Tucson's second-oldest building undergoes repairs, improvements

[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- The wood viga and saguaro lath ceilings at the historic La Casa Cordova, 173 N. Meyer Ave., will be visible for the first time in more than 30 years when the second-oldest known building in Tucson reopens to the public, likely in December. La Casa Cordova, built some time before the first Tucson map was drawn in 1862, was closed in June to replace electrical systems, upgrade drainage and make the adobe structure more accessible to the disabled, said Meredith Hayes, spokeswoman for the Tucson Museum of Art and Historic Block, which manages the house. Since Labor Day, a 10- to 14-foot-wide brick walkway has been installed in the courtyard so those in wheelchairs will no longer have to roll through dirt to get to the seven rooms in the L-shaped structure. The bricks cover about one-fourth of the dirt courtyard, and a new rock water catch basin fills one corner in the courtyard.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Val Canez, Tucson Citizen.]

Downtown Tucson deal aims to acquire artist space

[Source: Bud Foster, KOLD News] -- "We got empty lots. We got falling down buildings," says Susan Gamble, President of the Warehouse Arts Management Organization. But WAMO is working to change that. There are about 30 old, dilapidated warehouses in downtown Tucson which are owned by the Arizona State Transportation Department. Local artists would like to have those buildings to house their studios. They proposed a deal. The city and state would swap some land in exchange for the warehouses. The city would then deed the warehouses over to the artists. The artists would then start to work. "If we take on all the expense of doing rehab, the work of it, the advertising, it's really a good deal for them (Tucson) because we do a public service and a public good," says Gamble.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: TucsonRailfan.]

Efforts to restore Tucson's Valley of the Moon under way

[Source: Ryn Gargulinski, Tucson Citizen] -- Valley of the Moon is still shooting for the moon with the makeover and restoration of the 1920s-era fantasyland. The journey is well on its way, said spokesman Charlie Spillar, and it's not stopping at rebuilding a troll bridge or a rabbit hole at the midtown park. Valley of the Moon, 2544 E. Allen Road, will be moving into the future with new additions, fresh landscaping and even compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. "The Tucson community is doing amazing things to help restore their treasure," Spillar said.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Val Canez, Tucson Citizen. Pictured: A gnome in the Enchanted Garden at Valley of the Moon.]

Historic Hittinger building in Downtown Tucson sells for $1.09M

[Source: Daily Star] -- A historic building at 116 E. Congress St. has been sold to apartment management firm Morrison, Ekre & Bart Management Services Inc. for $1.09 million. The property, listed as the First Hittinger Block on the National Register of Historic Places, dates to 1915, according to the Pima County Assessor's Office. The apartment management firm plans to renovate the building and move in by December, said Crystal McGuire, of Buzz Isaacson Realty, who represented the buyer. Previously owned by real estate broker Warren Michaels, the Hittinger building housed an office for architect Rob Paulus, McGuire said. The two-story building has 7,600 square feet, and a 3,400-square-foot basement. [Photo source: Peg Price.]

City of Tucson urged anew to take over, repair old Marist adobe

[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.]

20+ historic sites in downtown Tucson vie for facade program

[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- More than 20 historic downtown buildings will be evaluated for the city's $530,000 facade improvement program. Property owners from many prominent downtown businesses met the Tuesday deadline to be considered for the program, said Glenn Lyons, chief executive of the Downtown Tucson Partnership. "I'm terribly pleased," Lyons said. "I had no idea we'd have this kind of response." That's because property owners have to make a 50-50 match for the city funding if they are among the four chosen to do facade work. Applicants include Hotel Congress (pictured), Wig-O-Rama, Beowulf Alley Theatre and ArtFare The Muse.

The selection committee headed by Lyons expects to narrow the list by Aug. 1 to eight applicants. They will each be assigned an architect and each be 3 given $7,500 from the program fund to prepare their concept and renovation proposals, which are due Oct 7. The selection committee expects to announce four finalists Nov. 8. City funding could be as much as $125,000 for a corner property and $90,000 for one midblock. "It'll be hard to choose eight and then four," Lyons said. The buildings have to date from before 1948 and must have an original facade that can be restored. The program is limited to buildings on Broadway and Congress and Pennington streets, between Toole and Church avenues, Lyons said. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]

Design manual to guide builders in Tucson historic areas

[Source: Tom Beal, Daily Star] -- Diana Lett doesn't believe students could or should be excluded from her neighborhood just north of the University of Arizona. She was a graduate student herself when she moved into her Craftsman bungalow a couple of blocks from campus 22 years ago. But she didn't move in with five other students and six cars.

