his month’s Downtown Tucsonan is dedicated to the Historic Warehouse District. For twenty years, artists have served as the area’s urban pioneers. Finally, with the transfer of ownership or control of the buildings from the State of Arizona to the City of Tucson, planning is afoot to replace the uncertainty that has plagued the denizens of the area with confidence that the district will continue to evolve with arts production and exhibition as its dominant uses. We have strived to put quality information on this timely issue into context.
But I can’t ignore the timeliness of another downtown issue—the controversy over the demolition of a blighted building on Congress, neglected for fifteen years by the federal government. It’s the old Backside Saloon, with the balcony hanging over the sidewalk and the big bar inside. The federal government turned the century-old shell over to the pigeons in 1988. Rio Nuevo finally acquired it last year, along with the old Thrifty Drug, Field’s Jewelers and Indian Village Trading Post, specifically for retail and residential redevelopment. A determination was made that the Indian Village building, since 1897 the home of markets, drug stores, optometrists, and curio shops, retained enough original and acquired historic qualities to merit protection. The other properties had been renovated beyond recognition and were not conferred the same protected status by the state historic preservation office. The building that has received so much press had housed Grabe’s Electric from 1925 to 1970, but it was renovated into a bar/restaurant in 1976, when the familiar balcony and front windows were constructed.
After the feds had agreed to sell the properties for $36,000—a price that reflected the buildings’ deteriorated condition and the delay in disposing of the properties—the Department of Homeland Security jumped in with concerns about the potential for security threats to the adjacent Walsh Courthouse. A buffer zone doomed the tiny building that houses Little Café Poca Cosa and shrank the final assemblage to 17,000 sq.ft., resulting in a final price of $100. Anxious to incentivize a catalytic redevelopment, Rio Nuevo opted to offer the cleared land for the same price to the developer ultimately selected to invest significant capital at the site. Last year Rio Nuevo issued a request for proposals, to which two developers, acting in good faith on the reliability of the offering, recently responded.
Not having firsthand experience with these buildings when they were integral to the life of downtown, I nonetheless have a sentimental attachment to the historical character of the “Thrifty Block”, having researched the history of the buildings and their uses over the 20th century. What was remarkable about the Thrifty Block was a century of retail activity, not the bricks and mortar; very little remains of the latter, and for too long now, nothing of the former. We have a chance to create something, finally.
I appreciate the sentiment for saving the building. If our public policy is to only celebrate the “landmarks”, ignoring threats to those structures with less appeal and that fail to qualify as historic “enough”, we will end up losing even more of our history.
The time is right to re-examine our ethic regarding historic preservation and develop a plan for what’s left. Whatever the fate of the old saloon, let’s resolve to be more proactive in documenting the condition and physical and social history of our older buildings, understanding how Tucsonans connect to them, identifying those that we feel are important to preserve and restore, and integrating our built heritage into a plan that attracts investors who are excited to be involved with such a context. Let’s nominate eligible properties for listing on the National Register of Historic Places and motivate their owners to take advantage of a menu of historic rehabilitation incentives.
We’ve lost too many old buildings—landmarks or not—to fire, surface parking, and the kind of neglect that the federal government exhibited at the Thrifty Block. Let’s draw the line here, and build a consensus for establishing our historic architectural heritage as the basis for our downtown’s redevelopment.
