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Tucson Downtown/Rio Nuevo Thread


colin

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so I guess I'm not really clear, is there alot of developement going on in downtown Tucson? Sounds like alot of it is smoke and mirrors.

Well, if you come to Tucson, you certainly wouldn't see a bunch of cranes and construction equipment Downtown. Almost everything is in the planning stages. I often speak like it's happening because I remain optimistic that something will be built Downtown, if only a couple of small mixed-use developments.

However, the Mercado District, which is a little to the west on Congress Street is actually happening. The frames are already up on many houses. Same with Paseo Estrella, which is further south. And Armory Park Del Sol is totally built out, I believe. (BTW, all of these are on the Rio Nuevo project map on the City's web site)

Some things are happening, but nothing overly spectacular.

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it seems (easy for the new resident to say this) that tucson is in an optimistic position right now. reading the papers (and these threads), everyone seems to be having the big, inevitable, critical mass discussion of Where To Go From Here - perhaps in response to the desire to grow in a way antithetical to the path phoenix has taken?

in the short time i've been here, i've seen land use issues dominate newspapers and public radio on an almost daily basis. i haven't been here long enough to know if it's the kind of place where everybody's always talking but never actually doing, or if things take off. things taking off isn't always such a great thing, though. tucson has a lot to lose by doing things wrong. phoenix at least didn't play such a crucial cultural / historic role way back when, when it decided to mismanage its growth, so it didn't so much lose what it had as just not gain very much, except the salt river's water supply.

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I wouldn't be so quick to say that Phoenixs' growth has been entirely mis-managed. The city is sprawling, but Phoenix's burbs have densities consistent with core cities, like Dallas, and Houston. Unlike Atlanta and Detroit where you have exurbs, rural parts in between pockets of sprawl, from the air you can see controlled growth, grids, and developements all kind of stop in a line, and then nothing. Granted, you have 3.5 million people in an area larger than the state of New Jersey, But they are even starting infill older areas with more dense developements. I think this kind of urban planning and policy is the main reason why Phoenix, is ranked so comparitively low on surveys where they score sprawl.

sorry for going off topic on the Tuscon thread guys.

Edited by MJLO
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Most in Tucson would definitely like it to be the antithesis of Phoenix. I certainly would.

Many people here absolutely loathe Phoenix and everything it represents: heavy traffic, long commutes, sprawl, chain stores, high housing costs, crime-ridden (which is why you see a lot of Phoenix crime on the local news and in the local paper), lack of art/culture, snobby (sorry, but it is the going stereotype). A lot of the drive behind the whole anti-sprawl/infill movement here really is "We don't want to become Phoenix". It's something everyone agrees on.

There is certainly infill in Phoenix, but there are some areas that are just ridiculous, especially in the East Valley and the West Valley near Avondale, and that's what people see. Just about everyone is Tucson is very committed to not letting their area look like that, and it hopefully never will.

As far as land use being the hot topic, it's always been a hot topic, but is just the flavor of the month now. A few months ago, it was water. Before that, it was crime. Before that, it was school funding. There's always something that the media wants to use to keep people tuned in and their subscription quotas covered, but they are all certainly important issues. That's how I see it, at least.

Since this is still a Tucson thread, I also wanted to point out the Houghton Area Master Plan (HAMP). The powers-that-be (foresightful as they are) figured that the vast swath of undeveloped, mostly state-owned land on the south east side will be developed. It's just a matter of time. So, they put together a smart growth plan which essentially is a master planned community on a large scale. The plan occassionally gets mentioned in the papers, especially more recently with the Fantasy Island stuff (an unofficial mountain biking course on state trust land which was saved recently by some nice planners).

This is the City's web site on HAMP. You can also Google "hamp tucson" and find quite a bit about it. I think it's great!

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"New River" of course!

Rio Nuevo is a TIF (tax increment financing) district where the money is funnelled to aide Downtown development in Tucson. For these TIFs, there are generally some pretty specific limits on what money can be used for, but I've never been able to find such a description for Rio Nuevo.

