business plan, however, is to have as many players as possible go from the Toros to Major League Baseball team rosters and that will come from being a winning team every season. While the Major League teams will pay an acquisition fee for players, Zucker says that’s not the real revenue generator. He said he expects the Toros will make money from a combination of advertising and media opportunities that includes selling signage in Hi Corbett’s outfield, ticket sales and food and gift shop concessions.

And Zucker has chosen to keep his marketing efforts in-house and at the grass roots. “Most of the people within the Toros organization have come from a media background so they know how to do PR,” said Zucker, who has a background as a TV station owner and radio account executive. “We’re holding creative press conferences to expose this sports opportunity to the community and are going out and speaking to organizations like the Rotary and Lions Club to re-establish the Toro’s name and identity.” He says the team will be expanding its outreach to include chambers of commerce and the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau. Even in this soft economy, the Toros financial standings are better than they ever were with the Sidewinders. He says season ticket sales have already topped what the Sidewinders sold in their final year.

Upcoming home games

June 19-21, against the Yuma Scorpions

July 4-6, against the Long Beach Armada

July 24-26, against the Victoria Seals

July 28-30, against the Calgary Vipers

*all games will be held at 7 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.tucsontoros.com

kaneui

Jun 20, 2009, 12:42 AM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/HamptonInnPP.jpg
The Hampton Inn across Wilmot Road from Park Place Mall is scheduled to open later this year.
(photo: Joe Pangburn)

700 new rooms this year add to the woes of Tucson's hotel industry
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
June 19, 2009

Not a lot is going right these days for Southern Arizona's hotel industry:

- The City of Tucson just doubled the $1 nightly surcharge on visitors' overnight stays, which guests pay on top of a 6 percent nightly bed tax and 8.1 percent sales tax putting Tucson behind only Denver for having the second highest bed tax rates of any city in the western United States.

- At the same time, the city reduced the amount of money from the bed tax that goes to the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau (MTCVB) for marketing and attracting tourists.

- Lodgings along Interstate 10 in downtown Tucson have had to deal with two years of exit closures during the freeway's widening project.

- Region-wide, RevPAR - revenue per available room - is down 15 percent over the past year due in large part to the global economic recession.

And, as if all those weren't enough, by the end of this year nearly 700 new rooms in five new lodgings will come on line. That's the most new rooms that have been added in any one year since 1996 when there were 893. The lodgings will increase the region's 16,030 total available rooms at the start of the year by 4 percent. Then next year, another four hotels are slated to be completed, adding nearly 400 more rooms. Compare those numbers to 2008 when 217 rooms were added to inventory in two new hotels. The boom in hotel construction can be traced to a hotel industry conference in 2005 where the Tucson market was identified as being underserved. "Within months, every major hotel chain was calling asking about sites," said Jerry Hawkins, first vice president with CB Richard Ellis. "It's a good thing it wasn't easy to find sites in town or we could have been looking at a lot more coming online right now."

All indications pointed to starting construction as the right decision according to data from the MTCVB. From 2002 to 2007, Tucson's average room rate increased nearly 26 percent, the number of occupied rooms was up nearly 19 percent, the occupancy rate was closing in on 70 percent (up from 59 percent in 2005) and RevPAR was up more than 40 percent. Then the downturn came in 2008. Tucson's average room rate increased just 50 cents and the other measures were down from 6 to 7 percent. "Currently (year to date) we are 15 percent below last year and it will be a struggle the rest of this year due to overall reduction in business and leisure travel," said Rick Vaughan, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the MTCVB. "We are more optimistic for 2010 and seeing activity pick up for future years; 2010 will be a rebuilding year with some positive results with a more robust travel and convention market shaping up in 2011 and 2012." "It is difficult for these places to adjust to slower times," said Mike Chapman, first vice president with CB Richard Ellis. "You have your staffing, but you really can't cut too much there because daily business can pick up quickly and you can find yourself short-staffed." The TownePlace Suites by Marriott, 6595 S. Bay Colony Drive, opened earlier this month near Tucson International Airport. The property is Marriott's extended-stay brand.

General Manager Matthew Hallinan knows summers are not usually kind to tourism in Tucson, let alone the drop in travel around the globe. "We are using these first three months as our ramp-up period," he said. "We're working to get our name out there and then also to focus on the guests we do have. We want to hear from them, what they need from us. There are lots of choices here by the airport and all of them have a bed, all of them have a computer or some kind of internet access. But we really want to cater to the people we have and really take care of their needs." "The falling market statistics and the 192 hotel properties in the region, show the market is saturated with new properties now," Hallinan said. "But that's part of development and growth and bringing Tucson up to speed on things and get some newer accommodations in town," he said. "The type of people Tucson wants to get to come here are those who are well-traveled. Those types of people typically don't stay at a mom and pop hotel or motel. They like to see the brands they know."

Another well-known brand opening this is the 252-room Ritz-Carlton Dove Mountain Resort opening in October in Marana. "Where we saw the opportunity in Southern Arizona was the luxury segment of the market was underserved," said General Manager Mike McMahon. "We've been looking at Southern Arizona for more than 20 years trying to identify a location for a Ritz-Carlton of this caliber." Being in Marana, the Ritz-Carlton is not directly affected by Tucson's increase in the bed tax but McMahon said the whole area is affected. It affects every segment of the hotel industry," he said. "With conventions, sometimes 2 to 3 percent can add up huge and they will go somewhere else. It could end up having the reverse effect. If a jurisdiction is using that to promote the area as a destination that is a good way to increase demand.'

The 106-room Wingate by Wyndham Oro Valley, 11075 N. Oracle Road, is the only other hotel that has already opened in 2009. Other hotels scheduled to open this year are a 101-room Hampton Inn, 251 S. Wilmot Road across from Park Place Mall; the 68-room Country Inn and Suites, 665 N. Freeway Road on the west side of I-10 south of Speedway; and 68 new rooms being added as part of a complete renovation of the Lodge on the Desert, 306 N. Alvernon Way.

The City of Tucson says it's still hoping to begin construction on a new 525-room downtown Sheraton hotel next year that should be open by June 2012. "For the next 12 months hotel business will still be down," says CB Richard Ellis' Hawkins. "Occupancy will drop below 60 percent in 2009 and RevPAR will decrease more than 10 percent and up to 20 percent in some places. We'll see increases in occupancy return in latter 2010 and I think we will see more corporate America travel then, but no one wants to appear to excessive right now." MTCVB President Jonathan Walker said forecasts are difficult to judges these days because travel worldwide has slowed so significantly. "We know there will be a rebound and there will be some pent-up demand that will be released when people feel a little more comfortable traveling again," Walker said.

kaneui

Jun 20, 2009, 1:30 AM

According to Scott Stiteler and Don Martin, their development deal for the east end of downtown has bit the dust. However, as outlined in the second post by Donovan Durband, this proposal may have never been in the city's best interests:

Downtown redevelopment deal is dead, say developers
By Joe Pangburn
Inside Tucson Business
June 19, 2009

A multimillion dollar deal to develop an arts and entertainment district on the east side of downtown Tucson - including a return of noted chef Janos Wilder - is dead. After the Tucson City Council voted unanimously on June 16 to delay approval of a revised agreement with the Downtown Tucson Development Company, the two partners said they were finished negotiating. "I'm disappointed and relieved at the same time," said Don Martin, one of the partners. He said he was disappointed over how the deal was misinterpreted, especially by the Arizona Daily Star, but then said, "I'm relieved because it really was a tough deal for us and the only way it was going to work was as a true partnership. We had been talking to the council constantly and nearly every day for the past two weeks then in the council meeting it sounded like we were starting all over again. They were bringing up things that had been resolved months ago."

Martin said the $4.28 million the developers would receive was inflated on the surface. He said $1.08 million in land credits were going to square up what was left due to the predevelopment agreement with the city. The remaining $3.2 million was broken up into two $1.6 million portions. "The first $1.6 million we would receive came from $1.6 million in cash, rent abatement and property given to the different organizations including the theatre," Martin said. "That was dollar for dollar. And for that we would get the Volvo property outside the core. The other $1.6 million would come from 20,000 square feet of leases downtown and the first 4,000 square feet was going to cost us $400,000 out of pocket in improvements to bring Janos downtown."

