From The Editor

t doesn’t take a city planner to recognize that downtown Tucson ends at the railroad tracks along its northeastern edge.”
According to the Tucson Citizen editorial that produced the above statement—the first line of an argument for locating the new Greyhound station next to the Historic Depot on Toole—one must be ignorant not to recognize that the tracks define Downtown’s boundary. I plead ignorant then, but I think it’s more complicated than that.

I get asked the question quite often: “what area do you define as downtown?” I usually give a not-so-tidy answer, such as “at the heart of it, there’s the commercial core, bounded roughly by 6th St., the railroad tracks, Cushing St., and I-10; then there are adjacent neighborhoods, such as El Presidio, Barrio Viejo, Iron Horse, and Armory Park, the Warehouse District (some of which lies north of the tracks, some of it south), and 4th Avenue; and then there is a somewhat wider area encompassing other neighborhoods, approaching the UA, crossing the freeway to include Menlo Park, the office park on Bonita, and the west side of the Rio Nuevo Project.”

There are “degrees” of what constitutes downtown, and the definition will inevitably evolve, as development comes. Once the Rio Nuevo attractions on the west side are built, it will likely be commonplace to refer to that area as part of Downtown. It will be considered a sub-district, just as the Downtown Destinations signage system (which you will all see in the ground soon) identifies sub-districts Presidio, Congress St., Convention, and 4th Avenue. To me, the idea of identifying sub-districts, each with its own distinct character, gives some richness to downtown’s image. The definition has a political dimension, and can change depending on the argument that one makes about what features should or should not be part of downtown.

Our friends at the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association refer to the larger area as the “city center”, and differentiate between “downtown” and “4th Avenue” within that city center. I prefer to call the larger area “downtown”, but I certainly don’t blame the folks at FAMA. They’ve been organized since the early 1970s and take justifiable pride for what they have accomplished, and I understand their perspective that 4th Avenue often gets forgotten. After all, the avenue was left out of the Rio Nuevo District, which means that TIF dollars cannot be spent there.

The Citizen editorial asserted that the tracks are the boundary because they form a natural barrier that pedestrians are unwilling to cross. Yes, the tracks do create a barrier, but breaking through that barrier is precisely what many projects currently planned are designed to accomplish: the new 4th Avenue underpass, the conversion of 6th Avenue to two-way traffic, improvements in the Warehouse District, etc. I-10 is also a barrier, and plans to bridge the east and west sides with the science center and trolley will break down those real and perceived barriers, causing the definition of downtown to evolve accordingly.

Who knows, perhaps the Ice House Lofts will be the first of a series of conversions of under-utilized industrial space in the area southeast of Downtown’s core into trendy lofts, and the area might enjoy a renaissance with residential and commercial development. The area will probably be re-defined as part of Downtown, both because we want to be identified with it, and because residents and businesses there want to market themselves as part of Downtown.

Downtown is dynamic, and the definition of its boundaries should be fluid and dynamic as well.

Donovan Durband
Executive Director, Tucson Downtown Alliance
President, It’s Happening Downtown, Inc.

---

BACK