Tucson Development Thread

[kaneui]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

I found this article in today's AZ Daily Star. The following is not the whole article, but what struck me is the final two paragraphs:

Josh Brodesky: Manning House opens door to Rio Nuevo's wild ways

Josh Brodesky Arizona Daily Star

Why is Rio Nuevo so interested in the Manning House?

"The thing that is the most interesting about the Manning House is the adjacent four acres," Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker told me. "Rio Nuevo's precise mission is to help launch a downtown hotel. It's literally walking distance to the Convention Center. Our only stated interest is if we could stave off the foreclosure, and find a partner or two not only interested in developing that building, but building a hotel."

McCusker said Rio Nuevo has been approached by outside developers and hotel chains about the site, which is about three-quarters of a mile from the Convention Center, and on the opposite side of its new entrance. McCusker thinks it could accommodate a boutique hotel of maybe 150 rooms.

I'm not sure that location would be viable for a convention center hotel, since part of the argument for building the proposed Sheraton was that meeting planners preferred something closer than the Hotel Arizona. However, any new downtown hotel for business travelers would be a welcome addition.

[Ted Lyons]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

I found this article in today's AZ Daily Star. The following is not the whole article, but what struck me is the final two paragraphs:

Josh Brodesky: Manning House opens door to Rio Nuevo's wild ways

Josh Brodesky Arizona Daily Star

Why is Rio Nuevo so interested in the Manning House?

This is a question I've wondered ever since Rio Nuevo, our downtown development agency, held an emergency meeting last week to prevent or delay a Manning House foreclosure.

On its face, a Manning House deal doesn't jibe with state statute restricting new Rio Nuevo spending to a downtown hotel and an arena. And Rio Nuevo already controls a host of struggling properties such as the Fox Tucson Theatre, the Tucson Presidio and the Historic Rialto Theatre, so why add the Manning House to that list?

The Manning House might be a historic downtown property - it's tucked away near North Granada Avenue and West Alameda Street - but it's been in private control for years and floundered. Why would Rio Nuevo, which has its own record of floundering, change that?

"The thing that is the most interesting about the Manning House is the adjacent four acres," Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker told me. "Rio Nuevo's precise mission is to help launch a downtown hotel. It's literally walking distance to the Convention Center. Our only stated interest is if we could stave off the foreclosure, and find a partner or two not only interested in developing that building, but building a hotel."

McCusker said Rio Nuevo has been approached by outside developers and hotel chains about the site, which is about three-quarters of a mile from the Convention Center, and on the opposite side of its new entrance. McCusker thinks it could accommodate a boutique hotel of maybe 150 rooms.

Brodesky is turning into a real turd about downtown and it demonstrates the pitfalls of aligning yourself with one party or another on a local level.

People on both sides of the aisle have interest in developing downtown and that's something for which we should be thankful. As it is, there isn't even significant infighting between the diverse groups that want downtown to succeed; all of the fighting is between those who want it to succeed and those who don't care.

So, to have ADS regularly criticizing the process for the first time in years simply because different, albeit just as committed, people are in charge is disappointing.

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by kaneui

I'm not sure that location would be viable for a convention center hotel, since part of the argument for building the proposed Sheraton was that meeting planners preferred something closer than the Hotel Arizona. However, any new downtown hotel for business travelers would be a welcome addition.

I agree that this location is not ideal for a convention center hotel (it's 3/4 of mile away from the TCC and on the opposite side of the new main entrance, according to the article), especially if they are only looking for a 150 room boutique hotel, but I also agree with you that any new downtown hotels would be a plus.

[Patrick S]

This article from DowntownTucson.org has some interesting stuff on Peach Properties. It points out some of their current projects downtown. It also talks about their desire to develop the Greenline Project next to I-10. One other last thing of note is that though Peach Property decided not to build student housing (The Armory on E. Broadway) on their land across from Cadence at Plaza Centro, the article points out that they are looking at building a two level garage with 3 stories of market-rate housing above (and that Capstone is interested in the property to build student housing).

