From The Editor
The Top 5 Misconceptions about the Alliance’s Position on the Greyhound Station
s we go to press, the Tucson City Council is likely considering options for the temporary location of the Greyhound Bus Station, and may affirm the adopted plan to permanently locate it northwest of the Depot, at 6th Avenue and Toole. In that event, there remain significant questions about the design of a facility at that location, and how it will function with the Barraza-Aviation Parkway, two-way traffic on 6th Avenue, and other issues.
The controversy over where the Greyhound should be located has spawned rumors, innuendo, and myth, much of it based on assumptions about the motives of members of our organization, which has been outspoken with the position that the station should be located somewhere other than in the heart of the commercial district. The following is my attempt to address the main misconceptions that I have heard concerning our position.
Misconception #1: We are trying to “sanitize” Downtown, to displace urban diversity and replace it with suburban homogeneity.
We are trying to develop a Downtown with very urban character, one that is diverse, interesting, attractive, appealing and welcoming to everyone who lives in or visits Tucson, regardless of their socioeconomic status or background. To get to that point where Downtown truly serves and appeals to a broad cross-section of our community, we need to make strategic decisions that foster commercial and residential infill. Our vision is to create an urban destination that will attract locals and out-of-town visitors.
To develop true diversity in our Downtown, we must complement the “edgy” with the “mainstream”, the “classy” with the “funky”. Such juxtapositions are possible in dense, compact urban areas. They are less likely to be sustainable in areas that don’t function economically or have little actual activity.
If we wanted to create a suburban-type area, it would be much easier to do so in the suburbs!
Misconception #2: Our position is really just held by a small group of recent investors who want to change the rules.
Our position is supported by our Board of Directors, which mostly consists of people who have been invested in Downtown for several years, some of them most of their lives. It is also supported by businesses in the area, as well as businesses that didn’t succeed at Downtown’s east end and are no longer there. I would venture to say that we also speak for many Tucsonans who wonder why moving Greyhound has become such a big deal, but for whom Downtown is not yet a critical issue because of the perception that Downtown does not yet offer them enough reasons to care intensely about it.
The so-called “recent investors” have bought into a vision for a denser, more urban Downtown, in particular the potential for the Congress Street Entertainment District.
To suggest that they invested in the area knowing that the 6th and Toole site was the adopted plan and therefore have no right to try to change it is basically a nativist argument that newcomers have no political rights.
Rio Nuevo’s success depends on bringing in more new investors. Rather than fearing their influence, we should embrace their ideas and energy, as well as their capital, and integrate them with the existing downtown community.
Plans change, and they should, to reflect the thinking of new contributors, to reflect changing dynamics. The Intermodal Center plan was adopted before Rio Nuevo, before any of the investment surrounding this area was a realistic possibility. No one is suggesting that the intermodal concept be discarded. We support expanding passenger train service at the depot, be it to Phoenix via high-speed rail, or service to Mexico. We support Sun Tran and Downtown-area circulators, such as the trolley, a modern streetcar, and the TICET shuttle. Downtown must continue to be a transportation hub, and people must have more options for getting here and getting around than just the car.
Actually it was the City that (well within its rights) “changed the rules” for the area, by adopting a plan to significantly increase the residential base at nearby Depot Plaza, and thus add housing to the planned uses in the Intermodal Center area. Much of the concern about alternative locations for Greyhound was related to its incompatibility with residential neighborhoods. Given that, let’s recognize that the current plan for the Congress Street Entertainment District is to include a residential neighborhood on Downtown’s east end.
Misconception #3: There is a secret plan for the 6th and Toole site. This secret plan is being generated by the “recent investors”.
There is no secret plan. Even if there were, the land is owned by the City of Tucson, so there would have to be a very public process for accommodating private investment there.
Misconception #4: We don’t care about transit or the people who ride it.
The TDA provides free Sun Tran bus passes to any of our employees who want/need to get to work that way, and we have been recognized as one of the Best Workplaces for Commuters by the Pima Association of Governments.
Our mission statement and organizational platform reflect respect for the diversity of the Downtown community and recognize the importance of improving transportation access to Downtown via multiple modes.
Some of the same “recent investors” have donated Congress Street storefronts for the use of advocates of last year’s light rail initiative.
Downtown can’t be successful without efficient public transit systems. But that doesn’t mean that the infrastructure of these systems must be located in areas that could be better-used for traffic-generating activity.
The Alliance’s position has never been about Greyhound’s riders, who likely represent a cross-section of American society. Greyhound’s riders are welcome to visit, live in, work in, or otherwise experience Downtown Tucson. But, at the very moment they’ve gotten off a bus after, say, a 15-hour ride from Fresno, they are likely more motivated to go directly to their final local destination and freshen up than to hang around Downtown and see the sights! If we said that a manufacturing plant doesn’t belong at Congress and 6th Avenue, would we then be accused of bearing ill will for factory workers?
Based on the way people actually use Greyhound as a way to get from city to city, they aren’t likely to significantly impact Downtown at the point of this arrival/departure one way or the other (for good or ill). They arrive, and in the vast majority of cases, get into a car and leave Downtown without stopping at the Tucson Children’s Museum, or the Hotel Congress, or El Charro, or the Museum of Contemporary Art, or . . .
