[Source: Rob O'Dell, Daily Star] -- The minimum price to save part of Tucson's history and something unique to Southern Arizona: $1 million. That's the cost estimate, in a "Final Historic Structure Report" done by the city, to stabilize the more than 90-year-old Marist College Downtown, at the northwest corner of the St. Augustine Cathedral square, and just to make it structurally sound. Where the money would come from, however, remains a question. Diocese of Tucson officials say the church doesn't have the money. And while a majority of the City Council supports doing something, there is no agreement to put up the cash. The three-story adobe walls are beginning to crumble and a corner of the building, which fell off during the 2005 monsoon, remains covered by a tarp that swings in and out with the wind. The $1 million would make the building whole by repairing the holes, building a steel skeleton inside for stabilization and removing the current outer shell and replacing it with a more compatible plaster that would better repel water, the report says. Renovating the interior to make it usable would be another $1 million to $2 million. Marist, which housed a Catholic school from 1915 to 1968, is the only three-story adobe in Southern Arizona, and maybe in Arizona, said John Shaheen, diocese property and insurance director. Shaheen said the diocese would like to sell or give the building to the city, a nonprofit organization or a private developer because the church can't afford to fix it.
[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Peg Price.]