Feldman's Neighborhood (pictured), slated to be the first university neighborhood to prepare a design manual to guide development under the Neighborhood Preservation Zone ordinance adopted by the Tucson City Council last week, would like to limit the impact of student housing in the area. The area has always welcomed students. Many of the homes have additional exterior doors for ease of renting out rooms, and many of the homes have guesthouses in the backyards, Lett said. There are motor courts and apartment buildings, but there are also streets of venerable single-family homes, some dating to 1900, that are part of Tucson's historic fabric.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Greg Bryan, Daily Star.]

Tucson's Rio Nuevo delays frustrating, but starting to yield results (op-ed)

[Source: Nina Trasoff] -- Rio Nuevo has experienced some growing pains. Nobody would deny this. We've had to modify some early plans, rethink our approach to mapping out what will be the major features in a revitalized city center, and face the reality of a listless economy along the way. These actions reflect good stewardship of a very large, complex project that is moving from concept to reality. It is only appropriate that there will be modifications along the way. The Legislature granted us a golden opportunity to create a city center that is a source of pride and economic prosperity by approving the Tax-Increment Financing District. We can't afford to squander that opportunity by choosing the wrong path for the sake of expediency. The delays have been frustrating for everyone who wants to enjoy a vibrant and exciting downtown, including the mayor and City Council. But over the past two years, we have taken concrete steps that should assure our community that Rio Nuevo is happening.

[Note: To read the full article, click here.]

Historic motel conversion, condo plan in Tucson dealt setbacks

[Source: Christie Smythe, Daily Star] -- Development plans for the historic Ghost Ranch Lodge and the condominium complex One West failed to win federal low-income-housing tax credits, possibly killing one project and putting the other on hold. Mark Breen, a developer who planned to turn the Miracle Mile motel Ghost Ranch Lodge (pictured) into senior housing, said in an e-mail Thursday that without the credits, "I intend to demolish the buildings and put (a) used car lot on the property."

"Shame on the state, for they knew my alternative plan," he wrote. He did not return calls or e-mails seeking clarification on that statement. One West, a condo project planned for West Speedway and North Stone Avenue, will have to be pushed back another year, said Dave Ollanik, one of the development partners. The tax credit — worth $1 million each year for the next 10 years — would have been the single largest source of funding for the $31 million project, Ollanik said. [Note: To read the full article, click here.]

Downtown Tucson redevelopment is progressing (op-ed)

[Source: Daily Star] -- It seems as if Rio Nuevo, the city's ambitious redevelopment plan, takes two steps back for each step forward. But that's not so. There is steady progress being made, though perhaps not as quickly or as gracefully as we all wish. The most recent apparent setback is that City Manager Mike Hein has postponed the groundbreaking on the West Side site for a Tucson Origins Heritage Park (pictured) and decided not to build the Origins Center, a structure that would have served as a entry point where visitors could orient themselves to the park.

Visitors also would have been charged admission to the park, which will house a reconstructed Mission San Augustín and Convento and museums, including the University Science Center, the Arizona State Museum and the Arizona Historical Society Museum. The Origins Center "wasn't needed and I think the City Council has been clear that they didn't want admissions charged," Hein told us on Wednesday. "That's the only thing we've scrapped." He said the Historical Society Museum will instead likely serve as a "portal" to the park.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Artist's rendering, Burns Wald-Hopkins Architects.]

Old facades could give downtown Tucson a new face

[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- Restoring a 1912 look to downtown Tucson may be the ideal way to celebrate the state's centennial in 2012 and to establish a "new" identity for the future. There are already nibbles to reawaken the downtown history that is still firmly in place - but mostly covered up, neglected or downright forgotten. With all the talk about an arena, museums and rainbow bridges, 90 percent of downtown revitalization could already be in place: the buildings on and near Congress Street and Broadway. Nearly all date from the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s - not that you'd necessarily know that with the awful mid-century facades that cover many of them. Check out the Hittinger Building (pictured), 120 E. Congress St., next to the Chicago Store.

