[Source: Rob O'Dell, Daily Star] -- Racing against a ticking clock, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is again trying to give the crumbling adobe Marist College building to the city, in hopes it will save the 93-year-old Downtown building from collapse. The diocese and the city have for years had informal negotiations over the three-story building on the northwest corner of the St. Augustine Cathedral square, but neither party wants to pay the $1 million minimum cost to stabilize the building.Now the diocese has offered to raise about $250,000 toward making the building structurally sound, although the city still hasn't jumped on the deal because of the price tag and the uncertainty of what the building would be used for once it is stabilized. The diocese is also offering to include a portion of the St. Augustine parking lot across from the Tucson Convention Center, according to an e-mail from City Historic Preservation Officer Jonathan Mabry John Shaheen, diocese property and insurance director, said the church does not have the money to stabilize the Marist building, which housed a Catholic school from 1915 to 1968.
[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Benjie Sanders, Daily Star.]
