JUNE 2005
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Vital SignsGo To: WiFi • Tucson’s Tallest High-RiseUnplugging DowntownDowntown’s Core Goes Wi-Fi – for Freeby D.A. Barber
According to Miller, what makes this different from other Wi-Fi projects in the state, and around the country, is the lack of a profit motive. “We’re not generating any money on this network whatsoever,” notes Miller. “The ‘Free Wi-Fi Zone’ is exactly what it is, free. There is no advertising on the site and no charge.” Wi-Fi - short for wireless fidelity - is a rapidly growing technology that offers high-speed mobile Internet access via radio signals within a few hundred feet of an access “hot spot.” It’s being embraced for home and business networks and prized by business travelers, students and other mobile Web surfers because it doesn’t require plugging into a phone or data line. Wi-Fi-equipped devices, including many laptop personal computers, hand-held PDA’s and some cellular phones, sense the presence of Wi-Fi signals and log on automatically - even if the user doesn’t subscribe to an Internet service provider. The rapid growth is driven largely by the inclusion of Wi-Fi receiver devices on many laptop PCs. Because it’s so cheap to set up a Wi-Fi network - as little as $100 - Wi-Fi offers fast internet service to businesses and residents in neighborhoods where such service is unavailable or unaffordable. U.S. Commerce Department Assistant Secretary and National Telecommunications and Information Administration Chief Michael D. Gallagher wrote in a letter to a Washington D.C non-profit setting up a free Wi-Fi zone on Capitol Hill that “Wi-Fi and other wireless technologies will play a vital role” in the administration’s plan to implement a comprehensive U.S. wireless broadband spectrum policy by 2007.” Supported by the City of Tucson, the University of Arizona, Cisco Systems Inc., Simply Bits, Lewis & Roca, Tucson-Pima Library and several other businesses, Downtown Tucson’s Wi-Fi zone is the start of a project to “unwire” Downtown’s open spaces. Cisco Systems is donating the equipment and Simply Bits is supplying the broadband. And the City of Tucson, while staying out of the direct, day-to-day operations and development of the project, is supporting it with vender permits, installation of “Free Wi-Fi Zone” signs, and is donating space for towers. “This is the community doing something for the community,” says Miller. Wi-Fi towers are relatively inexpensive and access ports can be set up just about anywhere, including utility light poles. Simply Bits is also donating the installation of the small antennas, according to Brad Feder, co-founder of Simply Bits and technical consultant to the project. “We probably don’t want to publish where the antennas are because we don’t want people knowing where the signals are coming from in case someone wanted to be malicious,” says Feder. According to Feder, the perimeter of the initial Hot Spots consists of about two square blocks: the Joel D. Valdez Main Library block bounded by Stone, Church, Pennington and Alameda, and El Presidio Park between Alameda and Pennington, west of Church. Downtown users will be able to access the network for free outdoors and wherever the signal reaches inside, the extent of which won’t be known until the network is up and running. To add to the coverage, this summer the Main Library is adding its own Wi-Fi network within the building. Downtown businesses not reached by the free Wi-Fi signal will be able to tap into the network, for a fee, through the network provider. The 38-member Tucson Wi-Fi Alliance is watching Downtown’s open space and plaza developments as Rio Nuevo proceeds, with hopes of adding more Wi-Fi free zones, especially in areas like the planned Civic Plaza. “That’s so far down the road,” says Miller. “Once that gets constructed, then there’s going to be another whole effort.” National Hot Spot TrendsLarge public Wi-Fi “hot spots” have sprung up nationally in places such as Long Beach, San Francisco and Manhattan and Philadelphia. Last summer, the city of Spokane - with a downtown of about the same size as Phoenix - activated what is believed to be the largest urban Wi-Fi hot spot in the US. The “hot zone,” as it is referred to by Spokane’s mayor, covers 100 blocks of downtown Spokane with fewer than ten antennas and a cost of less than $75,000. Spokane’s Wi-Fi zone is divided into a private network for use by the city and an open network for the public. City workers will utilize the network to speed up law-enforcement tasks such as writing tickets and running license plate checks, among other uses. The public users can connect for two hours a day for free, with subscription plans in the works. Washington D.C.’s “Open Park Project’s” free Wi-Fi hot spot on Capitol Hill has drawn support from members of Congress and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration as the organization begins to raise funds for expansion. Open Park, a Washington nonprofit organization, launched the Hill hot spot last year. D.C.’s next hot spot will be in the center of the National Mall, near the Smithsonian museums. The City of Tempe is working with Arizona State University to finalize its network, which would extend from Apache Boulevard to Tempe Town Lake and include the Mill Avenue corridor. ASU already has Wi-Fi Hot Spots throughout its campus, including inside buildings. In Phoenix, long-range plans call for making the 90 square blocks of Downtown—known as “Copper Square”—entirely wireless for anyone outside, but the signals won’t be strong enough to reach inside buildings. Scottsdale also plans to establish its downtown as a wireless hot spot. Scottsdale officials, like Phoenix, are looking at how to pay for Wi-Fi infrastructure without cutting into the city’s budget. One option is through advertising revenue. Each time an individual logs on to the network, an opening screen could be an advertisement. The other option is a monthly fee with a log-on code for users. Atlanta’s ambitious plan to create the nation’s biggest citywide Wi-Fi network is also moving along. The entire first and second floors of City Hall, including the council chamber and