This building had a drab 1940s look until owner Warren Michaels (pictured) in 2002 had architect Rob Paulus restore the 1901 neoclassical facade. Michaels is selling the building to Melanie Morrison, who will occupy it with 30 employees and her Morrison Ekre Bart Management Services, one of Tucson's top two apartment management firms. Michaels and Morrison unwittingly are providing the example of how downtown might be revitalized: spruce up a gorgeous building and fill it with people. Take a walk with Jonathan Mabry, Tucson's historic preservation officer, and he will tell you he wants to have more buildings restored to their early 20th century looks and occupied by businesses that attract visitors: boutique hotels, restaurants, retail shops. Sit down and chat with assistant city manager Karen Masbruch and Glenn Lyons, chief executive of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, and you will see they are about to unveil a facade program to add on to what Michaels, Morrison and Mabry are already doing.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Xavier Gallegos, Tucson citizen.]

Dig in to history: Check out Tucson's past at these restaurants

[Source: Tom Stauffer, Tucson Citizen] -- I'm always hesitant to put out lists of the best-anything, as I usually leave off one or more items that deserve inclusion or include one or more that deserve to be left off. That's why when it came time to work up a list of Tucson's best historical dining spots, I went straight to the best source I could find - R. Brooks Jeffery, coordinator of preservation studies at the University of Arizona College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture.

Jeffery, who co-authored "A Guide to Tucson Architecture" with Anne M. Nequette, signed off on this unofficial list of local eateries that offer a nice variety of cuisine. Jeffery also lobbied hard for a sentimental favorite that didn't make the list but earned a mention here - Pat's Drive-In, 1201 N. Grande Ave. "I insist that Pat's be included on the list," Jeffery said, only half-jokingly. "I'm proud to put my name next to that one as some of our best historic dining. It may not be that old, but it's classic as drive-ins go."

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Val Canez, Tucson Citizen. Pictured: The Cushing Street Bar & Restaurant, 198 W. Cushing St., originally a home, then a store.]

"Comprehensive resource stewardship" conference in Tucson

[Source: Brian Kenny, National Park Service Southern Arizona Office] -- The National Park Service (NPS) and affiliated organizations are sponsoring a "Comprehensive Resource Stewardship" conference scheduled for May 20-23, 2008 at the Marriott Starr Pass Resort in Tucson, Arizona. We have identified a need to recruit competent volunteers to attend the conference to provide assistance monitoring rooms and concurrent sessions and to help with minor logistical issues that help make a conference run smoothly. Volunteers, who provide support for two concurrent sessions or for a day's service, get to attend the conference for free. Individuals in the southern Arizona area who wish to volunteer to assist at the conference should contact Brian Kenny at (602)794-3819, or via email at brian_kenny@nps.gov.

Official call for papers

The conference provides an opportunity for NPS park and regional office resource managers and specialists to interact with one another and share resource highlights, concerns, problems and solutions by presenting and discussing cultural, natural and integrated resource management issues facing parks in this region. Park staff (along with others who have conducted work on behalf of parks) are invited to submit proposals for panel/discussion sessions, and presentations on key findings or solutions to resource management challenges through talks or posters. The Program Committee encourages presentations on interdisciplinary work that combines natural and cultural resource efforts, as well as research or projects conducted specifically for those two types of resources. Suggested topics include cultural and/or natural resource work pertaining to:

• Monitoring and managing effects of climate change in parks • Fire management and the human interface • Best practices to manage research in parks • How concessioners contribute to cultural and natural resource management • "Greening" the parks and sustainability efforts by parks and partners • Social and cultural aspects of wildlife management and appreciation • "Rodent in Ruins" and other Integrated Pest Management issues • Wilderness management in the new millennia • Applying results of research and monitoring to park issues

This list is not intended to be limiting – we invite other submissions on timely topics. Panels/Discussion Sessions are encouraged to promote interaction between subject matter experts, resource managers, and the audience. Panel should have no more than 4 presenters with 15 minutes per presentation, followed by 30 minutes for discussion facilitated by the panel/discussion leader. If you propose a panel/discussion, please specify potential and committed panelists, and the discussion leader/group facilitator (who may be one of the panelists). Key Findings Presentations will be limited to 15 minutes per person, plus 5 minutes for questions.