Misconception #5: This is just about Downtown’s image. Since the new Greyhound station would be designed like an airport terminal to serve only ticketed passengers, there’s really no need to move the station to improve perceptions of Downtown public safety.
It’s great news that the next Greyhound station will be more secure; but again, it has nothing to do with our position. TDA, in fact, has provided dedicated 12-hour/day security service to the Greyhound station, so we are aware that they are ramping up their on-site security. They are the recipients of grant money from the Dept. of Homeland Security to provide 24-hour security service.
The new security procedures and improved station design should be in effect at the new Greyhound wherever it is located.
The east end of Downtown (and particularly a corridor stretching east from Church along Congress) is the most logical place for Downtown’s renaissance to gain traction. It’s a tiny area, especially relative to how large a city Tucson has become, and the opportunity cost of land use decisions in that area is high. Let’s make the most of what little is left of Downtown, after you subtract current and planned governmental uses from the available inventory. Let’s create a very urban “there” there, and people will find a way to come—by car, bus, trolley, foot, bicycle, etc.
It has never seemed more possible, especially when you consider the comments of Tucson’s Transportation Director Jim Glock in our feature article on page 10. Our City’s transportation planners have embraced the idea that transportation must serve the needs of a vibrant downtown, not the other way around.
Donovan Durband
Executive Director, Tucson Downtown Alliance
President, It’s Happening Downtown, Inc.
Letters To The Editor
Hip Sells Itself
Every designer, artist, architect and downtown resident I know is appalled by the banality of the new Thrifty Block design.
The architect’s rendering on the cover of your July issue says nothing of the unique history of downtown Tucson. This design smacks of an architect firm pandering to factions within a government system so they can make a quick buck and get out fast. If this is the first, highly visible step in Rio Nuevo development, I fear our city is headed toward the junk pile of typical American urban re-development. No innovation, no historic references, no distinguishing architecture that speaks to local identity. Can you honestly look at this rendering and find a single element that speaks of Tucson or even Arizona? This building could be in Rhode Island and no one would be the wiser.
For god’s sake, if there is no local or historical reference, at least try to give us some contemporary pizzaz and wow factor that has to do with the 21st century. The world has enough of this awful, 1980’s, 90’s architectural vernacular. The city should be ashamed in accepting such poor, backwater design work. But then, the city allowed the beautiful Learner building on the corner of Stone & Congress to be encases in that god-awful, slanted geometric mess we all have to visually endure. Is this considered hip by the city? Is this the building Gromatzky Dupree and Associates referenced when they brain stormed over the Thrifty Block?
I love architecture. Buildings say much about a community and its aspirations. They should reflect the best of civic involvement and tell a story of the people that use and inhabit them. Look at San Xavier, the Fox Theatre, the Arizona Inn, the Rialto/Hotel Congress blocks, the Train Depot, Barrio Viejo, Sam Hughes neighborhood, 4th Avenue, Menlo Park. They all tell good stories, have history and invoke memories for families that have lived here for decades.
Look at this building design, “The Post”. What does it tell you? It tells a story similar to the new public library, the Convention Center, recent city and county buildings, the Speedway and Broadway corridors. They say little or nothing. They say a lot about compromise, poor planning and little foresight. They say much about the McArchitecture that has swept across America during the past 50 years.
I also have to question the marketing scheme behind this enterprise. Anyone can tell you that if something has to marketed in order to sell itself, it is already way NOT cool. Hip doesn’t have to be marketed. It sells itself.
Wait, it’s suddenly all making sense. Bland architecture being marketed and sold to bland people by slick out of town developers who skip town once they’ve duped Tucson taxpayers out of millions of dollars. Didn’t we learn anything when the barrio was bulldozed and the Convention Center was built?
We need architecture that is bold and innovative, that creates a sense of civic pride. We need buildings like the Phoenix Public Library. Buildings that make us giddy, inspire awe and help us want to participate in a greater community. Tucson needs its 21st century San Xavier.
We can only hope that this is a work in progress, still subject to community review and will be debated in an open, public forum. I hope local architects and designers are invited to participate in this process and that decisions aren’t made by an incestuous group of back slapping politicians and developers behind closed, city doors.
Gary Patch
Details Matter
While it is exciting that the Thrifty Block will finally be developed, the façade of “The Post” project as shown in your article is exactly what downtown Tucson does not need. Our downtown already has too many generic office buildings, and it is surprising that Gromatzky Dupree and Associates have chosen to use that model for what will be a pivotal project in downtown’s momentum.
It should be noted that the façade of the Stone Avenue Standard project, which was also developed by the Fina Company, fell into mediocrity when the choice of windows became flat and uninteresting. A similar fate befell the U of A’s married student housing project on Euclid, otherwise a somewhat appealing collection of buildings. Why spend a lot of energy on design and then let the details slide?
The scale and context of that block of Congress would seem to dictate a stepped-back façade and some acknowledgement that, on a pedestrian-friendly street, details matter.
I understand that the design shown in the article is probably preliminary, but the mixed-use nature of the Thrifty Block project should not look like another government office building.
Stephen Paul
