Tucson Development Thread

[AZ71]

Originally Posted by combusean

The arena would be a money pit and a bad idea even if built.

I think people should really consider the ill effects of turning downtown Tucson from what sort of resembles a neighborhood into a collection of uses. Phoenix tried that for 25 years and it was an unmitigated disaster. Civic Plaza, the arena, the ballpark, and even ASU (the one thing they did which arguably worked however) was a wide, indiscriminate blade of urban renewal. Downtowns do not need that sort of thing.

Even if it did muster the finances for some sort of signature project, it still has a seemingly slow, unpredictable development process (like 8 months to approve a storage unit) and complicated zoning code. None of that small town mindset is going to go away even if they did fill some big britches and approve some sort of potential catalyst.

I see your point...but I do think the downtown area needs something signature. Putting up another Flinn-type apartment complex on the "arena site" just seems like another total flop. We need something of interest to help Tucson stand out in my opinion. Maybe something like a modern Disney-hall type venue like they have in downtown LA. I thought that tortoise shell idea for a convention center years ago was an interesting concept for some kind of building.

I still think combining the idea of a sound stage complex to help our growing film industry...combined with an entertainment component for regular people would be great if designed properly. And it would act as overflow for TCC events and maybe Nor-Gen could put his ugly tent Gem & Mineral Show in one of the unused sound stages.

[southtucsonboy77]

Not that I fully disagree with anything that is being said...but a lot has been accomplished in the last 10 years or so. Yeah, some of the completed developments have been a disappointment (the Flinn apartment complex, the Rendezvous Urban Flats); and non-completed (the Ronstadt, Nor-Gen, 75 E. Broadway), but Tucson has done well...and there's still a lot of infill and density to be done. From Main Gate/University, to 4th Ave, to Congress...there's been good projects and development. Tucsonans don't give this area enough credit for its many options of bars and restaurants in one accessible location. Tucson toe-to-toe against other mid-size metros, Tucson's bar district will blow them out of the water. Someone mentioned Albq...have you really been to Albq recently? Their Uptown area is blossoming with chain bars, but their downtown has been stagnant for over 10 years now.

The Main Gate Overlay wasn't perfect, but it got the job done. The Mercado District Overlay isn't perfect (can there be any more off-white buildings?), but its growing. I just hope and pray Tucson stops this trend of 4- to 7-story girthy buildings that are plaguing the SW. Phoenix and Albuquerque have been the worse. They provide no architectural value to an urban core. 75 E. Broadway can have their wide parking garage, but the tower should only be half the width. I've seen it done in Dallas. Lastly, I am part of a development that hopefully can kickoff soon. We're aiming to go "up"...I am not the primary or the decision-maker...but we're heading in that direction.

[combusean]

Agree that Tucson's core is actually pretty good. I mean, from 4th Ave/4th St to the mess of the county 🞵🞵🞵🞵 on Church and Congress is a sold mile and no city in that half of Arizona has that much linear walkability.

The midrise apartment blocks are rarely attractive as far as design alone goes but they add needed density, the underly zoning often demands pedestrian entrances with at least patios/townhome entry, and the market reflects any GFR or not. Nearly all of these in Phoenix were built on vacant land, something I find oddly lacking in Tucson.

Modern Class A+ office demands large floor plates and has for many years. 75 E Broadway was designed to reflect that. Most of Dallas's office high-rises are obsolete and reflect the demand for the submarket rather than the tenant's particular desires such as amenities, deck to deck spans, floor plates, favorable parking ratios, etc. Tucson might have actually dodged a bullet there rather than say Phoenix which is filled with outmoded towers and high vacancy rates.

The thing that constantly sticks out for me with Tucson is how much people complain about the usual ineffectual, small-time local developers and I think it shows because, eg, nothing has been built new on 4th that I can tell and there are many lots and crummy buildings that should have been replaced by now with the streetcar. Phoenix had that problem and it doesn't any more. That problem can be addressed at City Hall with a willing council and things like the right zoning and a predictable administration.