Rio Nuevo is different from other TIFs (even in Tucson) in that it uses sales taxes instead of property taxes to fund itself, mostly from two of Tucson's malls (mainly Park Place, which you'll understand if you've ever been to El Con). I'm also not really sure why Tucson Mall doesn't participate in this as it is also in the city limits. There are other funding sources, but those are the main ones.

TIFs have expirations though and must be extended pretty often, which is what we're seeing now. Rio Nuevo's a bit of a cash hog, so I'm sure that the state has some other plans for the money. How about a 10-lane beltway around Phoenix that crosses the Verde three times, has a causeway over Lake Pleasant and goes through Snaketown for potential housing development?

One of the politicos heavily involved with this thing could probably explain it much better than I can. I'm not overly aware of all the intricacies and eccentricities of this whole funding nightmare. Go to any meeting involving development though, and you'll probably hear the word "TIF" at some point. They love their acronyms.

Here's a Weekly article on Rio Nuevo and its TIF from '99. Its project info is now outdated, but the TIF description is still pretty spot-on:

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/currents...t?oid=oid:41840

[edit]

I was trying to find another example of TIF in Tucson, but couldn't, although I know that the re-construction of the MLK public housing apartments Downtown has one, and I believe the proposed Depot Plaza has one.

Anyway, if you're more interested in TIF, Downtown San Diego used it several years ago for its rennaisance. If you can get past the "Download the TIFF version of this" links on Google, you should be able to find something about it. I also believe Portland used TIF for some things, maybe even its MAX light rail line.

[/edit]

Have there been any opposition to the TIFs? They've been a little more controversial over where I live about them. Some people really don't like the idea of them. I was curious if this applied to other areas like Tucson as well.

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Have there been any opposition to the TIFs? They've been a little more controversial over where I live about them. Some people really don't like the idea of them. I was curious if this applied to other areas like Tucson as well.

I've never heard any complaints about the actual idea of the TIF here, but maybe the circles I move in are too liberal. People here seem to resent anything from property taxes being used, because they somehow think that it's actually raising what they pay as opposed to the actual property value.

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I've never heard any complaints about the actual idea of the TIF here, but maybe the circles I move in are too liberal. People here seem to resent anything from property taxes being used, because they somehow think that it's actually raising what they pay as opposed to the actual property value.

My town is a rather liberal town. I'm no expert on TIFs but I was thinking it had more to do with the fact that the money was going to projects instead of going to the schools. There was a lot of debate not just in my city but my whole state about TIFs a while back ago.

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Ok, are TIFs something similar to a developement authority giving tax credits on infrastructure improvements? I guess I'm trying to put into terms that I would understand. Are they unique to the west? Back east we have developement corporations who give Brownfields and such. What's the diff. Another way of saying Rennasaince zone perhaps?

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Ok, are TIFs something similar to a developement authority giving tax credits on infrastructure improvements? I guess I'm trying to put into terms that I would understand. Are they unique to the west? Back east we have developement corporations who give Brownfields and such. What's the diff. Another way of saying Rennasaince zone perhaps?

I do know TIFs just aren't in the west. It seems like I've heard other states having TIFs as well. But I don't think all states have them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Colin, convulso. Any updates on Tucson developements?

The rainbow bridge people have a public meeting next week some time. I got the mailer yesterday, but haven't read it yet, so I don't even know when it is.

They offered to come give a presentation to my neighborhood association, but there wasn't much interest.

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Okay, so it's not a public meeting, it's instead some sort of "cultural festival" with the rainbow bridge and other science center projects. 10am-2pm this Saturday at the Riverpark Inn (I-10 south of Congress, where Bennigan's is) if you're interested.

http://www.flandrau.org/news.php?id=129

I'm actually off to Phoenix this weekend, but I'm going to try to make it for a part.

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are there any condo or loft projects proposed for Tucson?

Presidio Terrace has a public meeting with the City Council on the 27th, I believe (I'll check my dates and edit it if I'm wrong).

