Vital Signs

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The Post

A new mixed-use condominium/retail development is coming to the Thrifty Block.

by D.A. Barber

t’s been a goal of the city’s Rio Nuevo Project to lure people to live and shop in Downtown Tucson. Thirty years after the urban renewal strategy destroyed housing and displaced residents from the Downtown area, the City adopted a goal of developing 2,000 new housing units by 2007. Downtown housing development has been heating up for the last few years, and now, residential products are about to be developed right in the commercial core.

As an incentive to encourage development on a site that has long been vacant, Tucson city officials OK’d a deal last month to sell the “Thrifty Block” on Congress Street for $100 to a team of local developers to create an eight-story complex of condominiums over a set of retail shops and restaurants.

The $23-million project by Bourn Projects, Inc.—called “The Post”—will be marketed to a hip, urban market. Many of the condos will be lofts, and the development includes an innovative parking plan, allowing residents to drive up a garage to be built on the Bank One parking lot on Broadway, and park right at the door to their unit.

“It’s definitely something that should be catalytic for additional investments within the Rio Nuevo District and all of Downtown,” says Greg Shelko, the director of the Rio Nuevo Project.

The Congress Street Entertainment District will benefit the most. The District is the five blocks of Congress - between Church and Toole - anchored by the Fox on the west end and the Rialto and Hotel Congress on the east end. But Donovan Durband, the executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance and the editor of the Downtown Tucsonan, points out that the reality is that the second block in the five-block sequence—the Thrifty Block—is largely devoid of activity, and has been so for over 15 years.

“The Thrifty Block redevelopment is so important to plug that gap, that open wound in the heart of Downtown. It can help knit together the daytime-dominated west end with the nighttime-oriented east end,” says Durband.

Three-Phase Project

The three-phase project will include 61 one-, two- and three-story loft condominiums, each with its own self-contained parking on the same level as the residence. The lofts will range from 900 to 1,749 square feet with seven 2,600 square foot penthouse lofts. The units will range in price from $171,000 to $571,000, targeting a mixed-income demographic of owners with annual incomes ranging from $36,000 to $110,000.

“Just the fact that they are positioning the project to a wider market in terms of pricing, the sense is there’s a market Downtown for all price points which is something the City always believed in,” says Shelko. “It bodes well for the emerging housing market in Downtown.”

“It’s a very solid design and it’s going to be an exceptional product for the group of people that will probably fill it up quickly,” says architect Kevin Morrow with Gromatzky Dupree.

The ground floor will offer some 19,000 square feet of retail space, offices and restaurants, including a possible commitment already from a grocery/deli. Some of the shops will have Congress Street storefronts.

The project team includes Bourn Properties, Inc. and the Fina Companies, both of Tucson, as well as the architectural firm of Gromatzky Dupree & Associates Southwest LLC, which has offices in Tucson, Phoenix and Dallas. Don Bourn’s past projects include the redevelopment of the Foothills Mall and several office developments at the Williams Centre Technology Campus, while David Fina’s Company is known for its multi-level, multi-family developments, including the Stone Avenue Standard, on Stone between Drachman and Grant.

“We can’t do something small, we can’t do something that will go unnoticed,” says David Fina, owner of Fina Companies. “This project has to be noticed, it has to make a statement.”

The project’s name – “The Post” – is in honor of the Indian Village Trading Post, which has sat at the southwest corner of Scott Avenue and Congress Street for more than 50 years and will anchor the eastern end of the revitalization project.

“Rarely do developers get to name something that has historical significance and that’s what we’re most proud of,” says Fina.

Also on board with the development team is the New York-based international image marketing firm of Ericsson/Fina, charged with creating a cutting-edge brand image for The Post that will catch the attention of the targeted mixed demographics being lured to live Downtown.

Architecturally, The Post will fit in with its historic surroundings, such as the Indian Village Trading Post, Bank One Building and the Walsh Federal Courthouse - all on the National Register of Historic Places. Gromatzky Dupree & Associates will not only be involved in the design of the structures, but also play a part in creating a streetscape along Congress and Scott that will incorporate elements of the current Scott Avenue Master Plan, as well as elements from the Congress Street Master Plan, under development this fall.

“One of the things that makes urban places interesting is the juxtaposition of old and new architecture. ‘The Post’

The final design plans of The Post and adjacent streetscape will now move from the conceptual stage to specific ideas to be presented in upcoming public forums to address the community stakeholders design concerns.

“I think there’s a fair amount of discussion that remains to be had in finalizing the design and quite a bit of discovery about existing buildings and their conditions on the site that will have some effect on the design,” says Morrow.

Some Buildings Stay And Some Don’t

The city will pay some $750,000 to raze other buildings between 26 and 72 East Congress Street, including the former Thrifty Drug and the Fields Jewelry building.

The Thrifty Block site contains five buildings and approximately 17,000 square feet of land.

The Rio Nuevo District purchased the Thrifty Block from the Federal Government for $1.00 in August 2002. In late 2003, the City reached an agreement with the General Services Administration on matters of design considerations and security concerns as related to the Walsh Courthouse, located on Broadway immediately south of the Indian Village building. The deal with the Homeland Security Department required the demolition of the tiny building that houses the Little Café Poca Cosa at 20 S. Scott Avenue; the structure lies within the “buffer zone” around the federal courthouse that Homeland Security required be created. The restaurant has been moved to a city-owned building at to 151 N. Stone Avenue, at Alameda Street. The café’s new site was formerly occupied by Mykonos, a Greek restaurant that closed when its owner retired earlier this year. Little Café Poca Cosa is expected to re-open at its new location mid-August.