The deal came apart when the Rialto Theatre Foundation continued to voice its dissatisfaction with the new agreement despite the developers' promise to give the Rio Nuevo Facilities District, which owns the theater, the area inside the Rialto used for bathrooms and concession stands. Another 2,500 square-foot building separate from the theater but currently used by the Rialto for offices and a green room for performers was not included in the deal and that was the sticking point. "The highest and best use for that property adjacent to the theater is for the theater to use it," said Michael Crawford, president of the Rialto Theatre Foundation. "I think it is hard to believe they are walking away when we are so close to a deal. But if that's the case and they are leaving without wanting to work out some simple, minor details that would protect the city and the theater then it just affirms to the city that this wasn't a good deal for the city. We're going to just have to wait and see what their next move is. If the city is really interested in protecting the theatre and they are unwilling to sell that property, it's not popular, but there is always the option of condemning the building and taking it through eminent domain."

Martin said the process was a learning experience for him. "You'd think that if you were operating a business on property someone else owns and you are using it rent-free, you would say, how can we help you in this, what do you need?" Martin said. "That didn't happen. From the beginning it was "this is what we want." And they killed the deal. I hope they're happy with themselves, but I don't see what their game plan was. Those were the weirdest negotiations I've ever been through in my life and I've been through a lot." Now Martin says he and Scott Stiteler will move into commercially viable agreements with businesses looking to locate into the renovated spaces once the work is complete. Martin didn't give a timeframe for that work. "We have a grant to finish the facade of the Rialto so we're going to do that and make it look real nice," he said. Stiteler didn't wish to comment on the deal but said he was going out of the country for two weeks as part of a group raising money for the Wounded Warrior Project by attempting to swim across the Sea of Cortez.

As a result of the delay, the city missed the June 17 deadline and is on the hook for up to $950,000 as a partial reimbursement to the Downtown Tucson Development Company for what has been invested already into the deal per the predevelopment agreement. City Attorney Mike Rankin cautioned the council before the vote, the council could urge the developers to bring the deal back, but they are not obligated to comply. "I feel it is my obligation to remind the council that if we pass this deadline, and there hasn't been a breach by the developer, the city is exposed to paying damages up to $950,000," Rankin said during the council meeting. Councilwoman Shirley Scott asked how that clause was affected due to the partners that have dropped out of the Downtown Tucson Development Company. Rankin replied he didn't want to get into a legal analysis but that if the city lands in a dispute, those would be the core issues they would protest. Councilwoman Nina Trasoff was the only council member to express concerns to a delay.

________________________________________________________________

Downtown Deal Looks like an Act of Desperation
June 15, 2009
http://tucsoncitizen.com/downtown/

Desperation. It’s not the proper mindset from which to make sound public policy, yet desperation seems to be the dynamic that is leading the Tucson City Council down a path that it may regret for years to come. The City is desperate to make positive things happen in Downtown with Rio Nuevo. How much of that desperation is about concern for the upcoming election and how much is a desire to hold onto the TIF funding, I do not know. The City Council seems set to approve a Development Agreement with the Downtown Tucson Development Company (DTDC), a partnership between Scott Stiteler and Don Martin. In exchange for free land, the City expects DTDC to make contributions to the Rialto Theatre, Warehouse Arts Management Organization, Skrappy’s, and possibly the Facade Improvement Program.

(My disclosure: As the former executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance and Downtown Tucson Partnership for several years, I know the properties and most of the characters very well. I don’t know Scott Stiteler, but I have been friendly with Don Martin for about five years. The Rialto Theatre Foundation’s executive director Doug Biggers and board president Michael Crawford are friends of mine. I used to be an active board member of WAMO, and more recently, an inactive board member of WAMO. I support the missions of both the Rialto and WAMO, and I support the City’s efforts to improve Tucson’s downtown. I also wish Stiteler and Martin the best with the development of their properties, and I hope they make lots of money doing it. Just not at taxpayer expense.)

The main element of this agreement is the giveaway of $4 million or more in City-owned real estate to DTDC, with contributions from DTDC to the Rialto Theatre, WAMO, and Skrappy’s that add up to far less than $4 million in real value. DTDC is a new company, formed after Martin bought out the interest of Doug Biggers in the 50/50 partnership of Biggers and Martin in the Rialto Block. Stiteler has been the man behind Williams and Dame Development, which left Tucson several months ago, just after their presence helped sell the first part of this deal to the City Council.

Last December, desperation led the City Council to approve the Pre-development Agreement for this deal, without proper due diligence, without proper consideration of the consequences, without proper public vetting. People were warned that they had to fall in line behind it, or else. It was the same month when desperation led the Council to sell $80 million in Rio Nuevo bonds at the worst time imaginable in terms of financing costs, so they could tie up the TIF revenue stream before the state legislature could take the funding away. That act of desperation will cost the taxpayers of Tucson millions of dollars in excess interest.

Now, six months later, the City Council is up against a deadline it never should have faced; make a deal now with DTDC or pay up. Around $950,000 to reimburse DTDC for costs they’ve incurred. Wow, I know of developers who were induced to spend a lot more than that on projects they thought they were being awarded in Downtown Tucson, and they didn’t get reimbursed a nickel. What happens if the deal goes through? Well, the City must pay DTDC $800,000 for the completion of the Concept Plan. The City pays (overpays) for that work either way. For perspective on that, consider that the entire Rio Nuevo Master Plan, adopted in 2001 with multiple consultants and lots of public outreach, cost the City $600,000!

The idea of giving away valuable real estate that fronts on Speedway, on Congress, and on Broadway should give all Tucson citizens pause. But when you consider how little is being required of the developer to provide, it is truly disturbing. When you break it down, the developer is promising to invest in his own property, and to invest a little more in the theater, which obviously enhances the value of DTDC’s property. The developer is throwing a little money ($300,000) at Skrappy’s, the Downtown Façade Program, and the Warehouse Arts Management Organization (WAMO), and it has until 2014 to make all those payments. In exchange, they get credits for $4 million in City real estate, which may be paid with the conveyance of the old Broadway Volvo site, the Congress frontage to the Ronstadt Transit Center, and part of the corner of Speedway and Stone. This after the same developer got a gonga deal on the Martin Luther King Apartments ($350,000) and also has air rights over the Depot Plaza garage to construct another residential building. And, the Rialto Block (the developer’s property) has been awarded one of four façade improvement grants from the City, for six figures. (More disclosure: I supported the Rialto Block’s façade grant award when I was on the selection committee at the Downtown Tucson Partnership last summer.)

Some property is being conveyed to the theater, but it holds nowhere near the value that makes this deal fair to both the City and the developer. And the developer is counting the construction of an elevator that the foundation does not want or need as a contribution to the theatre, in order to earn part of its credit. Why is the City not protecting the viability of its own asset, the historic Rialto Theatre? This is the time to ensure its future, by requiring the developer to whom it is giving valuable downtown real estate, to convey all of the portions of property the developer already owns and that the theater needs, to the Rialto Theatre Foundation, which manages the theatre on behalf of Rio Nuevo. The Rialto is one of a very short list of Rio Nuevo successes, yet the City acts as if it were a nuisance, and as if the City/Rio Nuevo doesn’t in fact own the building. And of course, the City needs to get true dollar-for-dollar value on the deal overall. The contributions made by the developer need to have the same real value as the properties that the City is promising to give up.

Five years ago, desperation led the City Council to approve an ill-advised deal on the former Thrifty Block. Whoever won the competition for the rights to build on that site would get the land, cleared of the old buildings, and the Indian Village Trading Post building next door, for $100. Bourn Partners won that competition, and they worked diligently to make The Post condo project work. Whatever combination of factors (mostly the housing bubble bursting) led to that development not getting off the ground, the City failed to include a reversion clause in its sale and development agreement. Once the deed was transferred to Bourn, there was nothing the City could do. So now it sits, the empty land, and the empty building. Even the Indian Village shop has long since relocated to La Placita in expectation that the Hotel Arizona was going to be redeveloped next door—two years ago!

Ask a General Manager from a pro sports franchise: Sometimes the best deal you can make is the one you don’t make. Two years from now, we should be out of the recession and the modern streetcar will be almost ready to roll into Downtown. Developers will be lining up, looking to pay the City market value for those properties, especially the one in front of the Ronstadt Center. The developer should already be properly incentivized to lease out his own space at One North Fifth and in the 200 E. Congress block. But with this deal, fully 40%, or $1.6 million in credits, is “earned” by the developer simply for leasing out space that he already owns.

Why let desperation to make something happen lead us to giving away the store?

Donovan Durband

kaneui

Jun 21, 2009, 12:50 AM

The east end of downtown is seeing some activity this summer, with the opening of the new 4th Ave. underpass and retailers arriving at One North Fifth:

Fourth Avenue Underpass to open Aug. 20
May 19, 2009 (7:05 pm)
Downtown Tucson News

The Fourth Avenue Underpass - a major artery connecting the University of Arizona, Fourth Avenue and area neighborhoods with Downtown - will open Aug. 20.