PEACH PROPERTIES BEAR FRUIT ALL OVER DOWNTOWN

By Teya Vitu

Just about anywhere you turn Downtown, Peach Properties has a project on the verge of transforming this or that corner.
Look to Downtown’s northeast corner and you’ll find Peach revitalizing the Warehouse District at their 1 E. Toole and 119 E. Toole warehouses.
Thunder Canyon Brewery, 210 E. Broadway, the 50 E. Broadway proposed restaurant and the vacant lot at Broadway and 5th Streets are all Peach properties soon to add more life to the burgeoning Broadway.
Furthest along is Peach’s Market Inn building, 430 N. 6th Ave., which just this year has seen rejuvenation with EXO Coffee, Old Market Inn Tile and, coming soon, Tap + Bottle.
Peach also has the right to buy the 8.41 acres of city-owned land along Interstate 10 and south of Congress Street, where the temporary Greyhound bus station is located.
2012 is seeing a continual stream of these projects coming to fruition.
…
For the time being, developing the 8.41 acres of freeway frontage road land is out of Schwabe’s hands. He has the right to buy the property from the City, but now he awaits resolution of the City of Tucson and Rio Nuevo litigation, a part of which concerns which entity actual owns this parcel.
Schwabe calls the project “The Greenline” and has brought on Ryan Construction, the same Phoenix firm that built the new UNS Energy Corp. headquarters, to build nine- and four-story with commercial and office mixed uses.
He also plans a 120-room urban boutique-style hotel.
All this would be closer to Congress Street. Plans for the southern half of the property are still more conceptual but will likely include apartments and a new Greyhound terminal.
“The city and Rio Nuevo will determine the direction (of the southern acreage),” Schwabe said. “We’re just trying to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves,” Schwabe said. “The western gateway is so important to the city. It’s such a dead zone, but it has great potential.”
Peach Properties and Oasis Tucson/Capstone Development were both selected as potential partners with the University of Arizona in response to requests for proposals for student housing along the proposed streetcar route. Peach’s plot at Broadway and 5th Street is across the street from the Oasis/Capstone student housing project, which started construction this month.
Schwabe’s enthusiasm for student housing has cooled off in the past year.
“We got skittish with student stuff,” Schwabe said. “We’re going forward with market-rate residential,” Schwabe said.
He’s planning 170 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units on three levels above a two-level garage. A couple months ago, Schwabe applied for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 221(d)(4) mortgage insurance, which insures lenders against loss on mortgage defaults. Schwabe said it could take up to a year to secure this federal support.
In the meantime, that property could become student housing after all.
“Capstone keeps coming around saying they want to buy that property,” Schwabe said.

[Ted Lyons]

A five-floor building on that big of a lot seems wasteful downtown, especially with no retail. If they added only one floor of retail, It would be immeasurably better. Otherwise, it's a project that belongs in Iron Horse or another fringe neighborhood.

[Patrick S]

NASA has released photos of Tucson in 1965, and Tucson in 2011. Here is the link to two articles about the pictures: One on the NASA website, and one on Channel 4's website.

[kaneui]

Originally Posted by Ted Lyons

A five-floor building on that big of a lot seems wasteful downtown, especially with no retail. If they added only one floor of retail, It would be immeasurably better. Otherwise, it's a project that belongs in Iron Horse or another fringe neighborhood.

The city shouldn't be approving any new multi-story construction downtown without ground-floor retail; otherwise, they'll be killing the recent redevelopment progress by creating more dead zones with no pedestrian traffic. (Also, any developer would be foolish not to have ground-floor retail on that Peach Property block, with the streetcar going right by it and stops in each direction only a block away.)

[Patrick S]

Rio Nuevo won't pursue Manning House deal

by Patrick McNamara

It looks like public ownership of the Manning House in downtown Tucson is off the table, for now.
The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District decided at its Thursday (July 26) meeting to let die a motion to move forward with a plan to purchase the now closed meeting space at 450 W. Paseo Redondo.
Board Chairman Fletcher McCusker said that despite a legal decision from attorneys at the Arizona Legislative Council that a move to purchase the property was allowable under state statutes that created the Rio Nuevo District, a contrary view of the law among Tucson City Council members and the city attorney created a conflict.
The city and Rio Nuevo are partners in an intergovernmental agreement, and as such the city has much say over Rio Nuevo actions.
"All we were trying to do was create control over the property," McCusker said. "We do not want to own the property or operate a hotel."
The reference to a hotel concerned discussions of possibly converting the property to a boutique-style hotel. That remains a possibility, McCusker said, although without Rio Nuevo spending money to accomplish that.
Instead, he said there has been interest in the property from at least three private hoteliers.