The Post project is also contingent on Bourn/Fina acquiring the Bank One parking lot on the Broadway side of the block and turning it over to the City for the construction of a six-floor, 280-space parking garage accessible from Broadway. That critical transaction has yet to be negotiated.

Bank One, having recently merged with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., will also be asked to sell a parcel at the northeast corner of Stone and Broadway, so that a six-story tower incorporating ten residential lofts and ground-level retail, can be constructed as part of

The Post project.

The original plan for The Post assumed the demolition of what is now referred to as the Pusch Building at 26-34 E. Congress, and included the demolition of the Bank One Annex building, which the Bourn/Fina team plans to acquire from a private party.

Now The Post will include an attempt to save the 19th-century Pusch Building, the location of the 1970’s Talk of the Town restaurant and Backside Saloon, and incorporating it into the mixed-use project. It was slated for demolition, but community support to save the building helped to persuade the developers to consider incorporating it if possible. The solid and veneered mahogany bar and bar back is being offered for sale by the City in hopes it will be used by another Downtown venue.

“It’s a demonstration of the City of Tucson’s commitment to preservation even in the face of all the controversy that surrounded that building,” says Shelko. “The developers are committed to explore (restoration) to the fullest but can’t commit until they’ve had an opportunity to make an assessment of the integrity.”

The developers say they will investigate whether they can save the Talk of the Town building, through engineering and financial studies. The un-reinforced brick masonry building has a roof supported by inadequate wood trusses. And many of the mortar joints are deteriorated. A four-year-old City cost estimate identified the need for approximately $300,000 in structural repairs, not including design and other soft costs.

“It’s important to understand what value that building has and what condition it is in,” says architect Morrow. “We’re still trying to figure out how usable it is.”

The three-story Bank One Annex, built in 1912 and re-faced in 1953, will also have its original historic façade restored. According to Fina, the developers are in escrow to buy the building for just under $1 million from investors who are also involved in the redevelopment of the Rialto Theatre block, in partnership with Rio Nuevo.

“The developers were immediately interested in incorporating the bank annex building—originally home to Tucson’s Western Union office—into their plan, once they learned of the potential of that building’s historic façade,” says Durband.

“It’s a viable structure; in other words, it has not reached the end of its economic life and we’re proud to restore it to its original façade,” says Fina, who calls the building “a gem.”

The Indian Village Trading Post will also be restored, but exactly what that means is in question. “I don’t know how much we can do internally in terms of design on the building, we may be limited to restoration on the exterior,” says Morrow. “As we move forward there has to be considerable research about the history and historical character of that building and that will tell us physically how much we can or cannot do.”

Demolition of the former Thrifty Drug—and other buildings—is expected to start within 60 days. The fast-track demolition is at the request of the Federal Government, which wants to see all demolition activities completed before Bankruptcy Court functions commence in the renovated Walsh Federal Court building.

“The City has already obtained bids and they’ll be working with the developer and contractor and the historic people and execute the demolition plan in a way that preserves all the Bank One Annex and as much as possible of the Pusch Building,” says Shelko.

During late summer, the demolition work on Congress isn’t expected to take up much more than the sidewalk right-of-way on the south side of the street.

“Beyond that I don’t know if the demolition is supposed to be staged from the rear or front of the building,” says Shelko.

Image is Everything

It’s one thing to build downtown condos that vary in price. It’s another thing to get people to actually move downtown.

“We’re trying to look at getting people closer to the arts and the 4th Avenue area and trying to get people to look back into what Tucson has to offer other than the view,” says Mark Fina, Art Director for the New York-based marketing firm Ericsson/Fina, and brother of David Fina.

Ericsson/Fina, has been given the task of creating an image of The Post that reflects a comfortable, vibrant downtown living, working and shopping lifestyle.

Fina cites Pasadena and Santa Monica where an exploding art scene drew people back to urban living which in turn sparked more investment in their downtown areas.

“Where people have gone to the suburbs, they’ve chosen a lifestyle that they assume to be quiet and a little bit safer,” says Fina. “But at the same time they’ve kind of anesthetized themselves and detached themselves from culture.”

With renovated theaters, new restaurants, a variety of arts and music venues, the “culture” around The Post will certainly be in the faces of residences of the loft condos. Loft residents will enter The Post by foot off Congress Street through a multi-level atrium, which will feature art work selected through a call-to-artists lining a breezeway stretching to the upper floors.

And it will be secure, with the use of programmable proximity card readers and a third-party security firm patrolling The Post. The design will also utilize the latest, energy-efficient construction techniques and computer controls. And being able to park, not just at the same level but just outside one’s door is unique to multi-family, multi-level units.

“I’m very optimistic that this will be a popular and new lifestyle in the center of the city,” says Morrow. “Some of the planning that has gone into it can provide a secure environment for the people who live there, and how they access those units will lend to that success.”

Fina’s marketing approach addresses both the price range of the lofts and the target group that would be interested in living downtown – a group much more technologically savvy in the way they get their information.

“We are trying to get people of like-mindedness. When you start separating people financially as a consumer, you start to create a world that really doesn’t work in the way that a downtown urban area does,” says Fina. “We’re looking at a way of reaching them that is responsive to that type of person and it’s going to be a little bit different than you normally see.”

“They understand who their target market needs to be and are enthusiastic about marketing to them,” says Durband. “With all the activity planned for the Congress Street District—entertainment, restaurants, shops, special events, music, and cultural activities—living right on Congress in the heart of all that will require a special appreciation for the urban lifestyle.”

It seems some of the targeted residents and businesses have already gotten the message. The Post has tentative commitments for 26 of the 61 planned condo lofts, a market/deli, and possibly a fine dinning restaurant for the first floor.

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