A big celebration is being planned by merchant groups on both sides of the underpass, the Old Pueblo Trolley folks, the City of Tucson and project coordinators. More information will be rolled out as it becomes available. But, save the date! This is a party you won’t want to miss.

Read more about it in the July/August issue of the Downtown Tucsonan - the Downtown Partnership’s free news magazine, available throughout Downtown and the city.

_________________________________________________

Retail center at One North Fifth quickly emerging
June 12, 2009 (11:00 am)
By Teya Vitu
Downtown Tucson News

The newly built commercial spaces alongside One North Fifth Apartments should have businesses in place by the time the Fourth Avenue underpass reopens in August. Leasing agent Patricia Schwabe is finalizing terms with three businesses that will fill the Congress Street frontage.

Xoom Juice, which has three other Tucson locations, is the only business so far announcing its pending Downtown arrival with a placard at One North Fifth. Schwabe said Yoga Oasis intends to open its third local studio at One North Fifth, and a gym with stationary bicycles also is expected.

“We are pushing everybody to open when the underpass opens Aug. 20,” Schwabe said. “In the next two months, it will all happen. At least half the space will be occupied when the underpass opens.” One North Fifth is the remodeled results of a conversion of the former Martin Luther King Jr. Apartments. The business strip runs along the foot of the apartment structure.

http://www.downtowntucson.org/

kaneui

Jun 21, 2009, 1:23 AM

Can Glenn Lyons pull off what Rio Nuevo was unable to do for 10 years? As new CEO of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, and armed with staffers from the City Planning Dept., he is showing numerous local developers and property owners a draft of a new 93-page document outlining a new vision for revitalizing downtown Tucson and beyond--with or without Rio Nuevo. (As jaded as most of us have become regarding downtown revitalization, any ray of hope in this economic downturn is encouraging.)

Rethinking Downtown boundaries tenet of revitalization plan
By Teya Vitu
Downtown Tucson News

A new Downtown revitalization plan spells out 58 recommendations to create a modern urban setting stretching from the Downtown skyscrapers to Park Place. This plan, still in draft form, takes as comprehensive a look at Downtown’s future as Downtown Tucson Partnership CEO Glenn Lyons could envision. It’s a vision that fills 93 pages. It addresses Downtown’s strength and weaknesses, and proposes ways to make Downtown safer, more attractive, exciting and livable as well as a better place for commerce and development.

Two inherent challenges face any renaissance: the Downtown core’s tiny footprint barely more than six blocks in any direction; and Downtown sits near the city’s western edge, many miles from the recent housing booms to the northwest and southeast. Perhaps a new concept in the 50-year Downtown revitalization debate, this plan is largely tied to creating an urban setting along Broadway to Park Place - the same real estate included in the Rio Nuevo Tax Increment Finance district.

Urban setting defined: Build to the front sidewalk and thus prohibit parking in front of buildings. Combine that with rezoning to allow a mix of low-scale offices and stacked townhouses and apartment complexes along Broadway. "We have to start thinking of Downtown as part of a bigger area," Lyons said. "We have to start to think of this as a central corridor, where we can build an urban environment with Downtown as something special at the end."

The report points out the Broadway corridor to Park Place has 13 acres of vacant land and 862 acres of land with one-story buildings largely built decades ago. "Had all of this activity been combined in one place," the draft plan states, "Tucson would have the makings of a Downtown appropriate for a city of 1 million people. In ’Tucson fashion,’ however, its urban activities are ’stretched’ over 6.5 miles of Broadway Boulevard." With or without Rio Nuevo, Lyons wants to press ahead with revitalizing Downtown, first by winning community support for the plan and building coalitions to carry out the recommendations. "I don’t think there’s one idea in here that the Partnership can implement on its own," Lyons said. Albert Elias, director of the city’s Urban Planning and Design Department, attended the recent unveiling of the plan to about 30 Downtown developers and property owners. "I think (the recommendations) merit consideration by the entire community," Elias said. "We need to focus on who are the partners and leaders who can implement these things."

Michael Guymon, executive director of the Metropolitan Pima Alliance, also listened to Lyons’ presentation. He has collaborated with the city Development Services Department to try to change the zoning process but "that doesn’t get us to the finish line either." "I think this is the right plan, hopefully at the right time," Guymon said. "It’s refreshing that we have someone with great experience doing these things. The problem I have historically seen is the lack of follow through. That’s the 64 dollar question."
Guymon was especially intrigued by the plan’s call to bring elements of the University of Arizona and Pima Community College directly Downtown. Lyons has a strong desire to have a college presence Downtown as is the case in many big cities, where colleges fill office buildings.

Lyons acknowledged the full breadth of this revitalization plan could take 20 or more years, and the Partnership will have to "pick and choose" causes to pursue and build coalitions to carry them out. But he already has his sights on improving existing structures as a first step: restore the original facades of dozens of early 20th century buildings; refurbish the 1970s Tucson Music Hall and Leo Rich Theatre; restore the Tucson Center for the Performing Arts (also known as the Cursillo) on Sixth Avenue; and recapitalize the Fox Theatre, the Beowulf Alley Theatre and the Screening Room. "These buildings are Downtown’s secret advantages," the plan states. "They will provide Downtown Tucson with the authentic character that cities throughout North America are desperately seeking."

"I like what he said about taking care of what we already have," said Buzz Isaacson, a broker for CB Richard Ellis specializing in Downtown office properties. "The challenge? It starts with Development Services." The plan directly addresses the challenges of working with the city Development Services Department. The department elicits widespread frustration from developers and builders for drastically slowing down projects because of unclear regulations and the long time it takes for building permits and business licenses to get issued. Recommendation No. 12 calls for the city to "create a new assisting culture” in Development Services by changing the development review process. "The two things that stand out for me: zoning and changing Development Services; and the streetcar is the most important development of them all," Lyons said. "We’ve got to put Albert (Elias) and Ernie (Duarte, the Development Services director) to the test to make change happen."

The draft plan has been presented to the Southern Arizona Leadership Council and a large group of Downtown developers and property owners. Lyons has also unveiled his plan to Downtown merchants, arts organizations and the general public. He is seeking feedback from all with the desire to present the revised plan to the Downtown Tucson Partnership Board of Directors in July. "That becomes a template we can work from," Lyons said. "It’s up to us to push it. We have to build coalitions, and pick and choose projects."

The 58 recommendations are diverse. A few are:

Sell the Ronstadt Transit Center land and redevelop that parcel.

Move the city’s and university’s radio and television operations Downtown.

Establish a policy not requiring affordable housing within market-rate housing projects, but also craft an affordable housing policy.

Revamp Downtown parking and better inform the public how to find parking, how much it costs, and adopt different parking meter and garage rates and time limits for the most heavily used spaces.

Turn Jacome Plaza at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library into a premier outdoor event space, and build an office building at the plaza’s northwest corner.

http://www.downtowntucson.org/

kaneui

Jun 24, 2009, 8:31 PM

4th Avenue Underpass Celebration August 20th
August 20, 2009 4:30pm to 10:00pm
FREE

* LOCATION: On 4th Avenue and 9th Street. NOTE: While I-10 is under construction, Click here for official construction information, we recommend you exit Interstate 10 at Prince (southbound) or 29th St. (northbound) and take the frontage roads. Click here for Directions.

A “Grand Opening” celebration for the 4th Avenue Underpass is scheduled for August 20th. 4:30pm to 10pm. After two years of construction, the underpass will finally be open to the public. The connection to downtown will be complete and once again visitors to the heart of the city can travel to and from the 4th Avenue shopping area to Downtown Tucson. The new “Bigger” underpass is a welcomed link between Downtown Tucson and 4th Avenue. A special Thank you to Sundt Construction Company who is on schedule and doing a beautiful job. We are all looking forward to the Old Pueble Trolley route extension to downtown. More specific event information about this event will be posted on this website. 4th Avenue Explore it!

http://www.fourthavenue.org/

kaneui

Jun 25, 2009, 12:08 AM

I generally resist posting too many details of the often byzantine negotiations between local developers and City Hall, but this summary by Jim Nintzel on the latest proposal involving the Rialto Theatre is not atypical of recent downtown development deals:

THE BIG FOLD
by Jim Nintzel
Tucson Weekly ("The Skinny" column)
June 25, 2009

With a unanimous vote, the Tucson City Council last week asked developers Scott Stiteler and Don Martin for a few more weeks to work out details in the complex downtown-development agreement they've been hammering out for the last six months. In response, Stiteler and Martin walked away from the deal, which would have the developers rehabbing some of their own property (including the Rialto block), passing out some cash to various downtown beneficiaries (including youth-club Skrappy's and the Warehouse Arts Management Organization) and jumping through a few more hoops. In exchange, they would have received about $4 million in city property, including a former Volvo dealership on Broadway Boulevard east of downtown, and some of the Ronstadt Transit Center property along Congress Street.