[kaneui]

Tucson's TOD Housing Boom

Ron Schwabe has good reason to be skittish about building more student housing: once the streetcar was greenlighted, national developers swooped in and got their parcels assembled, financing lined up, and projects approved and out of the ground, leaving the smaller local developers behind. (Jim Campbell figured it out and teamed up with Capstone, and thus Cadence is moving forward). And with everything already in the pipeline, student housing may already be overbuilt.

I'm not convinced Peach Properties will be able to get financing for The Greenline project on their own (they're realizing they need that HUD mortgage insurance so they can finance the smaller Armory project). And the same goes for Gadsden and their West End Station proposal in the Mission District (look how long it took them to get the Mercado San Agustin finished).

Nevertheless, the TOD housing numbers are impressive when all the projects being built or announced to date are added up. Between market-rate and student projects, we're looking at new multi-family housing for nearly 5,000 residents:

Student housing projects*
District on 5th (2012) - 776
Cadence (2013) - 456
Junction at Iron Horse (2013) - 196
1020 Tyndall (2013) - 586
Park Ave. (2014) - 500
Memorial Complex (?) - 150
First St. Apts. (?) - 550

Total student: 3,214 residents


Market-rate projects
(some projects estimated at 1.5 residents/unit)
One North Fifth (96U) - 96
Armory Park Apts. (140U) - 140
One East Broadway (39U) - 59
West End Station (239U) - 359
The Greenline (320U) - 480
Depot Plaza (50U) - 75
Monier Apts. (169U) - 254
The Armory (170U) - 255

Total market-rate: 1,718 residents


GRAND TOTAL: 4,932 residents**


*774-bed Retreat at Tucson (2013) omitted as non-TOD project.

**Low-income senior projects at MLK Apts.(68U) and Sentinel Plaza (143U) excluded as residents were displaced then rehoused.

[Patrick S]

The 2011 population estimates are out. I got all these off of Wikipedia (I know, not the best source). The city and metro grew at a moderate rate (the city actually grew faster than the metro, a switch from the last decade where the city grew by 6.9% while the metro grew by 16.2%). Both, though, grew slower than Phoenix and Mesa (and the metro they share) and the state of Arizona. Compared to other southwest cities the city and metro grew slower than all comparable cities except Vegas. (All increases noted are since 2010.)

Tucson: 525,804 (+1.09%) - Metro: 989,569 (+0.95%)
Phoenix: 1,469,471 (+1.65%) - Metro: 4,262,236 (+1.65%)
Mesa: 446,518 (+1.70%)
Arizona: 6,482,505 (+1.42%)

Las Vegas: 589,317 (+0.95%) - Metro: 1,969,975 (+0.96%)
Albuquerque: 552,804 (+1.27%) - Metro: 898,642 (+1.30%)
El Paso: 665,568(+2.53%) - Metro: 820,970 (+2.54%)

[ppdd]

Originally Posted by Ted Lyons

Brodesky is turning into a real turd about downtown and it demonstrates the pitfalls of aligning yourself with one party or another on a local level.

People on both sides of the aisle have interest in developing downtown and that's something for which we should be thankful. As it is, there isn't even significant infighting between the diverse groups that want downtown to succeed; all of the fighting is between those who want it to succeed and those who don't care.

So, to have ADS regularly criticizing the process for the first time in years simply because different, albeit just as committed, people are in charge is disappointing.

Brodesky has no credibility - take everything from him very lightly. Or skip his sensationalist BS all together.

[Patrick S]

Found out about his place from a picture on InsideTucsonBusiness.com. The picture was actually for the other project mentioned (The Place at Creekside), which will be in the 9900 block of east Speedway (between Harrison and Houghton). This project is on W. Broadway by Greasewood.

