DeanofTucson

Mayor Walkup once again discussed downtown revitalization in his "State of the City" address Friday at the TCC, but for the second year in a row, did not use the dreaded term "Rio Nuevo". Give his speechwriter credit for knowing a bad brand. Unfortunately, the mayor has a lot of responsibility for the bad brand of Rio Nuevo. They've stumbled along from one idea to another, never able to follow through on much of anything. There were some encouraging words from Walkup, though. He disparaged some of his council members for pushing pet projects. That would be his possible mayoral election opponent Steve Leal for pushing a $20 million Latino Cultural Center. That would be Jose Ibarra for trying to pre-emptively grab $280 million for the West Side. He talked about how a new arena, convention center expansion, and new convention headquarters hotel will be the big topics for 2007. He'll want to get at least one of those projects rolling by the election, and Leal will want to deny the mayor anything he can take credit for. It's too bad that election-year politics will play a role in shaping public policy for downtown, but that's what will probably happen. The big issue lately on the West Side is whether the modern streetcar will end in the Cultural Plaza--where none of the museums figures to happen anytime soon--or whether it will turn north along the new street Avenida del Convento and end at Congress Street opposite the El Rio Clinic. The Menlo Park neighbors want it extended, hoping that a Phase 2 of the streetcar would extend the line west to St. Mary's Hospital. The plan that the city approved last year had a vaguely defined end point west of the Santa Cruz, but they really didn't anticipate it going past the planned plaza. Look for Lillian Lopez-Grant to ultimately get her way on this one.

Actually, having attended that awards ceremony on Congress Street, it was refreshing for a number of interrelated reasons. For starters, it wasn't sponsored in any way by the City or its feeble Rio Nuevo office. I think that the dreaded words "Rio Nuevo" were mentioned but once, when Nina Trasoff was introduced as the chair of the Downtown and Rio Nuevo subcommittee. The Tucson Citizen and Greater Tucson Leadership put it on, with some other sponsors including the Downtown Alliance. I was amazed to see over 200 people there, and the tickets were $100. Most shocking was the sight of Chuck Huckelberry, who hates Rio Nuevo as much as anyone. They gave out awards to private sector people who have actually accomplished things. The Flores family, which owns and operates El Charro and the Stillwell House. Herb Stratford got an award in the arts and cultural category for the Fox. Michael Keith was recognized as a developer of housing. And Roger Karber, who helped get the TIF extended last year, won an award. No Rio Nuevo staff members even attended. They put on a pretty nice video, with interviews with all private sector people who sounded optimistic about downtown. Nobody said anything about a science center or history museums, or even the arena. Nobody said the Convento will revitalize downtown. But they could have put that tent anywhere.

The completion of the new city-county courts complex at the Coconuts/Cemetery site won't have any impact on the County's need to occupy the BofA Plaza. The County needs at least 200,000 sq.ft. of office space, they say, not counting the new complex. In other words, when the new complex is completed, the County won't be moving offices from B of A over there. I think the County should build more office space on top of the YMCA garage as they originally intended, evacuate the old Walgreens building so a restaurant or retail can go in there, move the assessor's, treasurer's, and recorder's offices out of the old courthouse into ground floor space at one of the god-awful buildings they have on West Congress next to Superior Court, and let the Tucson Museum of Art expand into the old courthouse. They should also sell the building they bought at Scott and Congress, sell the parking lot opposite Santa Rita, and move the assessor's office out of the space at 21 E. Congress and let that space become a restaurant or retail, or a club.

The negative reaction was overblown. Minneapolis uses this system and it allows them to make on-the-spot arrests with high-resolution video evidence that gives them a 100% conviction rate. It will be interesting to see if the crime rate in Downtown Minneapolis actually dips. I'm in favor of Downtown getting a lot more restaurants and nightclubs, and I think the cameras will help Tucson residents who are afraid of Downtown now, feel more safe. With more drinking establishments and nightlife, it will be nice to have some tools to solve some crimes and maybe deter some bad behavior that is the negative flipside of entertainment districts.

I hear that the City is going to pay it, but that it will come out of the $20 million they promised the UA three years ago. Not all of the $7 million went for the bridge design, as they had done a lot of work on designing the science center and its exhibits prior to the hiring of the egomaniac architect. By the way, for the 30 firms that thought they were being fairly considered for the design of the center, think again. In the late 90's, the head of some Columbia University division oversaw the construction of a building designed by Vinoly. Peter Eisenberger was his name, and a couple years later, he met Alexis Faust at Princeton. After she came to Arizona and began working on this project, she summoned Eisenberger to be a member of her technical advisory board. He promptly became the biggest cheerleader for this "iconic" architecture concept, with the deal going to his old buddy Rafael. Google for yourself.