A major sticking point was the future of the Rialto Theatre, which is owned by the city and leased to the Rialto Theatre Foundation. Michael Crawford, an attorney who serves as president of the foundation's board, has been pushing to include the Rialto in the deal. Two weeks ago, the City Council, recognizing that they should protect their own asset, urged the developers to work out their differences with the Rialto Foundation, which wants "bays" on both sides of the theatre's lobby and a building behind the theatre that's used as a green room for the artists and office space for the Rialto staff. We'll remind readers that the Rialto's executive director is Doug Biggers, the former editor and publisher of the Tucson Weekly. That said, we believe the Rialto needed to be part of the deal, because it's easily the most successful element of Rio Nuevo and has succeeded in its mission of bringing people downtown, who then spend money in the nearby bars and restaurants before and after shows. Over the last four years, the Rialto has hosted more than somewhere around 500 shows that have lured more than 300,000 patrons through its doors.

The developers clearly recognize the power of the Rialto as a magnet. They've tried for the last six months to go into business with the Rialto, which wisely decided against entering into a financial partnership with Stiteler and Martin. The two developers told the City Council earlier this month that they couldn't afford to include the Rialto's request for additional space in their swap with the city. But once they saw that the council was intent on protecting its asset, they capitulated and agreed to turn over the bays to the city as part of the deal. They also offered to let the Rialto continue using the building behind the theater rent-free for the next five years, with market-rate leases after that. But in return, they wanted an easement giving them permanent access to the upstairs balcony of the theater. If they couldn't go into business with the Rialto Foundation, they wanted the next best thing: An easy way to draw the Rialto's patrons into their bar.

The Rialto Foundation was willing to discuss access to the theater, but was concerned about granting a permanent easement—especially when that request appeared without prior notice in the developer's "final offer." More troubling was the fact that the agreement to turn over property to the Rialto was not set in stone in the document the council was asked to approve last week. Instead, the two parties had six months to work out the details. Stiteler and Martin could have walked away from that portion of the deal without the theater getting anything at all—an element that left the foundation's attorneys very uneasy about the whole arrangement.

The parties might have been able to work out their differences, but Rialto officials say Martin and Stiteler walked away from negotiations with the theater on Wednesday, June 10, saying they'd made their final offer (and evidently believing they had four votes on the City Council to approve their deal). Then they delivered a revised document to the city on Friday, June 12, with a request that it be approved on Tuesday, June 16. That didn't give council members much time to review the details and suggest changes. So the City Council made the reasonable request for a few more weeks to work out their differences. Instead, Stiteler and Martin walked away—which suggests to us that they weren't all that interested in getting the deal done.

With the collapse of the deal, Stiteler and Martin can exercise an option in their contract with the city that allows them to collect up to $950,000 in expenses that they've racked up while putting the deal together. Whether the city will actually owe them that much remains to be seen. As Councilwoman Shirley Scott has pointed out, the final deal that was delivered to the council bore little resemblance to the original proposal laid out when this whole mess started. Stiteler and Martin lost a partner; developer Jim Campbell split off and made his own deal with the council, approved earlier this month, to build housing and commercial spaces east of the theater and near the new Fourth Avenue underpass. And the developers fired Williams and Dame, the Portland, Ore., planners whose reputation for downtown redevelopment lured the council into the deal in the first place.

Martin and Stiteler appear to be unhappy that the Rialto Foundation blocked their deal with the city. Within days of the council's request for more time, they informed the Rialto Foundation that it would now have to start paying $4,375 a month in rent on the spaces they've been using for free since October, when Stiteler bought out Biggers' interest in the Rialto block. As a condition to approving the month-to-month lease, the developers also expect the Rialto to pay back rent, which comes out to somewhere around $40,000. That's a ballsy request, since there had never been any agreement between the parties to pay any back rent.

It's obvious that the squeeze is on. In response, the Rialto Foundation is suggesting the city take another step to preserve its asset: Condemn the property the theater needs through eminent domain, pay an appraised price for it, and let the developers get on with whatever projects they plan to do downtown.

kaneui

Jun 25, 2009, 3:09 AM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/newMOCAbldg.jpg
render of Fire Dept. hqtrs. conversion to new Museum of Contemporary Art
(render: MOCA)

MOCA receives $80,000 Andy Warhol Foundation grant
By Teya Vitu
Downtown Tucson News
June 24, 2009

The Museum of Contemporary Art was recently got notified of its third grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which has given the museum nearly a quarter million dollars in the past two years. The $80,000 exhibition-programming grant comes from a program for which the most prestigious art museums compete, said Anne-Marie Russell, MOCA’s executive director. “I didn’t think we’d get it,” Russell said. “I thought if we got it, we’d get $25,000.”

The money will allow MOCA to upgrade the exhibitions at its first museum when it opens early next year in the current Tucson Fire Department Headquarters. Russell said the prestige of this Warhol grant would allow her to leverage it toward other programming grants. “I plan to double that with other grants,” she said.

MOCA received a $110,000 capacity building grant in 2007 from the Warhol Foundation that was used to acquire financial management, donor management, art tracking management and archives systems. It also provided a cash reserve for working capital, Russell said. A second Warhol grant for $50,000 in 2008 will fund construction work to convert the fire station into an art museum. “This continues to demonstrate to politicians and business leaders that this is a quality organization to be taken seriously,” Russell said.

kaneui

Jun 28, 2009, 6:35 PM

Any bright ideas for the city's dirt pile west of I-10? The Gadsden Co. wants to begin developing the parcel early next year, so send your creative suggestions to Rio Nuevo staffer Jessie Sanders:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/Mercadodirt.jpg
The dirt piled up west of I-10 was meant to raise cultural elements of Rio Nuevo
above the flood plain. But those projects look mighty iffy, so the dirt sits there.
(photo: James S. Wood)

What will we do with all that dirt?
By Josh Brodesky
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.28.2009

One of Downtown's most prominent monuments will soon be moving — although no one yet knows where. Over the past few years you may have noticed a massive pile of dirt along Congress Street just west of Interstate 10. It seemed temporary enough at first. Just an enormous mound of earth briefly caught between two projects. Maybe the sheer volume — 70,000 cubic yards, about 8,000 dump trucks — seemed a little odd, but then the years passed and the dirt remained, blending into the background. It sort of became our dirt. But now the city has to move the dirt, most likely by the end of the year. It sits on land optioned to The Gadsden Co., one of the builders connected to the Mercado San Agustín, a private mixed-use commercial and residential development. Gadsden has plans to build some rental commercial buildings on the corner of West Congress and Avenida del Convento. The project will start in the first quarter, so the dirt must go. "Our lenders looked at that and asked us what it was, so we made a request" for the city to move it, said Jerry Dixon, a partner with Gadsden.

Briefly, here's the dirt on the dirt: It hails from the Cherry Field Detention Basin. The city had planned to use it to raise many of the cultural and heritage projects in and around the Mercado San Agustín out of the flood plain at the site. But now those West Side Rio Nuevo projects — museums, underground parking, a cultural plaza — may never happen as the city, under scrutiny from the state, has shifted its focus for Rio Nuevo to the Downtown hotel and Convention Center renovation. So instead of moving the dirt, the city has left it alone until it can figure out the right use.

For builders involved with the Mercado San Agustín, which features high-end custom homes starting right around $300,000, the dirt has become an extra challenge in what's already a brutal housing market. It's an eyesore that also kicks up dust and sometimes scares away prospective buyers who look at it and wonder, "What the?" It doesn't help matters that there is also a big hole in the ground just south of the Mercado District. The hole was once going to be a parking garage and some of the dirt was supposed to go towards that project, but now it's on hold, and the hole is surrounded by chain-link fence. "You see the pile of dirt all around," said Dante Archangeli, a partner in Tucson Artisan Builders, which has built six custom homes in the Mercado District. "If it gets windy, the dirt blows off the pile. … A lot of people do come down and the major number one question I get is, 'What is the city doing with all of their stuff?' They see the big hole in the ground, and they see the big pile of dirt."

Enter Jessie Sanders, who was named Rio Nuevo project coordinator a few weeks ago and is now tasked with solving the dirt riddle. "It doesn't matter what we do with the dirt, someone is going to have a problem," he said. Consider the options Sanders is facing. The city could keep the dirt on site, but that doesn't work because Gadsden needs it to be moved. The dirt could be moved to a new location, but that's expensive. The city could sell the dirt, but then what if the city needs the dirt in the future? Or finally, the city could fill the big hole near the development, which would look pretty dumb if the underground garage ever happens. "We are looking at options right now," Sanders said. "The best scenario is to work it in to whatever (other construction) is going on."