offices, have become one big wireless hotspot, as well as the public areas of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. From there, the network will expand to additional municipal buildings, parks, area office buildings, apartments, hotels, convention centers and other properties under a public-private partnership. Unhappy Wi-Fi ProvidersBecause Atlanta’s Wi-Fi is not actually run by the city and works in conjunction with major telecom providers’ own Wi-Fi networks, it will probably avoid the legal challenges facing municipalities in states from Florida to Pennsylvania. And because the City of Tucson is also not operating Downtown’s Free Wi-Fi Zone, it will hopefully dodge the same bullet. The problem stems from the U.S. Supreme Court ruling late last year that individual states could limit broadband competition by prohibiting municipalities from offering telecommunications services. That decision limits cities in those states that adapt the ruling from offering Wi-Fi as a broadband service. The result is that corporate providers can stop local government from setting-up Wi-Fi networks by arguing government can’t compete with business. But Miller, who says that since Downtown’s Free Wi-Fi Zone is operated by a non-profit it doesn’t fall under the ruling, doesn’t think Arizona will go that route of ruling against municipalities from offering Wi-Fi – at least for now. “There’s a big battle going on with free versus pay,” says Miller. “Part of it is everyone is trying to make a buck off of Wi-Fi and the big boys want to close out anybody else trying to do something for their community.” Old Pueblo’s Hot Spots
They include Epic Cafe on Fourth Avenue, Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, and Embassy Suites near Tucson International Airport. Voyager RV Park on South Kolb Road installed a pay Wi-Fi system in late 2002. Ike’s Coffee & Tea’s Speedway location, Safehouse Espresso Bar, Borders Books, and Caffé Diva on North Campbell are also in the game, among others around town. Most public Wi-Fi sites, like those at Starbucks and local resort hotels, require users to pay for access - at rates starting at about $8 a day or $30 a month. Others are free, set up by local cafes and bookstores as an amenity for patrons, such as Caffé Diva. The UA has free Wi-Fi access points for students and employees at several libraries, including the Main Library, the Health Sciences Library and the James E. Rogers College of Law. That’s the direction the Wi-Fi Alliance is moving as it continues the unwiring of Downtown as a “Free Wi-Fi Zone.” Tucson has consistently won national accolades for its “wired” status because of wide Net access at the University of Arizona and for Web-based government services. In the 2004 Digital Cities Survey, Tucson was selected as #2 Digital City. The annual study examines how city governments utilize digital technologies to better serve their citizens and streamline operations. The improvement continues a trend for Tucson, which has placed 7th, 6th, and 4th respectively in the previous three years. But the area has not fared as well on Wi-Fi. In a 2004 Intel Survey of 100 U.S. cities with Wi-Fi access, Tucson placed 77th as an “unwired city.” Topping the survey was Portland, Oregon; Albuquerque, often compared with Tucson, ranked 22nd and Phoenix ranked 36th. Miller hopes that by having Downtown Tucson participate in this free Wi-Fi dream project, it will enable Tucson to become one of the top ten wireless cities, especially as Rio Nuevo continues to develop. It is just another vehicle where people can create an urban experience. Another hope is that the Wi-Fi development will attract high-tech businesses that could take advantage of the wireless zone. And it shows that our community is tech-savvy and is serious about promoting the area as a business center. A stronger Wi-Fi infastructure, the argument goes, will help in attracting high-tech businesses, workers and tourists to the area who want to access the Internet and corporate intranets on-the-go. This would help Tucson compete with high-tech cities traditionally viewed as more Wi-Fi friendly, like San Francisco and Seattle. After the alliance “unwires” Downtown, Miller says the group will work with local underprivileged downtown neighborhoods to help create small networks offering free or low-cost internet access to small businesses and residents who can’t afford their own hard-wired broadband connections. “It’s the generosity of the people in this city for the people of this city,” says Miller. In the meantime, the focus of the Free Wi-Fi Zones are to cover the most frequented outdoor areas of downtown’s most central core in an age of mobile business access. “As we populate this area, this is another component of area economic development because it gives people a reason to sit out on patios and that draws more people, which is good for business,” says Miller. Donovan Durband, executive director of the Tucson Downtown Alliance, would like to see the Wi-Fi Zone eventually extended eastward down Congress, Pennington, and Broadway, as well as up and down Stone Avenue, to complement what he hopes will be an emerging “sidewalk culture” of cafes and restaurants that utilize outdoor dining. “Such amenities as outdoor wireless zones are an invisible but important part of the civic infrastructure that can help develop Downtown’s entertainment district,” says Durband. “It’s a natural for Tucson, where we need to take greater advantage of opportunities to get people outside enjoying the sunshine and blue skies and spending their money Downtown.” Building towards the clouds in DowntownLocal Investors Aim to Build the City’s Tallest High-riseby D.A. Barber
“We have looked at other sites and this is the only site that we were able to find that fits,” says Martin. The proposed 27 floor, 350-foot Century Tower building, would have retail on the ground floor, some four floors of office space, a penthouse restaurant and about 160 condos. The tower would be at the northeast corner of West Pennington Street and North Church Avenue (or, put another way, on the southwest corner of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library block).