[AZ71]

I agree with @southtucsonboy77 about the 75 E Broadway project. In fact, I emailed them and made that very same suggestion of using the full lot for parking but only build half of it taller and higher. They claimed they really want that huge Class A office floor space. I believe they think some huge company is gonna move in because of it. But I believe companies are going out to the industrial & tech parks to set up shop and build their own buildings they'll own. Why rent when you can own? Its the same with commercial development.

And yes @southtucsonboy77....if you are working for a developer downtown....please can we get one skyscraper that is taller than One South Church? After 35 years...I think its time we have one building that goes at least 1 foot higher.

I've read that the 4-7 story building is the cheapest and most efficient way to construct bldgs these days...thus why you're seeing them everywhere.

I do agree the Main Gate area has seen tremendous growth. I sort of feel Main Gate is getting overbuilt in a way. They're nice looking buildings (some of them) but they're all the same 14-16 story size. So its very blocky looking. No open spaces or gathering places. But I love at least they're taller. So I'm not complaining. It seems the student housing developers are the only folks that can actually complete a building.

I was really hoping that Speedway Campbell Gateway project would happen. I thought it was a beautiful 20 story building...but of course...it fizzled out too.

[somethingfast]

i think you're all cutting Tucson way too much slack. yes, there's a nice little (key word: little) vibe in DT but given the 20+ years of Rio Nuevo solicitation for projects, not a lot of progress has been made. 4-7 stories boxes with little architectural interest (Phoenix also shares this problem) is not really something to "celebrate". i call it wasted time. being too harsh? maybe. but i'm a Tucson native and it frustrates me that a city of 1.1M has made so little progress in general and seems totally fine with that. this is a skyscraper forum...so i'm not fine with that. all three "talls" were built between 68 and 86 and nada since. not good enough.

[southtucsonboy77]

All I can say is that the project I'm involved with will be (at least right now) similar in height to the taller projects at Main Gate...but its not located at Main Gate or downtown. We're just verifying the market numbers. Crazy things can come up in development, but movement should happen in a couple of months.

[Eapiwo]

Originally Posted by somethingfast

i think you're all cutting Tucson way too much slack. yes, there's a nice little (key word: little) vibe in DT but given the 20+ years of Rio Nuevo solicitation for projects, not a lot of progress has been made. 4-7 stories boxes with little architectural interest (Phoenix also shares this problem) is not really something to "celebrate". i call it wasted time. being too harsh? maybe. but i'm a Tucson native and it frustrates me that a city of 1.1M has made so little progress in general and seems totally fine with that. this is a skyscraper forum...so i'm not fine with that. all three "talls" were built between 68 and 86 and nada since. not good enough.

I've been following the discussion here for a while and would really like to chime in. For some ethos, I am a civil engineer. 4-7 story buildings are the most economically (and environmentally) viable dense builds unless you're in a place like Midtown Manhattan where the cost of land is in the hundreds of millions of dollars for a small slot. Someone mentioned that we should just take 75 E Broadway and take the width of the building and just stack it on itself. That's possible but not economically viable. Once a building starts getting past 7 or 8 stories the cost of building a new floor grows exponentially for each additional floor and the amount of usable square footage in the building reduces. So if you halve the width of 75 E Broadway and double the height, you'd pay millions more in construction costs and lose usable area (how buildings make money) to structural elements that support the building's height. So essentially you'd be increasing your costs and reducing your revenues. It'd be an absolute lose-lose situation for the developer.

combusean mentioned that the 5-6 story buildings are needed for density and he's absolutely right. Downtown density is a relevant metric for measuring the success of an urban core, especially along a streetcar route. Density is important!

A key element that people are missing is that downtown urban cores are meant to be neighborhoods. Viewing downtowns primarily as an entertainment destination is really unhealthy for a good downtown. Entertainment districts are great, but they support the car centric mindset that the US has and it really gets in the way of what a downtown should fundamentally serve as - a neighborhood. Main Gate Overlay has completely succeeded at that and Mercado is on a good track to do the same but with greater cultural elements.