One of those options might be spreading the dirt over the back 13 acres where the Science Center was supposed to go. Even though the project is on hold, the site still needs to be above the area's flood plain. But I sort of think the city should turn it into an attraction called "The Mound of Dreams." People would come from miles around to marvel at it. If you dump it, they will come. I'm kidding, of course. And the truth is there is nothing funny about the challenges the builders at the Mercado are facing as the city struggles to finish/start projects there. "The dirt isn't the point. The dirt is really kind of secondary," said Albert Elias, the city's planning director. "If you are one of those builders, what you want the city to do is build out the project because that is ultimately going to enhance the value of their lots."

Indeed, while the dirt is an immediately pressing point, the private developers working in the Mercado District have invested roughly $25 million largely based on the assumption the city would deliver on cultural projects. "The question is, what is the appropriate stuff to put there?" said Tom Wuelpern, of Rammed Earth Development, which has built eight homes in the Mercado. "If stuff is on hold, maybe it's time to revisit what belongs there."

kaneui

Jun 29, 2009, 7:22 PM

A creative and cost-effective solution--instead of the usual banners tied to light poles, the Tucson CVB will use numerous artistic panels to serve as downtown guideposts and promote local events:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/DowntownPanels.jpg
The panels have a motif that includes a Gila monster and desert peaks.
(photo: Tucson CVB)

New Downtown art to serve as welcome guideposts for visitors
10 panels will formally debut this week and can be fitted with varied messages

By Enric Volante
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.29.2009

Workers are to install 10 15-foot-tall works of "directional art" around Downtown this week to welcome and guide convention groups and other visitors. Tourism officials said the steel-and-glass structures, commissioned for $25,000, will be good for Downtown and business. "When groups come in and they feel welcome and appreciated, they'll come back," said Kimberly Schmitz, public-relations director for the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau. The community used banners to welcome visitors to gem shows, baseball spring training and other events. But banners were expensive and unwieldy to change, Schmitz said. The 10 art structures all look the same, but a 4-foot-wide slot accommodates different promotional banners.

Eight months ago, the bureau approached the Tucson Pima Arts Council, which put out the word to artists and helped choose the winning design, Schmitz said. Artist Alex Heveri said the groups wanted a theme "that would be iconic of Tucson." Her design includes a solar lighting system that turns on at night, plus images of a Gila monster and peaks that resemble the Tucson Mountains. "While Gila monsters aren't specific to Tucson, they're specific to the Southwest, and I didn't want to do another cactus or saguaro," Heveri said. Heveri, an attorney with the Pima County Legal Defenders Office and an artist for 14 years, said she spent her $25,000 fee on materials. Friends pitched in to help with the work. The art will be placed at sites within a one-mile radius of the Tucson Convention Center plaza and unveiled Thursday.

kaneui

Jul 1, 2009, 7:42 PM

New restaurants and club coming to downtown:

Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches coming Downtown
July 01, 2009
By Teya Vitu
http://www.downtowntucson.org

Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches is destined to move in next door to the On a Roll Sushi restaurant on Congress Street later this year. McLellan Building owner John Wesley Miller signed a five-year lease last week with Tucson franchise owner Nick Schaffer to bring Tucson’s fifth Jimmy John’s to Miller’s building at Congress and Scott Avenue. Schaffer said the eatery is expected to open in three to six months. “I feel a lot of dedicated business people and entrepreneurs are really committed to turn (downtown) around,” Schaffer said. “People are so passionate about it that it will happen.”

Shaffer opened his first Jimmy John’s in July 2003 near the University of Arizona at 749 N. Park Ave. In 2007 and 2008, he opened other Jimmy John’s at 5411 E. Broadway, 2485 N. Swan Road, 4695 N. Oracle Road. Schaffer said Tucson has the only Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches in Arizona. The Champaign, Ill.-based company has 690 stores across the country, according to its Web site. Schaffer describes Jimmy John’s as “fast, casual, quick service, with emphasis on quick. We don’t serve bread older than four hours.”

Miller is also in talks with potential tenants for the corner space next to Jimmy John’s in the former department store. “In the last few months, more and more people are thinking of moving downtown,” Miller said. Miller said he still has 20,000 square feet available to lease at McLellan, including the entire lower level underground. On a Roll fills 2,700 square feet, Jimmy John’s will take 1,500 square feet, and Miller’s office in the back uses about 1,000 square feet.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Club, maybe steakhouse, to open in Downtown Tucson
By Coley Ward
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
07.01.2009

Luke Cusack, who owns Pearl Nightclub, is getting ready to open a new Downtown club called Zen Rock, in the space that used to house Asylum. Cusack didn’t deliver on a past promise to open a new Downtown club — remember talk in early 2008 about a “party club” at 61 E. Congress St., the spot that once housed Heart Five? But he seems serious about this one at 121 E. Congress St. He’s even begun hiring.

Cusack says the decor at Zen Rock is Oriental meets rock ’n’ roll, and the music will be mostly dance music. “We’ve got autographed guitars from Sammy Hagar and Bon Jovi,” he says. “And a drum set from Mick Fleetwood.” Cusack says the club will usually have a $5 cover, and mixed drinks will cost $3.75. He hopes to launch his new club on July 16, and he says he’ll also open a second Downtown club later this summer with a Downtown steakhouse, tentatively named Steak In The Neighborhood, to follow.

kaneui

Jul 3, 2009, 2:04 AM

In spite of impassioned pleas such as this one, the city's Historic Preservation Committee signed off on TEP's demolition permit for the historic Santa Rita Hotel:

The Santa Rita's demolition continues downtown's trend of destroying history
by Ken Scoville
Tucson Weekly - Guest Opinion
June 18, 2009

Will the relocation of Tucson Electric Power's headquarters to downtown Tucson become the latest tragedy in the revitalization of downtown? Typically, corporate headquarters become trophy buildings that have a revitalization impact similar to that of a mausoleum. The chosen location is the property at Scott Avenue and Broadway Boulevard, where the grandest of our downtown hotels stood until the wrecking ball was brought in on a cold December day in 1972. The original Santa Rita Hotel of 1904, designed by Henry Trost, was demolished, but an addition constructed in 1917 was retained. In grand Tucson style, this landmark hotel was replaced by surface parking and a single-story restaurant.

Now, the current owners plan to "improve" the site by demolishing the 1917 addition as part of the sale to TEP, thus continuing the mentality that any existing resources on site are of little value from an historic or green perspective. Nothing says "no way" like a speedy demolition before any real plans are completed. Any claim that the 1917 addition might be historic has been all tidied up with an evaluation that looks at the stucco-ed 1970s exterior. It gets messy if you ask whether there are resources underneath that have integrity. The city always supports the "one blind date" approach, and there is never time for a second look, even though we will soon have another vacant lot in the name of downtown revitalization.

The city of Tucson historic preservation officer endorses this "don't look" approach. He is quickly becoming the Neville Chamberlain of historic-preservation, given this endorsement and his recent support of demolishing more than half of the Ghost Ranch Lodge on Miracle Mile Road. We are told not to harbor any thoughts that this project could become another Thrifty Block, since TEP is all ready to go and will be bringing 300 employees. And it's too big to fail. The 1917 addition is constructed with reinforced concrete and certainly could be reused, but TEP is taking the same stand with this as it is the historic issue. Their preliminary plans choose demolition, despite all the green issues regarding the energy used to make the materials, build the 1917 addition and demolish the building. TEP wants a shiny new green building, and one of the closing requirements is that ever-important vacant lot when the deed is recorded.

A successful downtown revitalization needs to restore what made this a major gathering spot for the Tucson community in decades past. There is plenty of space on the site to accomplish this and allow the headquarters for Tucson Electric Power. The 1917 addition could be retained and restored for office use now, with design elements that would allow residential use in the future. Could we actually plan for future uses or expansions rather than mimic La Placita and other downtown buildings with little flexibility for residential use? This could be a great opportunity for future TEP employees who might like to walk to work and have an urban experience. A new lobby could connect the 1917 addition to the TEP building and serve as a community-gathering spot, as did the original lobby of the Santa Rita Hotel—a public lobby that is designed for people rather than just as a passageway to the elevators as can be seen at the UniSource Tower.

