[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- Tucson Origins Heritage Park - the heart and soul of the downtown Rio Nuevo revitalization - could start coming out of the ground by the end of next year. That could bring Tucsonans a rebuilt Mission San Agustin and Convento - the start of Europeanized Tucson - in 2009-10. The Mission Gardens may be ready for the public in 2008, said Marty McCune, the city's historic preservation officer. The origins park had been promised as an early feature of Rio Nuevo in 1999, but those ambitions slowed considerably when a 25-foot-deep garbage dump had to be cleared from the site. "This is a difficult site. It takes time to get the site ready," McCune said. "We are interpreting 4,000 years of history. It is a monumental task to figure out a way to interpret that."A 2004 master plan pegged the cost for Tucson Origins Heritage Park at $38.5 million, but downscaling a proposed interpretive center could bring the cost down to $20 million to $25 million, McCune said. The early years of the 21st century have seen $7 million in Rio Nuevo-funded site work to get the 25 acres just west of Interstate 10 and south of Clearwater Street ready to re-create history. Garbage dump work was largely finished earlier this year, and Avenida del Convento is being built to link the park with Congress Street.
Conceptual designs for the rebuilt walled mission complex including the mission and convento as well as mission gardens outside the walls should be ready for City Council approval in four to six months. "I call it the historical and cultural cornerstone of Rio Nuevo," McCune said. "I believe it is the basic project that celebrates the history and cultural heart of this community." The architecture firm Burns Wald-Hopkins will be introduced as the park's design team tonight at a Rio Nuevo Citizens Advisory Committee meeting. A contract with the firm should be finalized next week. [Note: Computer image shows a replica of the Mission San Agustin and Convento planned for Rio Nuevo South. Source: Doug Gann, Tucson Citizen.]