I'll hopefully make this one. I'm always out of town when there's some important meeting regarding this project.

Other projects:

44 Broadway

I don't know that this one will go anywhere. 44 Broadway has had an empty leasing office for at least two years.

The Lofts at Fifth Avenue is certainly happening. Drive down Sixth Street just west of Fourth Avenue, and that big pile of demolition is what used to be the YWCA and will soon be the new structure.

Academy Lofts is an Armory Park loft project. I don't know what the deal with this is, but their web site is certainly busted.

I may ride the bike out to these projects, including a couple of the existing projects,in a couple of days to get some pictures.

More on Downtown housing here:

http://www.downtowntucson.org/living/housing/

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I know I must sound like a broken record here, do any of those being built have any height?

Presidio Terrace will be about 100', slightly taller than my building across the street (quite immasculating).

44 Broadway and Academy are both converted spaces, so they won't be very high.

5th Avenue will be only a couple of stories high, I believe.

The Nimbus proposal was to be about 100' as well, and Depot Plaza was going to be at least 5 stories.

I think we'll have to settle for mid-rises here before we can even think of getting some high-rises in.

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As I said I would, I took a nice bike ride with my camera this morning and hit a few projects around Downtown.

Academy Lofts from 16th Street:

academylofts1.jpg

From 6th Avenue:

academylofts3.jpg

I'm not sure if this is part of the development, but it's next door to the north:

academylofts4.jpg

The front from 16th Street:

academylofts5.jpg

I like their tag line:

academylofts6.jpg

Ice House Lofts:

It appears that they preserved one portion of the original structure:

icehouse1.jpg

icehouse3.jpg

Things found inside are also used as outdoor sculptures:

icehouse4.jpg

This was a development on East 17th directly across from Ice House Lofts that I didn't know about:

17th1.jpg

17th4.jpg

In between the 16th and 17th Street portions of the development, there was this awesome old adobe, which was fenced off and only accessible from an alley:

17th2.jpg

The Lofts at 5th Avenue:

The Muse sign is still up, which is surprising. The Muse was an artist studio and performance complex. It was quite the eyesore, but was pretty vital to the neighborhood's artist community nonetheless.

5thavenuelofts1.jpg

Depot Plaza:

This is the site. I've drawn on the picture to kind of map out where it is. The developer also wants to close off Congress Street here (and make Broadway two-way) to connect the project to the depot:

depotplaza1.jpg

Presidio Terrace:

The work done at the site was, I believe, to excavate for achaeological remains, of which very few were found. There's a City Council meeting on this in a couple of weeks:

presidioterrace1.jpg

44 Broadway:

44broadway1.jpg

44broadway3.jpg

44broadway4.jpg

44broadway5.jpg

The perpetually-empty leasing office, which is also, ironically, in a separate building:

44broadway6.jpg

44broadway7.jpg

Edited by colin
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One more note:

I went to Flandrau's "Cultural Plaza Festival" today before coming up here to Phoenix. The festival was small, short (10am-2pm) and mainly kid-oriented. However, both Flandrau and the City had booths set up.

I spent about 15 minutes talking to the Rio Nuevo people, namely Albert Elias, Director of Urban Planning & Design for the City (he gave me his card), about half of which was spent with another guy who came up and aired his complaints about the bridge. I was happy to hear him speak, because it sort of confirmed my belief that most in the Downtown area love the Science Center idea, but not the bridge.

The Rio Nuevo guys weren't overly enthusiastic about it either, at times agreeing with the criticism I, or the other guy, offered.

I could have gone and talked to Flandrau, but, the fact is, it's not so much in their hands anymore. It became clear a while ago that they didn't have quite enough money to finance the Science Center and the bridge, and would need Rio Nuevo and/or the City to front some of the $$ necessary. Therefore, the City could make or break the project.

A few things about Rio Nuevo that I did not know before:

- El Mercado will actually have a mercado, although it will probably be a traditional retail store.