The original Santa Rita Hotel quickly became the place in small-town Tucson during its grand opening in 1904. The two-story lobby was a marble showplace that in later decades became famous as the site of cattle auctions, with straw laid down before the cattle were checked in. The Mission-Revival-designed hotel also featured a rooftop patio where the community danced almost all night during special occasions. This rooftop gathering spot could be brought back on the top of the new lobby, or even the parking garage, as a completely "new" venue for downtown. Downtown revitalization is about incorporating the past with the future, and constructing buildings that can be adapted for different uses and desires for future urban experiences. This is not interfering with private-property rights, but changing the mentality and egos of our movers and shakers, elected or not. The real tragedy is that except for the protection of a few landmark buildings, we continue the very actions that have brought our downtown to its knees.

kaneui

Jul 4, 2009, 8:37 AM

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/RitzCarltonDM.jpg
The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, seen in an aerial photo, will open on
schedule in October despite shaky market conditions, officials of
the Marana resort say.
(photo: Ritz-Carlton)

Ritz stays the course amid uncertainty
Posh resort in Marana nearly finished, on track for opening in late fall

By Dale Quinn
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
07.04.2009

It may be one of the toughest years to open a full-service luxury resort and spa, but the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, is pushing full-steam ahead. The hotel bustled with construction activity Thursday, and resort officials said the work will be done in October. The 250-room resort should open in late fall, said General Manager Michael McMahon, but he wouldn't get specific about an exact date. Fully staffed, the resort will employ between 350 and 450 people, with most coming from the Tucson area rather than transfers from other Ritz-Carlton hotels, McMahon said.

But by any measure, it's not an ideal time to be opening a resort. Occupancy rates are at historic lows. Luxury digs in Tucson and across the country have slashed prices to attract customers. And that means resort owners are pulling in less money from each room. Resort officials likely would prefer to open under better circumstances, said Brian Baltin, a senior vice president with PKF Consulting, which tracks the hotel and resort industry. "They are going to have challenges, many more than they would have if they opened in 2005 or even 2006," Baltin said. "But assuming they're financed adequately and they've got the financial staying power, in the long term, they won't be affected."

McMahon is optimistic that the Ritz-Carlton, which sits in the Tortolita Mountains northwest of Tucson, will open as the hotel industry rebounds. He said Ritz-Carlton is growing despite these tough times. The brand has plans to open four hotels in the United States. "You have to focus on delivering value and I think in difficult economic times, people migrate to brands they can trust and brands that can deliver extraordinary resort experiences," McMahon said. The resort at 15000 N. Secret Springs Drive in Marana will offer Ritz's level of luxury — the linens will have a 400-thread count, the pool will feature a slide four stories tall, and the spa will offer tanning areas where water bubbles up from under rocks. Added to this will be a distinctly "Old West" flavor, McMahon said — the woodwork is hewn of mesquite and Arizona juniper, for instance. He said Ritz-Carlton aims to have the resort become the first in the Tucson area to achieve AAA's highest rating of five diamonds.

Under normal circumstances, the emergence of a luxury brand like Ritz-Carlton and the prestige it carries would benefit all Tucson resorts, said Brian Johnson, the managing director of Loews Ventana Canyon Resort. But these aren't normal times, he said. "When you add new inventory to an already depressed market, we start seeing pricing coming down," Johnson said. "And I'm sure Ritz is not going in with their normal plan in opening a hotel." In fact, it's probably the worst time to open a luxury property since World War II, said David Brudney of David Brudney & Associates, a hospitality marketing consultant based in Carlsbad, Calif. "They're going to be hard-pressed to do well," Brudney said. He based that assessment on occupancy rates and revenue per available room for Arizona resorts. Luxury resorts have felt pressure from both the bad economy and the "AIG effect," Brudney said. The "AIG effect" has led many companies to reconsider spending cash on luxurious retreats at posh getaways since the notorious retreats taken by executives from the insurance company American International Group, or AIG, which got billions in taxpayer bailout dollars.

The resort could succeed and eventually thrive, though, if it does three things, Brudney said:
• Ensures it has proper funding to cover the first six to nine months of operation if occupancy rates are lower than expected.
• Does proper sales and marketing connected with its target audience of both leisure and group business travelers.
• Secures bookings from the group market in advance of the opening date.

McMahon said the main draw for the Ritz-Carlton is that it provides an ultimate package of golf, spa and outdoor activities. "If we're not dealing an extraordinary experience with the perception of value, we're failing," McMahon said. And when it comes to business travelers, the Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain, has 10,000 confirmed group room bookings for meetings and special events starting in January, he said. But while McMahon stressed value in the Ritz's packages, he acknowledged it's a brand associated with luxury and that comes with a cost. "They will pay a premium for a premium experience," he said.

kaneui

Jul 5, 2009, 3:35 AM

The intrigue over the future of the Rialto block redevelopment is building by the day, with local articles and blogs providing a slew of passionate opinions. If the ultimate outcome is of interest, you might want to check out the following links and then phone or e-mail city officials with your thoughts before Tuesday. (Rumor has it that the expected fireworks at the July 7 city council meeting could eclipse those set off on "A" Mountain this weekend...)

http://x4mr.blogspot.com/

http://www.azbiz.com/articles/2009/07/03/news/doc4a45162986976503994525.txt

http://tucsoncitizen.com/downtown/

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2009/07/03/rock-the-council-save-the-rialto

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/byauthor/299390

To contact the mayor and council:

Karin Uhlich, 791-4711, ward3@tucsonaz.gov
Regina Romero, 791-4040, regina.romero@tucsonaz.gov
Steve Leal, 791-4231, steve.leal@tucsonaz.gov
Shirley Scott, 791-3100, ward4@tucsonaz.gov
Nina Trasoff, 791-4601, nina.trasoff@tucsonaz.gov
Rodney Glassman, 791-4687, ward2@tucsonaz.gov
Mayor Walkup, 791-4201, mcweb@tucsonaz.gov

kaneui

Jul 5, 2009, 7:38 PM

Although the Downtown Tucson Partnership wants to be perceived as a private entity, the city of Tucson is covering the salaries of its CEO Glenn Lyons and another key staffer, basically making it another branch of city government. (I'm sure the city would like DTP to manage the Rio Nuevo projects as well, but any authority and oversight they are allowed will be decided by the new Rio Nuevo board to be appointed by the state.)

New exec: Smaller steps key to Downtown
By Rob O'Dell
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
07.05.2009

A little over a year and a half ago, Glenn Lyons owned a consulting firm in Calgary, Alberta. Today, he's on track to become the central figure in deciding the future of Tucson's Downtown. City Manager Mike Letcher wants Lyons to take over negotiating Downtown development agreements. He also has proposed assigning several top city staffers to work for Lyons, who is executive director of the public-private partnership intended to redevelop Downtown. Somewhat intense and definitely not lacking in self-confidence, Lyons has solid support among those most in control of Downtown redevelopment.

Downtown Tucson Partnership Board President Steve Lynn said Lyons has decades of experience with downtown development — working with the city planning department, as head of a Canadian group similar to the partnership and then later as a private consultant. He's worked on issues key to Tucson's Downtown revitalization, including work with affordable housing, Lynn said. "His background is suited to the goals of Downtown Tucson," Lynn said. "He understands all the nuances." Councilwoman Nina Trasoff is a supporter as well. "Glenn is uniquely qualified to be the person spearheading redevelopment of Downtown Tucson because he has demonstrated his ability to succeed at the task," Trasoff said. "His work in revitalizing downtown Calgary, Alberta, and his qualifications as an urban planner made him the right choice to run the Downtown Tucson Partnership. He is the right person to work with both the city and the private sector to bring success to our Downtown." Lynn said he is not troubled by the partnership's new links to the city — with Lyons responsible for writing development plans and overall Downtown planning, and the transfer of city staff members to the partnership at taxpayer expense. "The partnership was designed to do some of this work," Lynn said. "We think the plan Mike Letcher put together is a good one. It's a solid plan."

Some have concerns
Not everyone is so enamored of Lyons, however. Margo Susco, the owner of Downtown's Hydra Leather and More, said her first concern is Lyons' $130,000 salary and the $65,000 salary of his deputy, who works four days a week, eats up a good chunk of the partnership budget. Moreover, the partnership has become less focused on the Downtown merchants, she said, and more "elitist," with a focus on the developers who sit on the partnership's board. That's underscored by the fact that she has met Lyons only once, while the previous leadership of the Downtown group was often out on the street talking to the merchants, Susco said. "I, at no time, have seen him," Susco said. "There's a disconnect and an apathy towards merchants."

The disconnect is shown, Susco said, by Tucson's recent loss of the Arizona State H.O.G. (Harley-Davidson Owners Group) Rally. Its sponsors decided to go back to Williams, near the Grand Canyon, after three years in Tucson. Richard Studwell, a Downtown-area property owner who was on the Rio Nuevo Citizens Advisory Committee before the city disbanded it, said he never has met Lyons, but he said many see him as a proxy for Downtown promoters Larry Hecker and Councilwoman Trasoff. That perception is enhanced by the fact that Lyons was hired with little public input or notice on a provisional basis in early 2008, Studwell said. Despite an announced plan to have him serve for a year while a national search would be conducted, Lyons was given the job permanently after nine months.

