MAY 2004
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Downtown Lowdown{Downtown Lowdown is written and photographed by Jamie Manser, jamie@downtowntucson.org} Go To: Lowdown • Bevelvision There IS Summer Life!If you are tough enough to hang here through the desert’s reign of heat, or have no other choice, Downtown offers up some reprieve and entertainment. The Tucson Museum of Art School is offering summer specials for adults who are interested in attending weeknight and Saturday classes and workshops. You can get your art on by learning painting, printing, Japanese calligraphy, ceramics, pottery and more. Early registration garners better rates. Call Sally Krommes at 624-2333, x121 for details. May kicks off Cinema La Placita’s 5th season! The outdoor classic film series screens in Downtown’s La Placita Village every Thursday night at 7:30 through the end of October. The village’s restaurants stay open; there is a parking garage on Stone Avenue (just south of Broadway), and La Placita Village is the colorful complex located on the southwest corner of Church and Broadway. Fox Tucson Theatre
As a National Landmark, it will be eligible for grants that are reserved for such properties. The theatre has also completed its window displays at the former Italian Kitchen location, and on May 8, the foundation is celebrating its 5th annual “Light Up The Fox” Gala at the Historic Parish Hall at Saint Augustine Cathedral. It is also planning its annual Spring Open House at the end of May or early June. Check www.FoxTucsonTheatre.org for updated information. County Earmarks Bond Money for Downtown ProjectsWith the bond election on Tuesday, May 18, Pima County is asking residents to pass six bonds to provide $732 million for a variety of projects and services. While the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan has received the majority of the media coverage, the wide-ranging array of projects also includes proposed building improvements and construction that impact Downtown. “Question 3” would authorize $183.5 million “for the purpose of acquiring, developing . . . public safety and justice facilities in the County”, of which $76 million would go to the construction of new facilities for both City Municipal Court and Pima County Consolidated Justice Courts. The “co-located” facilities will house courts for both jurisdictions as well as office space for departments supporting the courts such as City Prosecutor, City Public Defender, County Public Defender and Legal Defender. Jim Barry, executive assistant to County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, says the new site for the courts will probably be Stone Avenue between Toole and Council and take between five and six years to complete. Following the relocation of the Consolidated Justice Court to the new facility, another $4.5 million of bond funds will be used to rehabilitate the historic Old Courthouse to correct building deficiencies and provide additional office space for the Pima County Assessor, Recorder, Treasurer and other departments. Bond “Question 2” authorizes $81.8 million for acquiring and developing “public health and community facilities”; of that, $2 million will be used to replace the existing Teresa Lee Clinic on Freeway Drive. The clinic site will be needed for Rio Nuevo’s UA Science Center project. Also contained in “Question 2” is money for downtown’s Roy Place Building (the former Walgreens location at Stone and Pennington) and the Tucson Center for Performing Arts at 408 S. 6th Ave. $800,000 is earmarked for the restoration of the exterior façade of the Roy Place Building to its original Spanish Colonial Revival style, which was similar to the design of the 1929 Pima County Courthouse. Barry notes that the County is looking for a commercial tenant to replace Walgreens. Another $682,000 would be used for structural and other repairs to the 1921 Armory Park building that was converted from the All Saints Church to the Tucson Center for Performing Arts. New BusinessLast month, Shiatsu studio Beloved Body opened its doors at WomanKraft Gallery, 388 S. Stone Ave. Claudia Valdenegro said she and Kirstin Eidenbach chose a downtown locale because “we like the fact that there is such a diverse group of people in that area. I like the amazing energy.” As a way to acquaint the public with Shiatsu, they are offering a 30-minute treatment for $10. Brochures on their services can be obtained at the galley. Valdenegro said they are “happy to receive calls and answer people’s questions.” She is available at 909-7082. Bevelvision
The man behind the institute, Ned Schaper, was able to fund the project by winning a Back to Basics grant from the City – awarded to help him beautify the building. The kinetic and “found object” sculptor, performance artist, actor, and musician said with the outdoor space, he plans to have events and “to build a large kinetic sculpture broadcasting tower, a power generating tower of the all disseminating flower, the transmitter of bloom. The institute is the plant, and the tower is the flower.” With future plans to broadcast Bevelvision from the warehouse “even if it is web broadcasted,” Schaper has his green screen in place and said the warehouse is in the early stages of housing the Mat Bevel set. He also envisions the building as a museum/café, and as “a public venue again where everything that goes on here is broadcast out to the world.” This month, Schaper is performing “The Metamorphosis Show,” with a character that has a “darkness thing because he’s come out of his cocoon.” |
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Last month, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places named the Fox Theatre a National Landmark. Locally, only San Xavier Mission and the Desert Laboratory on Tumamoc Hill share the distinction. Nationally, it is one of nine theatres and the third Fox property - joining Fox Theatres in Detroit and Atlanta - with such status.
At 530 N. Stone Ave., just north of 6th Street, is an ever-evolving art plant known as Mat Bevel Institute. Its most recent budding, a steel patina fence that connects cement-like beveled slabs (reminiscent of Stonehenge) was completed last month on the outside of the west side of the warehouse.