Downtown was dead 15 years ago, now it's not. We've built the first hotel in 40 years, and then 3 more. We built the first apartment building, and then a bunch more. Rome wasn't built in a day and IMO Tucson is on a good track. It's baby steps but it's looking good. No, we haven't built a 30 story building but downtown/streetcar area is a pretty great place to be now. Tucson is building a solid urban core, just slower than we'd all like but we'll reap the rewards of having that solid urban core soon enough. It is frustrating that so many cool proposals haven't come into fruition but measuring success only by the amount of 300 foot buildings that have been built fails to see what is going right.

[somethingfast]

Originally Posted by Eapiwo

I've been following the discussion here for a while and would really like to chime in. For some ethos, I am a civil engineer. 4-7 story buildings are the most economically (and environmentally) viable dense builds unless you're in a place like Midtown Manhattan where the cost of land is in the hundreds of millions of dollars for a small slot. Someone mentioned that we should just take 75 E Broadway and take the width of the building and just stack it on itself. That's possible but not economically viable. Once a building starts getting past 7 or 8 stories the cost of building a new floor grows exponentially for each additional floor and the amount of usable square footage in the building reduces. So if you halve the width of 75 E Broadway and double the height, you'd pay millions more in construction costs and lose usable area (how buildings make money) to structural elements that support the building's height. So essentially you'd be increasing your costs and reducing your revenues. It'd be an absolute lose-lose situation for the developer.

combusean mentioned that the 5-6 story buildings are needed for density and he's absolutely right. Downtown density is a relevant metric for measuring the success of an urban core, especially along a streetcar route. Density is important!

A key element that people are missing is that downtown urban cores are meant to be neighborhoods. Viewing downtowns primarily as an entertainment destination is really unhealthy for a good downtown. Entertainment districts are great, but they support the car centric mindset that the US has and it really gets in the way of what a downtown should fundamentally serve as - a neighborhood. Main Gate Overlay has completely succeeded at that and Mercado is on a good track to do the same but with greater cultural elements.

Downtown was dead 15 years ago, now it's not. We've built the first hotel in 40 years, and then 3 more. We built the first apartment building, and then a bunch more. Rome wasn't built in a day and IMO Tucson is on a good track. It's baby steps but it's looking good. No, we haven't built a 30 story building but downtown/streetcar area is a pretty great place to be now. Tucson is building a solid urban core, just slower than we'd all like but we'll reap the rewards of having that solid urban core soon enough. It is frustrating that so many cool proposals haven't come into fruition but measuring success only by the amount of 300 foot buildings that have been built fails to see what is going right.

i personally appreciate your thoughtful response on this and i absolutely concede your points on engineering value (or return on value) constraints, etc. and it's not to diminish the value at street level of low-rise density. my criticism is simply that, the pursuit of tall buildings is NOT a linear function related to cost/value...it's the pursuit for "greatness" in human engineering and civic pride in many ways. it's the lack of pursuit here that is the major issue that i'm getting at. that's my own personal value...maybe not others. i just personally feel that Tucson needs some vision in DT that is absolutely lacking. incremental value is there, sure, but i'm just not seeing a true desire to bring commerce, arts and entertainment downtown...and that's local govts job - to facilitate this kind of public good creation.

[combusean]

Greatness doesn't rent. Tenants don't really care about being in the city's tallest building, they care about having spaces that work for them. That these days is high ceilings, large floorplates for open offices, on-site amenities, and the highest parking ratios in history.

And yes, the suburban buildings will always compete mostly because it's difficult to build that product in the usual downtown environment. 75 Broadway was on the right track at least.