Lyons bristles a bit at the notion that he is furthering some special interest Downtown. He said he was hired by the partnership and reports to the partnership. He added that he didn't want to get into a debate about personalities involved in Downtown because he didn't think it was helpful to the cause of remaking Downtown. "I work for Tucsonans and for Downtown revitalization," Lyons said. "This is another dimension of the partnership. In this case, we're working more closely with the city than we have before. If I can help move us along, I want to do that."

Lyons was set to get two high-ranking former aides of former City Manager Mike Hein — Jaret Barr and Fran LaSala — both of whom made nearly $100,000. The plan still needs approval of the City Council, although it won't include LaSala, who transferred to a management position in his former Department of Environmental Services. Human Resources Director Cindy Bezaury said LaSala had the right to transfer to an open budgeted position in the same salary range, meaning he will keep his $97,000 salary. Lyons said he won't take the new assignment from the city unless he gets the staff needed to do the extra work, although exactly who the individuals will be is uncertain.

Calgary experience will help
Lyons, who grew up in Michigan and holds dual Canadian and American citizenship, attended college in Canada at the University of Windsor in Ontario. He later moved to Calgary, where he spent the bulk of his career. He earned a master's degree in both city planning and business administration from the University of Calgary. He worked as a city planner in Calgary, ran the Calgary Downtown Alliance from 1989 to 1995, and later owned a consulting firm. Despite his short relationship with Tucson and the Southwest, Lyons said his experience in Calgary and vision for Downtown make him well-suited to guide the redevelopment effort. While he has limited familiarity with Tucson's legacy, he says retaining it — redeveloping older buildings rather than tearing them down, and building on the connection with the University of Arizona — is key to creating a Downtown that is distinctly Tucson, while enhancing its urban appeal.

Lyons recently released the draft of a 92-page report with his recommendations of how to best redevelop Downtown. They include more parking, easing rules to redevelop existing buildings, and securing privately run student housing for the University of Arizona. He said those ideas may seem small, but Tucson has swung and missed on its big ideas. He said the two big Downtown projects he supports are the planned modern streetcar between the UA and Downtown, and a new Downtown convention center hotel with an upgraded Tucson Convention Center. "Big, bold ideas haven't succeeded here. There's been too many big, bold ideas," Lyons said. "We need to go back and finish the building blocks."

BrandonJXN

Jul 7, 2009, 6:00 PM

There is a crane going up at the U of A near University and Park. Anyone know what that is?

atbg8654

Jul 7, 2009, 8:00 PM

There is a crane going up at the U of A near University and Park. Anyone know what that is?

Its the dorm project on 6th Street and Euclid

kaneui

Jul 7, 2009, 10:03 PM

There is a crane going up at the U of A near University and Park. Anyone know what that is?

^If you click on the link below for Metro Tucson development, you can see the crane on the webcam for that project.

kaneui

Jul 8, 2009, 6:56 PM

A new 100k s.f. UniSource headquarters building downtown could be six stories and completed by the end of 2012:

UniSource buys Santa Rita Hotel
Company intends to use site to build new headquarters for Tucson Electric Power
By Teya Vitu
http://www.downtowntucson.org/

The shuttered and many times renovated Santa Rita Hotel will give way to a new headquarters office for UniSource Energy Co., the parent company of Tucson Electric Power. The Santa Rita Hotel in one form or another has stood at 88 E. Broadway since 1904, but has sat closed since August 2005. Now UniSource intends to demolish it by the end of the year, power company spokesman Joe Salkowski said. Local apartment magnate Humberto S. Lopez, who has owned the Santa Rita since 1976, sold the property to UniSource/TEP for $6.5 million. The sale closed Thursday.

UniSource plans to build a 100,000-square-foot, possibly six-story structure on the site at Broadway between Scott and Sixth avenues. This would house the 85 employees now in the UniSource Energy Tower, Tucson’s tallest building, and others working near the TEP power plant on Irvington Road, Salkowski said. Plans are to have a new building finished by the end of 2012 at a preliminary cost estimate of about $45 million, he said. "We are currently leasing space in the tower," Salkowski said. "We want to own our own headquarters building."

UniSource approached Lopez about four months ago. "I was never trying to sell it," Lopez said. But he has been open to offers since he closed the Santa Rita in August 2005. "We had a contract to sell it to Pathway Development for $10 million," Lopez said. In 2007, Lopez entered into an agreement with Pathway Development President Mike Teufel and El Charro Cafe CEO Ray Flores Jr., who proposed creating a combined hotel/condominium complex and adding a 99-unit condo tower. Early waves of the mortgage and real estate crisis halted the Pathway project later in 2007, and Lopez then proposed creating his own 167-room boutique hotel at the Santa Rita. Lopez and developer Roger Karber combined the Santa Rita and the Hotel Arizona, which Lopez also owns, into their proposal for a Tucson Convention Center headquarters hotel, but the city rejected their proposal. "When we lost out, I just let it sit there," Lopez said. "TEP came around looking for a site." About a month ago Lopez demolished the long-unused Santa Rita Ballroom that stood at Sixth Avenue and Broadway separate from the hotel. "I just wanted to clear that out," he said. "I didn’t want the roof to fall in."

kaneui

Jul 9, 2009, 3:16 AM

Completed eight months ahead of schedule? If only Rio Nuevo could demonstrate such results...

I-10 project in Tucson could be finished by end of August
By Andrea Kelly
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
07.08.2009

Interstate 10 through Tucson — four lanes of traffic in each direction and all on and off ramps — are now slated to be fully open by the end of August, eight months ahead of the original timetable for the five-mile widening project. The state announced the new freeway re-opening date Wednesday, but cautioned it could slide into early September, depending on the severity of the monsoon season.

The final layer of rubberized asphalt paving needs to be done on the section south of St. Mary’s Road and the paving relies on a dry road surface to set correctly, state officials said. The state has opened two on ramps and one off ramp over the past two months, and will continue opening them where possible over the next month.

kaneui

Jul 9, 2009, 3:45 AM

In spite of long-standing ambitions to establish a vibrant downtown arts district, WAMO still struggles for funding to rehab its historic warehouses:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/Steinfield_warehouse.jpg
While the future looks brighter for downtown's historic
Warehouse District, the Steinfeld building's future remains uncertain.
(photo: Daron Shade)

Art Alive!
Could the city finally be making progress on efforts to rejuvenate the Warehouse District?

by Dave Devine
Tucson Weekly
July 8, 2009

Over the past five years, downtown's historic Warehouse District has been involved in a fight that resembles a rugged boxing match. A series of recent blows to the district threatened to knock out the artists' enclave—but a new proposal just might put the district back on its feet. If approved, the proposal would transfer ownership of three warehouses from the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) to City Hall. According to Andrew Singelakis, of the city's transportation department, the City Council is scheduled to discuss the issue on Aug. 5.

Singelakis says the city would obtain the historic Steinfeld warehouse on Sixth Street. In addition, two structures on Toole Avenue near Sixth Avenue which house artist studios and Skrappy's youth club would be obtained. These properties, Singelakis says, have been valued at $657,000. To cover most of this cost, the city would provide ADOT with a piece of land near Interstate 10 and Congress Street while also taking a credit for improvements it previously made to an ADOT-owned building. At the same time, the city may secure a 99-year easement on the Citizens Transfer warehouse, across the street from the Steinfeld building.

Midtown council representative Nina Trasoff sees these potential steps as real positives. "Securing the buildings will ensure they're in the city's hands," she declares. Where the money will come from to rehabilitate the old structures remains uncertain. "We'll have to wait until money becomes available," Trasoff says about cash-strapped city finances. The possibility of the city obtaining money to acquire and restore the 15 ADOT-owned and artist-occupied buildings which constitute the core of the Warehouse District has been debated for years. At the same time, several steps taken by City Hall and ADOT have had severe impacts on the area:

• The City Council approved a Warehouse District master plan in 2004, but it didn't address how to fund the proposed improvements.

• In the summer of 2006, the city demolished a warehouse building at the corner of Sixth Street and Stone Avenue. This was done in part because of damage to the structure caused by a Tucson Water line leak.

• Later that same year, for safety reasons, the tenants of the Steinfeld warehouse, along with Zee's mineral gallery at Stone and Toole avenues, were told by ADOT to vacate their structures. That order was complied with several months later, and both buildings now sit vacant.