MC Clark-Wayland Completes Construction on The Place at Canyon Ridge in Tucson, AZ, Adds 116 New Units to Tight Rental Market


Canyon Ridge is the first of three projects in Tucson to be developed by MC Companies and built by MC Clark-Wayland. The projects will add 468 units to the Tucson market in 2012.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., July 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Scottsdale-based MC Companies celebrated the grand opening of their new community The Place At Canyon Ridge. The Place at Canyon Ridge adds 116 units to the Tucson market and is the first project to be completed by the company's newly formed construction division, MC Clark-Wayland. (MCCW)
The Place at Canyon Ridge

Canyon Ridge's location in close proximity to the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, local shopping and the I 10 freeway make it a convenient choice for many. The large, modern apartments have upgraded finishes that include stainless steel appliances, front load washers and dryers, kitchens with center islands, upgraded countertops and larger pantries. Residents have a choice of one and two bedroom apartment homes, with balconies or private patios. The Place at Canyon Ridge includes a spacious clubhouse, fitness center and community pool and spa. MC Residential will manage the community.
Why Tucson?

Tucson resident and MC principal Ross McCallister is well versed in the Tucson economy and its rental needs. "Tucson's demand for quality, affordable apartment community homes has exceeded the current inventory for some time." Noting that less than 2,000 units have been added in the past ten years, Ross continued, "We believe the Tucson economy is strong and there is a high demand for quality rental product. The Place at Canyon Ridge is the first of three projects we are building in Tucson to help meet that demand." The company will open The Place at Creekside Phase One (208 units) and Phase Two (144 units) later this year.

[Ritarancher]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

This article from DowntownTucson.org has some interesting stuff on Peach Properties. It points out some of their current projects downtown. It also talks about their desire to develop the Greenline Project next to I-10. One other last thing of note is that though Peach Property decided not to build student housing (The Armory on E. Broadway) on their land across from Cadence at Plaza Centro, the article points out that they are looking at building a two level garage with 3 stories of market-rate housing above (and that Capstone is interested in the property to build student housing).

PEACH PROPERTIES BEAR FRUIT ALL OVER DOWNTOWN

By Teya Vitu

Just about anywhere you turn Downtown, Peach Properties has a project on the verge of transforming this or that corner.
Look to Downtown’s northeast corner and you’ll find Peach revitalizing the Warehouse District at their 1 E. Toole and 119 E. Toole warehouses.
Thunder Canyon Brewery, 210 E. Broadway, the 50 E. Broadway proposed restaurant and the vacant lot at Broadway and 5th Streets are all Peach properties soon to add more life to the burgeoning Broadway.
Furthest along is Peach’s Market Inn building, 430 N. 6th Ave., which just this year has seen rejuvenation with EXO Coffee, Old Market Inn Tile and, coming soon, Tap + Bottle.
Peach also has the right to buy the 8.41 acres of city-owned land along Interstate 10 and south of Congress Street, where the temporary Greyhound bus station is located.
2012 is seeing a continual stream of these projects coming to fruition.
…
For the time being, developing the 8.41 acres of freeway frontage road land is out of Schwabe’s hands. He has the right to buy the property from the City, but now he awaits resolution of the City of Tucson and Rio Nuevo litigation, a part of which concerns which entity actual owns this parcel.
Schwabe calls the project “The Greenline” and has brought on Ryan Construction, the same Phoenix firm that built the new UNS Energy Corp. headquarters, to build nine- and four-story with commercial and office mixed uses.
He also plans a 120-room urban boutique-style hotel.
All this would be closer to Congress Street. Plans for the southern half of the property are still more conceptual but will likely include apartments and a new Greyhound terminal.
“The city and Rio Nuevo will determine the direction (of the southern acreage),” Schwabe said. “We’re just trying to take advantage of any opportunities that present themselves,” Schwabe said. “The western gateway is so important to the city. It’s such a dead zone, but it has great potential.”
Peach Properties and Oasis Tucson/Capstone Development were both selected as potential partners with the University of Arizona in response to requests for proposals for student housing along the proposed streetcar route. Peach’s plot at Broadway and 5th Street is across the street from the Oasis/Capstone student housing project, which started construction this month.
Schwabe’s enthusiasm for student housing has cooled off in the past year.
“We got skittish with student stuff,” Schwabe said. “We’re going forward with market-rate residential,” Schwabe said.
He’s planning 170 studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units on three levels above a two-level garage. A couple months ago, Schwabe applied for U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Section 221(d)(4) mortgage insurance, which insures lenders against loss on mortgage defaults. Schwabe said it could take up to a year to secure this federal support.
In the meantime, that property could become student housing after all.
“Capstone keeps coming around saying they want to buy that property,” Schwabe said.

