JULY 2003

Downtown Lowdown

Icy Sales Office on Hot Congress Street

The Old Arizona Ice Cold Storage Company on 17th Street.

A Congress Street storefront has become a sales office for a cool new residential project on the edge of Downtown Tucson. Warren Michaels, the owner and developer of the historic two-story building at 118-120 E. Congress, is using one of the building’s two storefronts to generate awareness and interest in Ice House Lofts, a 60-unit residential development under construction in the old Arizona Ice Cold Storage Co. warehouse at 17th and Mill Street. Michaels, who has developed housing in Barrio Viejo and Armory Park, in addition to the building on Congress, is a partner in Deep Freeze LLC, which is developing the property.

Depot Plaza Developer Selected

The City of Tucson has announced that Congress Street Redevelopment, LLC was selected for partnership in the development of the Depot Plaza. The Depot Plaza project consists of the redevelopment of the Martin Luther King Apartments at 1 N. 5th Ave., the construction of two additional residential towers to the north of the existing tower, commercial space along the Congress Street frontage, underground parking and a plaza. City staff from the Dept. of Community Services will negotiate with the company for a development agreement, which will be presented to Mayor and Council for approval. Staff is also working on a grant submission for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOPE VI. The application will include “the involvement of the Martin Luther King apartment residents, neighbors, downtown stakeholders, and other interested parties,” according to City Manager James Keene’s memo to the Mayor and Council.

Congress Street Redevelopment LLC consists of a partnership headed by Tom Warne, Don Semro, Yoram Levy, and Doug Biggers. Warne and Biggers are members of the Board of Directors of the Tucson Downtown Alliance, whose subsidiary It’s Happening Downtown, Inc. publishes the Downtown Tucsonan. Biggers is also a Board member of It’s Happening Downtown.

Where will the Greyhound run?

The Greyhound Bus Terminal, which has been located at Downtown’s eastern gateway at 2 S. 4th Ave. for over thirty years, is slated for demolition and relocation because its current residence is squarely in the path of the Fourth Avenue Underpass project. City staff has proposed a temporary location at the northeast corner of 6th Avenue and Toole Avenue, northwest of the Depot. This location is consistent with the Intermodal Center Plan, through which the City is eligible for Federal Transit Administration (FTA) funds. FTA funds have thus far paid for the relocation of occupants of the soon-to-be-demolished (for a 570-space parking structure) City Hall Annex, relocation and protection of Locomotive 1673 and the design and construction of a rehabilitated Depot and its adjacent buildings in the style of the 1940’s. FTA funds will also pay for the design of the new Greyhound facility and starting its construction at the new location. The bus terminal needs to be relocated before the Fourth Avenue Underpass project begins, which is projected to start early next year.

Speaking of Transportation…

Light rail car preparing to be put on display at the Main Library Plaza.

Tucson voters may have the opportunity to vote on an initiative to put Tucson among the growing number of western cities that have funded light rail as a public transit alternative. Joy Herr-Cardillo of Citizens For A Sensible Transportation Solution (CFASTS) says that the group has gathered 15,000 signatures, more than the required number of signatures to get its Comprehensive Transportation Initiative (CTI) on this November’s ballot. On June 30, the Mayor and Council declined an opportunity to place the initiative on the ballot directly, without requiring the submittal and verification of 12,777 valid signatures.

The initiative would spend an average of $50.5 million a year over 20 years in order to fund transportation projects, including constructing a regional light rail system and improving the Sun Tran bus system. From June 18-24, CFASTS volunteers gathered signatures at a real-life light rail car that was on display at the Main Library Plaza, near the Church Avenue pedestrian crossing.

Beyond improving the bus system and adding a 13-mile light rail route (with Downtown at the center of routes running along Broadway and South Sixth Avenue), CTI will also authorize funding to maintain neighborhood streets, build new sidewalks and bikeways, extend the Old Pueblo Trolley from the university through Downtown to Rio Nuevo, and improve traffic policing. The funding would come from a 0.3% increase in the city’s sales tax, a 4% increase in the city’s construction sales tax and the increase in fare revenues because of an increase in ridership. Cities that have implemented light rail have seen a direct correlation between the rail system and economic development, according to Steve Farley of CFASTS. In Dallas, property values along the rail increased and over $1 billion in private business development was invested near the train stations. In October 2001, the Tucson Downtown Alliance Executive Committee endorsed light rail—with Downtown as the hub—as an essential part of any comprehensive regional public transit plan for Tucson.

You can find more information at www.SaveTucson.org and www.TucsonLightRail.org.

Trolley Planned as Pennington/Congress Loop

Steve Farley’s rendition of what the trolley might look like on Congress Street.

The trolley will make a one-way loop through the east side of Downtown once it is extended through the new 4th Avenue underpass in about two years, if a majority of trolley enthusiasts who participated in a workshop on May 29 get their way. Sixty-two citizens, along with transportation and planning professionals, spent an afternoon discussing the pros and cons of three alternative routes for the trolley to connect 4th and Congress with the corner of Church and Congress. The alternatives included a double-track, two-way trolley route along Congress, direct between the two points; a double-track, two-way route that would travel along Toole past the Depot to Pennington and along Pennington to Church; and a single-track, one-way loop that would utilize the streets in both of the other options—Toole, Pennington, Church and Congress. Supporters of the one-way loop using both Pennington and Congress cited the benefits of exposing the trolley to as much of an area and street frontage as possible. Tucson Department of Transportation officials will use the outcome of the workshop, which was co-sponsored by the Tucson Downtown Alliance, to guide the planning, design and engineering of the project. Funding for the project has not yet been obtained.