• In 2008, the City Council approved an alignment for the Downtown Links roadway. This route will require the demolition of several warehouses, both ADOT-owned and privately owned.

On a more positive note, the City Council at the end of last year gave the go-ahead to a predevelopment agreement to encourage private-sector improvements downtown. The package included a $2 million revolving line of credit to help rehabilitate the ADOT-owned warehouses. Unfortunately, the agreement was then changed to exclude that rehab money before it completely fell apart, as a result of the ongoing fiasco with the Rialto Theatre. On top of that setback, in May, representatives of the Tucson Fire Department, among others, inspected the 10 ADOT-owned warehouses which had been classified as "dangerous buildings" in a 1999 structural survey. After the inspections, an abatement order was issued on June 17 for six buildings, giving their occupants 60 days to correct the problems or vacate the premises. "We're involved for safety reasons," points out Assistant Fire Chief Randy Ogden. "Can the tenants fix up the buildings? We really hope so."

Woodworker Bob Mick, of Astro Fab on Toole Avenue, had a structural-engineering report prepared on his ADOT-owned space, and predicts: "I think we can take care of all the problems." While the price of that work may be affordable, by many accounts, a huge sum will be needed to rehabilitate the Steinfeld building. These figures go as high as $1.4 million. Can these funds be secured—or will the flagship building of the Warehouse District continue to languish? Will all of the buildings receiving TFD abatement orders be rehabilitated, or some of them deteriorate further? Marvin Shaver, president of the Warehouse Arts Management Organization (WAMO), is hopeful. In addition, Councilman Steve Leal has offered a proposal to obtain some funding. This isn't Leal's first attempt to secure money to restore the ADOT-owned warehouses. A few years ago, he suggested that some Rio Nuevo redevelopment money be set aside for this purpose, but the idea went nowhere.

Now, Leal—who is not running for re-election to the City Council this year—would like to see the city sell the former Volvo dealership site it owns on Broadway Boulevard. The proceeds would go toward settling the Rialto situation, with any balance going, he wrote in a memo last week, "to stabilize and develop the arts warehouses with WAMO." "That's sounds great," Shaver says about Leal's proposal. Leal believes his approach is the best way to ensure the district's future without driving up rental costs beyond the means of most artists. "If we take this seriously," he says, "we get to figure out how to write artists into the district's (future). If we don't, it could become another Scottsdale."

Tito714

Jul 9, 2009, 10:28 PM

It looks like it is way ahead of schedule. i drove through Tucson on Saturday and found it to be a pleasent surprissed that in some stretches there are more than two lanes.
but the part south of congress but north of the interchange still looks like it needs a lot of work to be done.

HooverDam

Jul 9, 2009, 11:49 PM

Anyone else see "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp yet? Theres a scene that takes place in the Hotel Congress. Though it looks like it was just shot in a backlot somewhere, it doesn't look quite exactly like how the building did in my memory anyhow.

kaneui

Jul 10, 2009, 11:00 AM

Glenn Lyons' 93-page draft of a new Downtown Tucson Partnership document, "Revitalizing Downtown Tucson: Building the New Pueblo," is the first of two reports that has been recently circulated among downtown leaders and business owners, and is now available for public review on the DTP website:

http://www.downtowntucson.org/down/RevitalizingDowntown09.pdf

(A brief summary and comments on the report's highlights will follow shortly.)

dintares

Jul 10, 2009, 4:58 PM

I also saw public enemies. The "Hotel Congress" scene was very short (about three minutes). The building didnt look anything like Hotel Congress and was filmed in a small town in Wisconsin I believe. They just planted a cactus out front while filming.

BrandonJXN

Jul 11, 2009, 12:27 AM

^ And even then I don't think Hotel Congress has any catcutses...cacti in front of it.

And I have a question (since I've only been in Tucson since October...originally from Los Angeles): Since Arizona is basically broke and Tucson has been struggling along even before the recession, how is it that NOW, all of these projects (the streetcar, the Convention Center hotel) is starting to come aboard?

Oh..speaking of the streetcar, when will it start construction?

And one more question: Is there plans to remodel a majority of downtown's streets like they did Scott Ave? I really like what it looks like now. Phoenix has the phoenix, we have a orange griffin.

kaneui

Jul 11, 2009, 4:34 AM

how is it that NOW, all of these projects (the streetcar, the Convention Center hotel) is starting to come aboard?

Oh..speaking of the streetcar, when will it start construction?

And one more question: Is there plans to remodel a majority of downtown's streets like they did Scott Ave? I really like what it looks like now. Phoenix has the phoenix, we have a orange griffin.

These Rio Nuevo projects have been in the pipeline for quite sometime, but until the legislature ok'd the continuance of the TIF district, they were basically on hold. Also, the legislature has required that Rio Nuevo funds be spent only for the convention center expansion and new hotel, and other obligations committed prior to June, 2009.

The streetcar is funded by federal transportation monies and the Pima County RTA plan approved by voters in 2006 (although Tucson is still awaiting an additional $50M from the Feds). Further streetcar line work is currently pending FTA approval for utility relocation.

Scott Ave. was Phase I of the Downtown Infrastructure Improvement Project. Next up is a long stretch of Congress where the streetcar line will be, as well as a section of Arizona Ave. After that comes Broadway and a section of 5th Ave. (Glenn Lyons' new downtown plan is also suggesting an additional later phase to improve Pennington and Stone Ave.)

kaneui

Jul 12, 2009, 7:09 PM

It's a shame that these colorful, urban-style townhomes in the foothills weren't an infill project on any number of empty parcels downtown:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a228/kaneui/River_Walk.jpg
The River Walk town-home complex is certainly striking, with its three-story units in bright Southwestern
colors. Each of its 21 finished units has its own elevator and a roof deck.
(photo: A. E. Araiza)

Town homes could hold glimmer of recovery
By Josh Brodesky
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
07.12.2009

Rising up fast and furious during the boom only to come to a screeching halt during the bust, the Lofts at River Walk was a true peak project. Although it has sat unfinished since the original developer defaulted, the project hasn't gone unnoticed. Chances are you've seen the bright and colorful upscale town homes near North Hacienda del Sol and East River Road. At three stories with rooftop balconies and bright Southwestern colors, they are hard to miss. Eye-catching design aside, though, the town homes recently captured my attention because maybe, just maybe, they offer a hint of recovery. The unfinished development was recently sold to a Tucson group including A.F. Sterling Home Builders. The group plans to complete 11 unfinished town homes and then build out the project, which has 108 finished but vacant town-home lots. "I think the biggest driver is really that location," said Randy Agron, vice president of A.F. Sterling Home Builders, a local builder. "I think it's an irreplaceable location."

A little background: The River Walk town homes were originally built by River Elk LLC, a developer whose members included Scottsdale-based Louis Marson & Sons Inc. They bought what was once an Elks Lodge for $3.3 million in May 2005. Plans called for 140 upscale town homes, but only 21 were finished. That left 108 lots including 11 unfinished town homes. Enter A.F. Sterling and two other partners who purchased the 108 lots from National Bank of Arizona last month for $3.1 million with $1.55 million down, records from the Pima County Recorder's Office show. Considering the town homes are a stone's throw from Campbell and River, that seems like a very good price. "We'll see," Agron said Thursday during a quick tour of the development. He called the price fair and expressed a good deal of confidence in the project.

It's easy to understand Agron's measured approach. He and the other investors are very much swimming upstream, buying lots with plans to begin new construction during a time when building has pretty much stopped. There were 727 building permits issued in Pima County this year through May, numbers collected by housing analyst John L. Strobeck show. By contrast, in 2005 there were close to 12,000 permits, Strobeck has said. "It's definitely a gamble," said Kip Johnson, a partner in the project. But Johnson also said he felt comfortable with it because of the location, price and quality of the existing community.

The 11 existing town homes will be finished right away and put up for sale. Then attention will be turned to the empty lots where Agron said he would like to see building start as soon as a few months out. But he's also not in a rush. He said finishing the project will probably take two to three years. Probably the biggest challenge at the development is coming up with a product that fits today's downsized market but also blends in with the existing town homes. A.F. Sterling is toying with some different concepts and price points, but hasn't made a final determination. It's hard to say what kind of demand is out there for a three-story town home that comes with a roof deck and an elevator. "The product will be different than what's there now," Agron said. "Different, so it won't be the exact same floor plan." But, he continued, "We will make it so it does blend in. Standing in the development on a hot, muggy Thursday morning with Agron I found myself wondering if it's deals like this that will lead us down the road to recovery: Local investors and builders scooping up these unfinished projects and finishing them off over the next few years. It's a small sale, and a relatively small development, but maybe this is a hint that better times are ahead.