It's always encouraging to hear about new redevelopment businesses that get off the ground without public subsidies, and often in spite of bureaucratic red tape and archaic planning and zoning requirements:
Built without city money
By Becky Pallack
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
06.16.2006
Long before the brew-ha-ha over Nimbus moving Downtown, another local microbrewer was busy relocating on the outskirts of Downtown without much notice or city help. Businessman and brewer Dennis Arnold is renovating the old Tucson Prime Meats warehouse, more recently Tucson Warehouse & Transfer Co., on East 16th Street at South Toole Avenue. Arnold has spent seven years and $500,000 creating Barrio Brewing as an expansion of his Gentle Ben's Brewing Co. He twice gave up on the idea because of problems with city zoning rules, Arnold said, but he expects to open by the end of August.
Another local microbrewery, Nimbus Brewing, has been pitched as the primary tenant in Town West Design Development's proposal to build a $40 million high-rise with condos and a brewery on a 2.8-acre lot in a warehouse district on another edge of Downtown, at North Stone Avenue and West Franklin Street. Because the large-scale idea includes a $2.65 million in city subsidies, some of which would be passed on to Nimbus, it has come under scrutiny.
Barrio Brewing hasn't worked with the city's Rio Nuevo office, and received no city money. It is between Armory Park del Sol and the Ice House Lofts, neither of which received city funding. Rio Nuevo Director Greg Shelko said private-sector investments that don't require government help are a positive indicator. He said he is working to clarify some of the regulatory processes that impede development.
City Councilwoman Nina Trasoff agreed the brewery is a great independent effort. "I'm sorry it's taken so long, but I'm really pleased that they're about to open," Trasoff said. "I think there's a different attitude now, a commitment to working as hard as we can to facilitate these kinds of projects Downtown."
Cold room a big plus
The old warehouse — with its corrugated metal walls and big truck bays — may not look like much to most people, but it's Arnold's dream. "It's a building only a brewer could love," said Arnold, 46, a Tucson native who is president, owner and oftentimes brewer at Gentle Ben's. That's because the warehouse came with a 4,000-square-foot cold room, where he'll move his microbrew equipment from the campus-area eatery to the new brewpub at 800 E. 16th St. in the coming weeks. He started renovating the building in January.
Barrio Brewing bought the building in 1999 — the year Tucson voters approved funding Rio Nuevo — for $280,000. Then it took three years to resolve zoning issues associated with a wholesale brewery, the category it falls in because Arnold plans to sell 80-gallon kegs of beer back to to Gentle Ben's. Several different plans were presented to the City Council over a couple of years. The solution: The city allowed the brewery to have two different zones in the same building.
Then there was the parking problem. The city's rules required a set number of parking spaces per square foot, adding up to 360 parking spaces, while the restaurant will only seat 80 people, Arnold said. A variance allowed it to cut the parking number in half, but with no available lots in the neighborhood, the Barrio Brewing idea stalled.
Arnold said he and his wife, Tauna, "were just ready to write it off." Finally, in 2004 with new owners at Rainbo Baking, 827 E. 17th St., Arnold leased some parking spaces, and Arnold could show the city board he met its requirements. "It took us three years to line up parking we'll never use," he said.
By the end of 2005, they were ready to give up again. Arnold said their architect went to the city offices to take back his plans when he was told the plan was approved. "You get so blindsided by the wrestling match between logic and law," Arnold said. He figures he has put $500,000 into the project, including the cost of the building and renovation. Councilman José Ibarra called the delays disappointing. "Here is a small business that wants to participate Downtown and they've had to wait this long to open," he said. "It really shows us that we need to fully embrace such projects and fast-track them."
"I'm glad they've been persistent," said Donovan Durband, executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance Inc, a non-profit business group. With the 17th Street Market a block away, it could become a destination spot, he said. Jason Mullins, owner of Rocks & Ropes, a block away at 330 S. Toole Ave., said he hopes the restaurant will attract more traffic and business to the outskirts of Downtown.
The building still has a way to go. On Wednesday, stacks of lumber sat where the bar will be and workers were redoing parts of the building's electrical systems. Arnold said he will make his August opening date with an eclectic menu in the $5 to $10 range. Gentle Ben's, 865 E. University Blvd., isn't going anywhere. In fact, the 800-seat restaurant will get a pizza kitchen where the brew tanks used to be, and possibly a private meeting room in the cellar, Arnold said.