A nine story building, along I-10, not bad. I noticed on kaneui's post that the Armory has been downsized to 5 stories. I'm disappointing in that, the Armory is a very good looking building at 7 stories I hate seeing it get downsized to 5 stories.

[Ritarancher]

Originally Posted by kaneui

Tucson's TOD Housing Boom

Ron Schwabe has good reason to be skittish about building more student housing: once the streetcar was greenlighted, national developers swooped in and got their parcels assembled, financing lined up, and projects approved and out of the ground, leaving the smaller local developers behind. (Jim Campbell figured it out and teamed up with Capstone, and thus Cadence is moving forward). And with everything already in the pipeline, student housing may already be overbuilt.

I'm not convinced Peach Properties will be able to get financing for The Greenline project on their own (they're realizing they need that HUD mortgage insurance so they can finance the smaller Armory project). And the same goes for Gadsden and their West End Station proposal in the Mission District (look how long it took them to get the Mercado San Agustin finished).

Nevertheless, the TOD housing numbers are impressive when all the projects being built or announced to date are added up. Between market-rate and student projects, we're looking at new multi-family housing for nearly 5,000 residents:

Student housing projects*
District on 5th (2012) - 776
Cadence (2013) - 456
Junction at Iron Horse (2013) - 196
1020 Tyndall (2013) - 586
Park Ave. (2014) - 500
Memorial Complex (?) - 150
First St. Apts. (?) - 550

Total student: 3,214 residents


Market-rate projects
(some projects estimated at 1.5 residents/unit)
One North Fifth (96U) - 96
Old Armory Apts. (140U) - 140
One East Broadway (39U) - 59
West End Station (239U) - 359
The Greenline (320U) - 480
Depot Plaza (50U) - 75
Monier Apts. (169U) - 254
New Armory (170U) - 255

Total market-rate: 1,718 residents


GRAND TOTAL: 4,932 residents**


*774-bed Retreat at Tucson (2013) omitted as non-TOD project.

**Low-income senior projects at MLK Apts.(68U) and Sentinel Plaza (143U) excluded as residents were displaced then rehoused.

We need to find out how many people live within 1/2 a mile of downtown so we can try to influence Target to open a City Target in downtown. U of A students would love that place!

[kaneui]

Starting this week, seniors at the Armory Park Apartments will be vacating their studio units for larger one-bedroom units with balconies at the Mission District's newly completed Sentinel Plaza, as their current building is being sold, probably for conversion to market-rate units:



Sentinel Plaza under construction; 8-story Armory Park Apartments
(photos: City of Tucson; armoryparkapartments.com)


First Senior Citizens Set to Move into Sentinel Plaza
By Teya Vitu
Downtown Tucsonan
July 28, 2012

The first wave of senior citizens will start moving into the new Sentinel Plaza low-income senior housing complex on West Congress Street the week of July 31. All 130 seniors should be moved out of the Armory Park Apartments and into the 143-unit Sentinel Plaza by the end of August, said Steven Greenbaum, president of Senior Housing Group, based in Chicago. The move is ahead of schedule as Greenbaum has always talked about fall or September at the earliest. “Everything came together quickly,” he said. “You always build in contingency days.” Armory Park residents will be moved across Downtown in waves of 10 to 15 through August. “I’m just thrilled, most of all, for the residents who will be moving from a 40-year-old apartment complex into an unbelievable nice place,” Greenbaum said.