I know that the Coconuts property had been in the same family for several decades, and that the site had been the home of their family business many years ago--the Baum-Adamson Tire Shop. I'm not sure if the Coconuts building itself was part of Baum-Adamson (as opposed to being constructed later), but I believe it was. The new court building is a joint county-city court complex, but the county is taking the lead on its development. The crappy City Courts building on Alameda will be knocked down after the new building is completed. As of now, it's planned for structured parking.

Yes, Colin, Dean still lurks! Everybody must have been on vacation at the same time, because no one posted anything for several days and I got out of the habit of checking in. Now I'm catching up. Actually, the Coconuts building was bought by the County for their new County-City court complex. Coconuts and the little former gas station on Council Street will come down soon so that they can do archaeological investigation and see how many skeletons they find. The site was a cemetery in the late 1800s and when they moved the cemetery further north so they could develop the property, they didn't relocate all the gravesites. The county fears there may be 500 skeletons. They will use the old Arts Council building at Stone and Council as the forensic lab, and then that building will come down too. You can read all about it in the August issue of Downtown Tucsonan, or on-line at http://www.downtowntucson.org/downtowntucs...lsigns.html#VS1 The new restaurant is coming into the old Mountain Oyster Club, across from Coconuts.

Actually, Presidio Terrace is getting $2 million from Rio Nuevo for the underground parking, since most of it will be public parking. They are replacing 125 spaces that had been there for the use of the Tucson Museum of Art. This is how Rio Nuevo can help private projects, to pay for infrastructure for public improvements. Having said that, Rio Nuevo is always happy to take credit for anything positive in Downtown. The developers of Ice House Lofts got really upset when Rio Nuevo tried to take credit for their project. They risked their capital and got nothing from the City in help or incentives, but it was at the top of the list of Rio Nuevo projects in one of the brochures.

I took 1,200 photos--which ones would you like to see? Regarding the small size of Downtown Tucson: I think that the area by Ice House Lofts and the new Barrio Brewing Company will get developed, and we will start to consider it part of Downtown. The only problem with that is that, other than the Toole Avenue connection, it's cut off from Downtown by Armory Park. We won't be knocking down the other neighborhoods, either, to expand Downtown. I think 6th Street, Stone Avenue, and 4th Avenue will densify. Economic pressure will ultimately force us to get creative with land use to maximize the land area, and I think the days when shortsighted bureaucrats like Emily Nottingham, Karen Thoreson and John Updike were allowed to make important decisions is over. There is far more scrutiny now than there was even as recently as last year, by the media, by the stakeholders, and by the City Council. We have to build underground parking. The Jolly Green Giant garage on Pennington is useful for now, but we cannot afford to build more above-ground land-wasters like that anymore.

The problem for Counts has always been that he doesn't have the money to do his project. His strategy was to get everybody excited about bringing Nimbus downtown to put political pressure on the City to give him the concessions he was looking for, and the only reason condos were part of his proposal was because he thought the profits from the condo sales would subsidize his brewery/restaurant. The City and Town West really put the squeeze on him, but he asked for it. I was impressed by Grand Rapids' Downtown, as I hadn't been there in 20 years. The Amway guys have really put their stamp on it. The City of Tucson has promised directional signage downtown for five years and the inability to get it done has become a joke among those who have followed it. So, I had to take pictures of the nice directional signs in DT GR. Downtown Holland shows what can happen when one motivated and well-funded individual (the late Ed Prins) owns all of the buildings. Very nice, and with retail that people actually shop in, from Holland and from afar. I also spent three days in Chicago--besides the obvious qualities of the Windy City, their new Millennium Park is amazing. They have an artistic water feature that is very cool, among other neat things. We also went to St. Louis where my sister lives. The Gateway Arch is touted by the UA Science Center people as an iconic structure that has put St. Louis on the map. It is a wonderful attraction, but it actually does little for the downtown. It's cut off by I-70. I guess Alexis Faust would say that shows why the UA needs to build the rainbow bridge over I-10, to link the two sides. To that I say, that's what the modern streetcar will do. Interestingly, the St. Louis Science Center spans U.S. 40. An enclosed pedestrian bridge links the new science center on the south side of the highway with the old science center built in a hillside at the edge of Forest Park. It is nothing like the scale of what has been proposed in Tucson, though. It's mainly functional and also serves as visible marketing for the center, but certainly not anything that people would travel to see, as the rainbow bridge is alleged to accomplish for $350 million or so. A fascinating case of quirky but inspired urban development is St. Louis' City Museum, which is the brainchild of an unusual developer with a vision. Since it's very difficult to describe, just go to their website at citymuseum.org. We got an after-hours tour by one of the artists who works there. MJLO, I totally agree with you as to why GR has a more dense downtown than Tucson. Tucson was very small when downtowns were being developed in more populated cities with more height and density. After the Pioneer and the Valley Bank (now Chase) building were finished--Valley Bank just two weeks before the 1929 stock market crash, the Depression hit. Then after the war, Tucson's population growth took off, but the cheap land of the sprawling edge made sure that not only the housing but the retail and office were built in suburbia. And Tucson never had the major private employers or corporations that were traditionally based in Downtown, occupying a lot of office space and creating demand for large buildings.