Since this conference encourages interaction between natural and cultural resource managers or specialists, rather than segmented subject matter experts in different concurrent sessions, proponents should clearly indicate how their presentation would be of interest to a broad audience of park staff and partners. Poster Sessions are an opportunity to visually represent timely research, inventory and monitoring, or management activity. Presenters must attend their poster during a scheduled poster session and be available to discuss their work with attendees. No other sessions will be held concurrent with the poster session, although posters will be viewable at other times during the conference. Each poster should be designed for placement on wall board no larger than 4' by 3'. The conference also allows an opportunity to conduct discipline-specific affinity meetings the day before the conference (May 19) and perhaps on Friday (May 23). Additional information on these meetings will be provided as they are finalized.

Planner: Modest, shorter projects work better in Tucson's downtown

[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- Don't expect a Manhattan skyline with Glenn Lyons as the point man shaping downtown. Downtown Tucson shouldn't aim at being a high-rise center, but should develop more in keeping with its character and the character of the city, Lyons believes. He wants to fill downtown vacant lots and surface parking lots with a scattering of two- and three-story housing and office complexes. Lyons, chief executive of the Downtown Tucson Partnership, recently unveiled to the Tucson Citizen his vision of downtown redevelopment. The downtown partnership Lyons heads is jointly funded by the county, city and private sector. Instead of a few grandiose developments that, given Tucson's history, undoubtedly would founder in a sea of controversy and never be built, Lyons is concentrating on more modest private-sector projects downtown.

Those developments ultimately would mesh with the large public projects at Rio Nuevo already being planned. "It's not hard to figure out you can build on a lower scale," Lyons said. "Everything is more modest here, which leads to more modest development. "It's never going to be a high-rise office environment." A low-slung downtown residential sector would make Tucson unique among American cities and attractive to visitors seeking something distinctly different, said Lyons, who moved to Tucson in mid-February from Calgary, Alberta. And it would please the neighborhoods immediately surrounding the downtown core that routinely protest proposals that climb higher than two or three stories. "The El Presidio neighborhood was clapping," Lyons said, when he presented his vision a few weeks ago to the neighborhood north of City Hall. Double the downtown population of residents and office workers, and that should create enough critical mass to establish a solid beachhead for vibrant downtown retail, Lyons reasons. Lyons has built his vision in the year since first walking the Presidio Trail (pictured), the painted blue line that has snaked through downtown and fringes of the Barrio Viejo and El Presidio neighborhoods since September 2006.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Xavier Gallegos, Tucson Citizen.]

David Wilson joins Tucson's ABA Architects

[Source: AzBiz.com] -- David Wilson joined ABA Architects as senior architect and historic preservation specialist. Through his work with the Arizona Main Street Program and as a consultant to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Wilson gained extensive knowledge and experience in preservation architecture, qualifying him as a historic architect.

Mart may get OK to join Tucson's Historic Depot eatery

[Source: Teya Vitu, Tucson Citizen] -- Hotel Congress owner Richard Oseran may get the City Council go-ahead Tuesday to open a market in the lobby of the Historic Depot across from his hotel. The council will consider an amendment that would add the lobby and trackside platform to the eight-year lease Oseran already has for the restaurant space at the east end of the city-owned depot, 400 E. Toole Ave. The lease calls for Maynards' Kitchen and Maynards' Market to open by Oct. 1, and Oseran hopes to have them open in late summer or early fall.

Oseran will start paying a $2,400 annual lease Sept. 1 for the lobby and platform, but the restaurant will be lease-free until May 2011, according to the lease Oseran negotiated with the city in October. Oseran's lobby market proposal passed muster with city, state and federal historic preservation guidelines, but Friends of the Historic Depot in February let the Tucson-Pima Historical Commission know they disapproved of filling waiting room space with a market. The council will discuss the lease amendment at a 3:30 p.m. study session, and will likely approve it with no discussion at the 5:30 p.m. council meeting, where the depot item is on consent agenda. Both sessions are in the Council Chambers, 255 W. Alameda St. [Photo source: Tucson Historic Depot.]