[somethingfast]

^ yes, understand. but it's not 🞵🞵🞵🞵 or interesting and i don't visit these forums to go gaga over "practical" development. is it necessary? sure. and we get plenty of it. in fact, that's all we get outside of the odd Astra that still isn't even a sure thing i guess. so, one can hope and dream that Tucson ends up with a new 30-story tower someday that gleams from 10 miles away and beckons you to the city's core. but, yeah, just a dream...

[AZ71]

I appreciate everyone's comments. But I just dont buy the comment that the higher you go the less profitable it is. Have you seen Phx or Austin lately? They have about mulitple, 20+ story residential towers going up. Why is it ok there for height but not Tucson? How do they get a positive ROI then?

Like others have mentioned, Tucson is at a snails pace. I'm sick of everyone mentioning "but we built a hotel" You do realize that AC Marriott was built over 5 years ago. But yes, we also built an ugly Hampton Inn/Home2 block. And the Doubletree at the TCC is ok but an odd placement. These are all small projects in my opinion when we could have had a 28-story Hilton or a 25-story Sheraton back in 2008 but city council (Kozachik) deemed it too big. I think that's what frustrates most of us on this skyscraper forum.

I just don't see a desire to excel at what we're doing downtown. Certainly seems we're hiring developers that cant follow through and architects that don't have vision. If we're stuck with 7-story buildings...at least make them architecturally interesting. I thought the Chroma on Speedway was cool-looking. But of course that project tanked. I will say I think the Mercado District's Bautista looks nice and at least aims to look better than the Flinn.

[crzyabe]

Originally Posted by AZ71

I appreciate everyone's comments. But I just dont buy the comment that the higher you go the less profitable it is. Have you seen Phx or Austin lately? They have about mulitple, 20+ story residential towers going up. Why is it ok there for height but not Tucson? How do they get a positive ROI then?

Both Phx and Austin have a higher average income than Tucson. I don't know, but I imagine that that the rents in those 20 story buildings are probably pretty excessive.

[AZ71]

Originally Posted by crzyabe

Both Phx and Austin have a higher average income than Tucson. I don't know, but I imagine that that the rents in those 20 story buildings are probably pretty excessive.

Have you seen how much the RendezVous and Flin are? Last I checked RV was around $3000 for a 2 bedroom and Flin was $3,000 for a 3bed.
Maybe people would pay more if it was a better looking true tower. But clearly someone is paying these prices.

[Eapiwo]

Originally Posted by AZ71

I appreciate everyone's comments. But I just dont buy the comment that the higher you go the less profitable it is. Have you seen Phx or Austin lately? They have about mulitple, 20+ story residential towers going up. Why is it ok there for height but not Tucson? How do they get a positive ROI then?

Like others have mentioned, Tucson is at a snails pace. I'm sick of everyone mentioning "but we built a hotel" You do realize that AC Marriott was built over 5 years ago. But yes, we also built an ugly Hampton Inn/Home2 block. And the Doubletree at the TCC is ok but an odd placement. These are all small projects in my opinion when we could have had a 28-story Hilton or a 25-story Sheraton back in 2008 but city council (Kozachik) deemed it too big. I think that's what frustrates most of us on this skyscraper forum.

I just don't see a desire to excel at what we're doing downtown. Certainly seems we're hiring developers that cant follow through and architects that don't have vision. If we're stuck with 7-story buildings...at least make them architecturally interesting. I thought the Chroma on Speedway was cool-looking. But of course that project tanked. I will say I think the Mercado District's Bautista looks nice and at least aims to look better than the Flinn.

I can understand the confusion because I mixed my opinions in with some objective facts. The construction costs increase as buildings get taller. That's just an objective fact, not really something up for debate. Profit is still possible if you charge more but you need to have a large market of higher class customers willing to shell out that money. Austin is home to Tesla, Dell, Oracle, Whole Foods and more major national companies. Phoenix has quite a few of their own. Tucson doesn't. That's a huge difference. Average Tucson wages are lower than many other similar cities. So in Austin, they can get away with building luxury high rises that have rents far higher than the city's average because there is a demand for that. Sure, Rendezvous is charging 3000 a month but the complex has around 100 units. If it were to be a true skyscraper, with 4x the units it would likely cost 5-6 times what it cost to build their existing building, maybe even more since the existing building just used an existing parking garage. Rents would have to be hundreds of dollars more expensive per unit for the developer to make a profit. In Tucson, the developers have determined that that is not a risk they want to make. They determined that they will take the risk to fill 100 units at 3k a month rather than 400 at 4k.