Grand Rapids has a smaller population than Tucson, but apparently the downtown buildings go higher there. Tucson's tallest building is a little less than 300 feet, and the zoning prohibits anything taller than 300 feet. I actually grew up in Holland, and am going there this weekend. Anyway, I thought the article about First Things First for Rio Nuevo was pretty accurate in terms of the decisions that have to be made now that they have the extra money. They have to resolve this business about the science center rainbow bridge and the arena, because they could potentially eat up so much of the TIF money, and they carve out big footprints too. The sooner we decide not to build that rainbow bridge, the sooner we can get real on better ways to spend the money. I heard Mike Hein speak a few weeks ago and it was just before the TIF extension passed, and he said, regardless of the outcome of the TIF extension, we need to make decisions about those two projects and not waste any more time on it. Judy is a nice lady and I respect her. One of the other neighbors of El Presidio wrote a pretty bitter letter to the Star the other day about Presidio Terrace, and signed it something like "Advocate for Residential Development in Downtown". Look for more crap to hit the fan next week on Depot Plaza. That shipwreck is about to be rescued before it takes the east end down with it. That project has been such a disaster that it deserves at least two trite cliches to describe it.

Was that Judy Dare that invited you to the meeting with Pashos? I think that she supported the project other than the height and wasn't that militant about it. She wrote a letter saying it would obliterate a very narrow view corridor--like, "we can't build a taller building there because there is one little square inch of Main Avenue where you can look at just the right angle and see Tumamoc Hill". Well, for every view that gets blocked by development, several more open up. I had a speaker's card turned in, but the 60-minute time limit on the public hearing expired before I got called. There were definitely more supporters than opponents there. If you read the on-line comments on StarNet that follow those articles, you do get some real melonheads coming out of the woodwork talking about "developer giveaways" and saying things like "tall buildings are okay for big cities that have already been screwed up, but not for here in beautiful Tucson where everything is perfect". It's embarrassing living here when you read stuff like that. I think that Nina Trasoff wants to resolve the Nimbus situation next. It's about time. That embarrassment has gone on long enough. I'd say there's a 99% chance that the City will issue a Request for Proposals and let Nimbus and everyone else re-bid on it. Counts is such a glutton for punishment (self-inflicted in his case) that he will probably put in another proposal. And now that the TIF has passed, it's time to resolve the question of the science center bridge. 99% chance that nothing of the scale and cost that the U of A has proposed will get funded and built.

For all the complaining of the Senate Republicans about the TIF gobbling up the sales tax money generated at Park Place and El Con "Mall" (Target/Home Depot/Doughnut Center), they ended up not forcing the City to give up the money generated along Broadway. They just shortened the term, which proves that it was all about the total diversion of money. The malls were just a distraction from their real issue.

I hear there will be a vote tonight on the TIF extension bill at the state senate. Keep your fingers crossed. Getting this money to build well-designed structured parking will do more to promote high-rise housing in the Downtown area than anything. (along with the positive impact of the streetcar)

Not that I'm trying to discourage use of this urban planet blog regarding downtown Tucson, but I noticed that there is a new "Forum" page on the Tucson Downtown Alliance website, at www.downtowntucson.org. /alliance/forum That might be a place to find others interested in Downtown to visit with, and broaden the circle of dialogue.