Preservation work at Tucson's San Xavier Mission reveals hidden artwork

[Source: Stephanie Innes, Daily Star] -- A local historian likes to imagine that angels carried Mission San Xavier del Bac - a beautiful white apparition itself - through the sky and plopped it in the Sonoran Desert. If so, we now know there was one extra angel to help them: a "new" one just discovered in the 211-year-old church. Restorationists Tim Lewis and Matilde Rubio uncovered the painted angel this month on the north wall of the mission's tall, narrow baptistry, which is under the west tower. The angel, draped in a red cloak, had been hidden for years — perhaps a century or more.

It was covered with dirt and a thin coating of plaster that was likely applied by well-intentioned construction workers. "It's always exciting to see something that has been there for a couple of hundred years and no one in the recent century has noted it. Then all of a sudden, there it is," said Bernard L. "Bunny" Fontana, an ethnohistorian who lives near the mission and has made a lifelong study of its art. He's working on a book about the mission's art with photographer Edward McCain. Its title is "A Gift of Angels." Fontana has always talked about the mission's 182 angels. Now he's altering that to 183. The angel is part of a wall painting of John the Baptist baptizing Christ. Prior to the restoration, the entire design looked like a rough sketch, not quite complete or colored in. John the Baptist appeared ghostly. Christ's face was barely discernible. The top part was hidden under a hard coating. And the faded, dusty mural appeared to have one angel in it.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: A.E. Araiza, Daily Star.]

San Pedro River valley spared as site of proposed I-10 bypass

[Source: Arthur H. Rotstein, Associated Press] -- Arizona transportation officials will continue planning for a possible Interstate 10 bypass around Tucson and Phoenix but have dropped proposed routes through the environmentally sensitive San Pedro River valley. The state Transportation Board unanimously approved a motion dropping the two potential San Pedro River valley routes east of Tucson during a meeting here today. They were among four being studied to allow cross-country trucks and other long-distance traffic to skirt Tucson. Supporters say bypasses around Phoenix and Tucson are needed to handle the state’s long-term needs and avoid traffic bottlenecks in metro areas. Opponents say a bypass is unnecessary, too costly and that some of the routes would damage sensitive areas.

Why the arts are good business for Tucson

[Source: Roberto Bedoya, Tucson Citizen] -- The Tucson area's rich arts and cultural assets make our community unique and contribute greatly to our economy. Those resources must be preserved, protected and enriched. That's the aim of our new Pima Cultural Plan, crafted with the involvement of 500 local citizens, as well as artists, arts administrators and civic leaders, after months of intensive study coordinated by the Tucson Pima Arts Council.

Consider what is at stake:

• The University of Arizona's arts programs, coupled with four of our region's major nonprofit arts groups, have a total economic impact of $96.8 million, a 2001 UA study says.


• A recent Americans for the Arts study found that 41 small and midsize arts organizations in the Tucson area generate $57.54 million to our economy.


• Our creative sector accounts for 3.4 percent of all jobs in Pima County, and that sector's job growth rate exceeds the rate for overall employment, an analysis by Mount Auburn Associates says.


• Experts say our "creative sector" economy is key to attracting a talented, highly skilled and young work force to Tucson.
  While the Tucson area is home to Arizona's first university, first symphony, first opera company and first repertory theater, support for our rich array of cultural and artistic resources remains a challenge.

[Note: To read the full article, click here.]

Tucson developer: City rules costing me $12 million

[Source: B. Poole, Tucson Citizen] -- A local developer was poised to sue the city Wednesday, claiming a change in the city building code sucked more than $12 million of value out of 23 midtown properties. The change - which requires, in part, surveys to determine the historic significance of properties targeted for demolition and of ones nearby - applies to homes within the 1953 city limits. It severely reduces property values, developer Michael Goodman said Monday.

"No developer wants to . . . tie up a piece of property that he is going to work on for months and months, expending a tremendous amount of money and effort only to be told that you can't . . . tear it down," he said. Goodman said he thinks the code change was aimed specifically at stopping him and other developers from doing something the city has in other ways encouraged - infill development. The suit is among the first in the state to test the state Property Rights Preservation Act, approved by voters in 2006. The law requires governments to compensate property owners if land-use laws reduce their property's value. Goodman's claim is the second major case in the state to test the act; the first being in Flagstaff, said Clint Bolick, a Scottsdale attorney representing Goodman.

[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo source: Renee Bracamonte, Tucson Citizen.]