- The TCC area is slated to have at least one residential mid-rise or possible tower.

- The Rio Nuevo people are absolutely insistent on a new arena and they don't seem to really have a contingency plan for what to do with the plot if it falls through.

- I was especially curious about the future of the Turquoise Trail (a marked, circular interpretive trail going by important historical sites in the Downtown and El Presidio area) as in would it be developed further. One of the guys didn't even seem to know what it was. I guess that answered my question.

- They're calling an adobe restoration on Church Avenue "El Presidio". I don't like that, as El Presidio is the name of the adjacent neighborhood, and this could lead to quite a bit of confusion.

- There was once a supermarket at the southwest corner of Congress and I-10. It was demolished around 1990.

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TIFs are common throughout the U.S., particularly in the East, and they normally capture increased property valuations, but out West, they are less common, and in Arizona, only Tucson has one. The conservative state legislature tried to sunset the already limited TIF capabilities of the state back in 1999, but Tucson had some ideas about revitalizing the decayed area west of the Santa Cruz, and argued successfully to be given a year to put a TIF district in front of the voters. It created a gerrymandered district to capture the increment of sales taxes generated along Broadway, primarily from two malls, and the TIF district had a ten-year life.

It eventually occurred to the city that they could actually use TIF to revitalize downtown, not just build a nice park on the west side, and it became clear that after the initial ten years' worth of money (from the period of 2003-2013) was spent on museums, rebuilt historic sites, the Fox Theatre and the UA science center, there wasn't anything left to really do something to rebuild downtown.

So they had the idea of asking the state legislature to extend the term from 10 years to 40. The inclusion of the malls has stuck in the craw of legislators, particularly conservative Republicans who control both houses, and the fact that the city has done so little with Rio Nuevo to this point, has made it a harder sell.

I read back further in the thread, in January, where someone said that losing Karen Thoreson was a blow. Actually that was the best thing that could have happened to Rio Nuevo, because she was an egomaniac with no vision and a lot of stupid ideas.

The University of Arizona got a little too full of themselves, and hired a hot-shot architect to design a bridge containing its science center and linking the west side with the downtown side. They didn't bother to give him a budget, apparently, and he came up with a design that they say will cost $350 million, but will probably be double that. The neighborhoods are against it, and the smart money says it won't happen. The university just needs to worry about building a nice science center, and not go with a 370-foot suspension bridge, dangling the science center over Interstate 10.

44 Broadway will get built, but the Lofts on 5th Avenue have stalled due to the slowdown of the housing market. Demolition on the old Muse building has stopped, and I wouldn't be surprised if what's left standing is still there in six months. The Muse sign is still up because developers generally leave signs up until they're ready to replace them--the way the sign permit process works, you're better off directly replacing a sign that has an existing permit rather than removing a sign and then starting over with the permit process later.

The Post on Congress is going through its rezoning, and it will be about five stories, and 40 condos. The picture labeled "Depot Plaza" is actually of the "Plaza Centro" site. Depot Plaza is west of Hotel Congress, and has been a major clusterf***. The city manager has moved patiently but deliberately to clean up Thoreson's messes, and DP is at the top of that list.

The owner of Nimbus is imploding himself with a bitter PR campaign against everybody he thinks has wronged him, including the city and the Arizona Daily Star. While he's been hanging himself, the owner of Gentle Ben's has managed to get the approvals for a new microbrewery near Ice House Lofts.

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Also, the adobe reconstruction of "El Presidio de Tucson" isn't stealing the name of the neighborhood. The El Presidio neighborhood was named for the presidio which was where Tucson was founded with a walled compound. They're re-creating a portion of the presidio as a tourist site, and I don't know what else you would call it. If anything, the neighborhood has taken the name of the historical element that Rio Nuevo is re-creating. They're both named for the same historic artifact.

They're rebuilding the northeast corner of the presidio compound, which was 600 feet on each side, and encompassed the area now filled in with City Hall (at the SW corner), the old Pima County Courthouse (at the SE corner), and the Tucson Museum of Art Historic Block (the NW corner).