The other big factor in determining heights is land cost. When land is more expensive, you'll need to have more sellable area in your building to break even with the overhead costs of getting the building built. It's a complicated formula that takes into account construction costs, insurance, construction duration, and other overhead things like insurance and road closures but ultimately what developers would want to know is how much they need to sell each unit for (on average). If that cost is way way higher than average for an area then it's not a viable project.

[AZ71]

Originally Posted by Eapiwo

I can understand the confusion because I mixed my opinions in with some objective facts. The construction costs increase as buildings get taller. That's just an objective fact, not really something up for debate. Profit is still possible if you charge more but you need to have a large market of higher class customers willing to shell out that money. Austin is home to Tesla, Dell, Oracle, Whole Foods and more major national companies. Phoenix has quite a few of their own. Tucson doesn't. That's a huge difference. Average Tucson wages are lower than many other similar cities. So in Austin, they can get away with building luxury high rises that have rents far higher than the city's average because there is a demand for that. Sure, Rendezvous is charging 3000 a month but the complex has around 100 units. If it were to be a true skyscraper, with 4x the units it would likely cost 5-6 times what it cost to build their existing building, maybe even more since the existing building just used an existing parking garage. Rents would have to be hundreds of dollars more expensive per unit for the developer to make a profit. In Tucson, the developers have determined that that is not a risk they want to make. They determined that they will take the risk to fill 100 units at 3k a month rather than 400 at 4k.

The other big factor in determining heights is land cost. When land is more expensive, you'll need to have more sellable area in your building to break even with the overhead costs of getting the building built. It's a complicated formula that takes into account construction costs, insurance, construction duration, and other overhead things like insurance and road closures but ultimately what developers would want to know is how much they need to sell each unit for (on average). If that cost is way way higher than average for an area then it's not a viable project.

How did One South Church get built in 1986? Was it just cheaper to build back then? OR how do all the Main Gate towers pull it off? They must pull in those higher prices but divided up among how many kids they can stuff in a room?
I guess some of the costs are offset by making them mixed used like retail/hotel/office/apartments? Does that help?

Isn't land far cheaper downtown than in other cities? There's really not that many available empty lots anymore unless they tear something down. I know there is one for sale for $1.3M right behind the Pima County Skyscraper.

Regardless...just wish if we have to stay within certain heights that we could at least construct something better than many of the ho-hum designs being approved.

[southtucsonboy77]

More development in the NW side...

American Furniture Warehouse Plans Store Equivalent to Four Football Fields in Marana

[southtucsonboy77]

It appears large distribution buildings will be developed soon.

Industrial Distribution Development at The Crossroads at Gladden

[InTheBurbs]

More Suburban/NW Side News

Per AZ Big Media, Arroyo Verde, a 156 Unit Apartment Complex is going up at La Cholla and Old Magee



https://azbigmedia.com/real-estate/39-6-million-arroyo-verde-being-developed-near-tucson/

[ZonaRealtor2021]

Did anybody catch the full RN meeting today? I only caught the last tail end of it like 10 minutes about the container Park and the cadence getting approved

[AZ71]

I'd be interested what happened during the RN meeting too. Just reading the agenda I hope they dont approve the storage container building on the NE corner of Broadway & 5th to be like whats on 4th Ave. This is prime real estate. Weren't they going to build that 20 story Rialto Hotel project on that parcel at one time? RN needs to create a plan for downtown. Not just let whoever and whatever come in IMO.