Martin says that his investor group is not seeking public funding for the project. Instead, the original plan called for an initial investment of $50,000 from each of 100 local investors—for a total of $5 million—to seed the financing of the $50 - $70 million building. About 60 investors had already been lined-up before an article appeared in a local newspaper – an article which prompted calls from 40 more interested investors. “So, we’ve got 100 tentative investors already lined up,” says Martin. “We had no idea that the investment opportunity and the long-term commitment to downtown would be so popular an idea.” Now Martin and McMahon are considering expanding that investor list to up to 300 individuals. Plans for the Downtown project started two years ago when UA President Peter Likins met with leadership council members seeking support for the school’s science center. After that meeting, Martin helped found the Friends of Downtown and late last year the group brought Governor Janet Napolitano down for a tour and presentation of Downtown projects. Standing with the group on top of the UniSource Tower, Martin suggested to McMahon that a “club” on a top floor would be a great idea for downtown. One thing led to another and the Century Tower idea was born with its anchor project: a penthouse restaurant. Acknowledging early public concerns about the removal of trees and green open space in Downtown, Martin says that if his group can pull the project off, they can create a much more beautiful landscaped public space to replace the existing hard surface in front of the Main Library. Now the project is up to the City Council’s economic development and Downtown/Rio Nuevo subcommittees, which have scheduled a joint hearing on June 1. If the subcommittees agree with the general outline of the proposal, it will be sent to the Mayor and City Council as soon as July for approval. Martin and his partners are seeking six months of exclusivity in negotiating a development agreement, which would include the sale of the land at appraised market value. Martin cites a recent trip he made to explore what’s being done in Ft. Worth. The primary point officials emphasized when revitalizing downtown: you must have public parking. “The majority of people will not drive across town, pay $5 for parking to shop or eat,” says Martin. “So they have approached that very methodically in Ft. Worth and they’ve got ‘free parking’ signs scattered around town in key places so people can come downtown and park for nothing.” If the City approves the project, Century Tower could be completed as soon as 2008, giving more local investors a stake in Downtown. “At the end of the day you’ve got 100 to 300 investors with a long-term interest in downtown revitalization, local retailers from around the city who now have an interest in downtown, businesses owning office space and over 100 families living there,” says Martin. “It’s pretty exciting and it becomes almost a ‘cause’ in saying ‘let the people of Tucson make this happen.’ We don’t need billionaires from another state to come here and develop downtown for us, let’s do it ourselves.” For additional information contact Don Martin at 360-3457.
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riving down East Congress, the new banners hanging from the pedestrian bridge declare the area “A Free Wi-Fi Zone.” The nonprofit Tucson Wi-Fi Alliance unveiled the project for Downtown at a dedication ceremony Monday, May 23rd at Jacome Plaza just outside of the Joel D. Valdez Main Library, and at El Presidio Park, on West Alameda Street near North Church Avenue. It’s the culmination of a project started 28 months ago.
The Free Wi-Fi Zone is a community service project in which every person, business and agency involved is donating time, products and/or services to establish an outside area that provides free Wi-Fi access to the public, according to Alecia Miller, a business consultant with The Cumberland Group, Inc. and board member of the Tucson Wi-Fi Alliance.
Following what has now become a worldwide trend, more than 90 public Wi-Fi hot spots have already popped up around the Old Pueblo, from resort hotels to small cafes to the University of Arizona. 
ocal restaurateur Bob McMahon and businessman Don Martin want the city to give their investment group rights to buy land near the Main Library Downtown, where they hope to build Tucson’s tallest high-rise - surpassing the UniSource Energy Tower’s 323 feet. Martin, who owns Competitive Engineering Inc., is chairman of the Friends of Downtown (a committee of Tucson businessmen and downtown stakeholders) and a board member of the Southern Arizona Leadership Council. 
The Project