Once that project is built, hopefully rather than causing confusion, El Presidio de Tucson will raise awareness of the historic significance of the neighborhood.

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Welcome DeanofTucson! Thank you for explaining Rio Nuevo a little more for me. You sound like you have alot of information on Tucson to share, I really hope you stick around my friend. It's always great to get new people!

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No problem! I was googling something about Depot Plaza and stumbled on this thread. I was impressed by how much concern there was about the high-rises and the various projects (especially Colin posting all the photos and even labeling one of them for the posting), but along with the passion that was evident in the thread, there was a little misinformation thrown in, so I couldn't resist.

It's good to see that some people "get it" as far as the density thing goes, because it seems that even some who live in Downtown want it to stay a sleepy, low-scale place. The fact that the RTA will pay for the streetcar is a big deal, and there will be a lot of "densifying" of the corridor that it runs along. As long as the City can get out of the way and facilitate it, it's inevitable that TOD--transit-oriented development--will occur in spades within a few blocks of the streetcar. It's been proven in Portland and elsewhere that developers respond to the fixed-rail local transit line.

I would like to hear more from Colin about his conversation with the Rio Nuevo people about the arena, and learn who he actually spoke with.

I'll check back in occasionally and see what you all are blogging about.

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Hi Dean! Welcome to the forum. It's certainly good to see another Arizona person, and definitely good to see another Tucson resident on here.

I read back further in the thread, in January, where someone said that losing Karen Thoreson was a blow. Actually that was the best thing that could have happened to Rio Nuevo, because she was an egomaniac with no vision and a lot of stupid ideas.

Yeah, that was me. I didn't mean that losing her was a blow to Rio Nuevo, but rather a blow to the public image of it. It's never good PR when someone up high jumps ship. I also heard bad things about her though.

The neighborhoods are against it, and the smart money says it won't happen. The university just needs to worry about building a nice science center, and not go with a 370-foot suspension bridge, dangling the science center over Interstate 10.

I really don't think that it will happen either. People won't stand for the City putting up the money for something like that. I don't know about Menlo Park, Barrio Hollywood or Barrio Viejo, but El Presidio hasn't taken an official position on it yet, although we're not quite as affected as the other neighborhoods.

The Post on Congress is going through its rezoning, and it will be about five stories, and 40 condos. The picture labeled "Depot Plaza" is actually of the "Plaza Centro" site. Depot Plaza is west of Hotel Congress, and has been a major clusterf***. The city manager has moved patiently but deliberately to clean up Thoreson's messes, and DP is at the top of that list.

You're right. Depot Plaza is the MLK Apartments re-do. I saw the head of Tucson's housing department come talk about the project a few months ago, and she seemed very frustrated about how things are going. The big issue with this, I think, is having to move a lot of these people out to the land fill on Silverbell Road (across from the sewage plant, no less). But the developers, unfortunately, aren't going to make any money if they don't cut down on the number of public housing units.

The owner of Nimbus is imploding himself with a bitter PR campaign against everybody he thinks has wronged him, including the city and the Arizona Daily Star. While he's been hanging himself, the owner of Gentle Ben's has managed to get the approvals for a new microbrewery near Ice House Lofts.

I read about that breakdown that he had in front of the City Council and just laughed. He was absent from the next public meeting, supposedly due to some sort of foot injury or something. Things have been quiet for a while on that.

My boss had told me that Ben's had already laid down their foundation. I went looking for it on Saturday though and didn't see anything. He may have been wrong (most likely), but I may have just forgotten where he said it was exactly.

That area is turning into quite the unlikely hot spot though. 17th Street Market's joke about their location ("Inconveniently located on 17th Street...") may no longer ring true soon.

I would like to hear more from Colin about his conversation with the Rio Nuevo people about the arena, and learn who he actually spoke with.

Albert Elias. I don't know who the other guy was, but he was also wearing a Rio Nuevo shirt.

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