The seniors mostly are leaving 412-square-foot studio apartments with no balconies at Armory Park, 211 S. Fifth Avenue, for Sentinel Plaza’s 675-square-foot one-bedroom apartments where all but those on the ground floor have balconies. Greenbaum bought the Armory Park Apartments and its federal Section 8 low-income housing subsidies with the intention of building the new Sentinel Plaza and transferring the Section 8 status and extending the status until 2041. He also received a $2.85 million annual low-income housing tax credit from the Arizona Department of Housing that could ultimately be worth as much as $28.5 million over 10 years. That would cover the estimated $25 million to $27 million in construction costs.

Resident rent payments are subsidized by a Section 8 housing assistance payments contract through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Senior Housing bought the land for $250,000 on May 13, 2011, from the city in a three-way escrow closing agreement involving the city and The Gadsden Company, which had the development agreement for that parcel and is developing the surrounding acreage. Greenbaum has a contract to sell the Armory Park Apartments to an unnamed buyer with the sale expected to close by the end of September.


http://www.downtowntucson.org/2012/0...entinel-plaza/

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by kaneui

Starting this week, seniors at the Armory Park Apartments will be vacating their 412 s.f. studio units for 675 s.f. one-bedroom units with balconies at the Mission District's newly finished Sentinel Plaza, as their current building is being sold, probably for conversion to market-rate units:



Sentinel Plaza under construction; 8-story Armory Park Apartments
(photos: City of Tucson; armoryparkapartments.com)


First Senior Citizens Set to Move into Sentinel Plaza
By Teya Vitu
Downtown Tucsonan
July 28, 2012

The first wave of senior citizens will start moving into the new Sentinel Plaza low-income senior housing complex on West Congress Street the week of July 31. All 130 seniors should be moved out of the Armory Park Apartments and into the 143-unit Sentinel Plaza by the end of August, said Steven Greenbaum, president of Senior Housing Group, based in Chicago. The move is ahead of schedule as Greenbaum has always talked about fall or September at the earliest. “Everything came together quickly,” he said. “You always build in contingency days.” Armory Park residents will be moved across Downtown in waves of 10 to 15 through August. “I’m just thrilled, most of all, for the residents who will be moving from a 40-year-old apartment complex into an unbelievable nice place,” Greenbaum said.

The seniors mostly are leaving 412-square-foot studio apartments with no balconies at Armory Park, 211 S. Fifth Avenue, for Sentinel Plaza’s 675-square-foot one-bedroom apartments where all but those on the ground floor have balconies. Greenbaum bought the Armory Park Apartments and its federal Section 8 low-income housing subsidies with the intention of building the new Sentinel Plaza and transferring the Section 8 status and extending the status until 2041. He also received a $2.85 million annual low-income housing tax credit from the Arizona Department of Housing that could ultimately be worth as much as $28.5 million over 10 years. That would cover the estimated $25 million to $27 million in construction costs.

Resident rent payments are subsidized by a Section 8 housing assistance payments contract through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Senior Housing bought the land for $250,000 on May 13, 2011, from the city in a three-way escrow closing agreement involving the city and The Gadsden Company, which had the development agreement for that parcel and is developing the surrounding acreage. Greenbaum has a contract to sell the Armory Park Apartments to an unnamed buyer with the sale expected to close by the end of September.


http://www.downtowntucson.org/2012/0...entinel-plaza/

I hope they do a major refurbish of the Armory Park Apartments, both inside and out. That building looks incredibly dated and very drab. If they want to attract people to live downtown they're going to have to give people something other than a housing block that looks like it could have been constructed in Cold-War era Russia.

On another note, it's good to see they're starting construction on the Cadence at Plaza Central (they've at least got the old parking lot torn up).

[Ted Lyons]

Man, I hope HSL Properties is the prospective buyer.






















Not.

[Patrick S]

Gadsden announces they're going to build a 4-story, 165 unit apartment building on the west-side, next to a street-car stop - will open in 2014.

Mercado readies for boomlet
SENIOR HOUSING OPENS; DEVELOPMENT PLANNED IN BUSINESS DISTRICT

Carli Brosseau Arizona Daily Star

Businesses in the Mercado District, at the western end of the modern streetcar route, are preparing for a population boomlet as the jackhammers approach.

Today, seniors who had been living in downtown's Armory Park Apartments begin to move into the new Sentinel Plaza affordable-housing apartments at 795 W. Congress St., just west of the Santa Cruz River.

Volunteers will help move almost all of the 129 Armory Park residents into the six-story building, said Steve Greenbaum, CEO of Chicago-based Senior Housing Group LLC.
Greenbaum's company currently owns both buildings, though he plans to sell the Armory Park structure.
...
Jerry Dixon, Gadsden's chairman, said he expects to start development on other parts of the property after the track construction is finished. Those projects are in the early planning stages, he said.

The development agreement commits Gadsden to a boutique hotel, about 400 market-rate residential units and a mix of affordable housing, office, retail and restaurant space.

As for contributing to the cost of the streetcar tracks' construction, Dixon said, "We feel we very much helped, by building for years already." He said there is no separate payment he plans to make for the track costs.

Gadsden recently inked another deal to bring residents to the west side. It's partnering with Holualoa Companies to develop a 165-unit top-quality apartment complex next to one of the district's streetcar stops, just south of the mercado on Avenida del Convento.

It's to open in early 2014, Dixon said.

Gadsden sold the property for the complex to Holualoa Monier Apartments LLC for $1.685 million in June, county records show.

The four-story complex will likely have underground parking for each tenant and a rooftop pool, Holualoa President Mike Kasser said.

The building is to feature studios, and one- and two-bedroom apartments, he said.
Holualoa is the financial partner and is assisting Gadsden with development, Kasser said.

"We're very excited about it," he said. "We're optimistic about downtown."

The optimism is spreading, area home builders say. Inquiries are picking up. There are two homes now under construction, and at least three more on the way.

"In the last six-month period, we've had more inquiries than in any six-month period since the beginning of 2008," said Dante Archangeli, owner of Tucson Artisan Builders, one of four approved builders in the district.

Archangeli has built seven homes there, but he said he gets as many as three times more inquiries about rentals than about homes people can buy.

The planned apartments are "good because there are more people down there, and the more people there are down there, the more demand there is for businesses down there," he said.

"It's a symbiotic relationship."

[Ritarancher]

I noticed the ground has been moved and fences have surrounded the proposed site of Houghton Town Center that was proposed a few years back is that site going to start to come up? Does anybody know if the proposed shopping center in Vail (I-10 and Colossal Cave Road?) is ever coming back?


Sentinel Plaza: I'm glad our seniors have a nice place to live. Sentinel Plaza can provide good transportation (Sun Link) and lots of near by shops and restaurants. It's also conveniently located across the street from the El Rio Clinic, they must love that! . I do want to say the building is very nice, it looks shorter than it is if you are looking from interstate 10.

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by Ritarancher

I noticed the ground has been moved and fences have surrounded the proposed site of Houghton Town Center that was proposed a few years back is that site going to start to come up? Does anybody know if the proposed shopping center in Vail (I-10 and Colossal Cave Road?) is ever coming back?


Sentinel Plaza: I'm glad our seniors have a nice place to live. Sentinel Plaza can provide good transportation (Sun Link) and lots of near by shops and restaurants. It's also conveniently located across the street from the El Rio Clinic, they must love that! . I do want to say the building is very nice, it looks shorter than it is if you are looking from interstate 10.

I went on to the Tucson City Website. It appears as though, yes, the Houghton Town Center is starting to be constructed. The original plan was to have Home Depot become the first store there. I found records from last September, and I found references to Home Depot, but also to Wal-Mart, so I wasn't sure which one is being built there - until I ran across this website: http://www.johnwilsoncommercial.com/SE-Tucson.html, which says it is a Wal-Mart supercenter in a 99,000 sq. feet building (remember the big-box store rule says these stores can't be more than 100,000 sq. feet). This should make the 6th Wal-Mart under development in the area, including the one at Houghton and Golf Links.