OCTOBER 2004
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Vital SignsGo To: Rialto • Temple • Cushing Streetby James Reel
Biggers sees something else. “There’s some kind of magic here,” he says. “Some absolutely ineffable quality about the space has always appealed to me. So much cultural history has occurred here, and enough remnants of its original grandeur are still resident that you can see what a wonderful space this could be again.” Biggers, as head of the nonprofit Congress Street Historic Theatres Foundation and a partner in the for-profit Congress Street Investors, is working to restore at least a little of that grandeur by May. That’s when he intends to reopen the theater as a performance venue, which it has been since its last re-launch, in 1997. The space should be spiffed up and ready for day and night use for concerts, poetry readings, family activities and even senior-citizen events. But “spiffed up” doesn’t mean completely rehabbed. It will take more than $3 million to fully renovate the theater as a first-rate house for performing arts uses. Congress Street Investors has committed to another $3.7 million in redevelopment investment on East Congress, including a complete rehabilitation of the Rialto building this winter for around $1 million. A revitalized Rialto Theatre, Biggers asserts, will drive the successful redevelopment of the rest of the block. On Sept. 7, the Tucson City Council unanimously agreed to purchase the theater for $1.54 million, with another $350,000 earmarked for renovation. The new owner, the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District, and the City have given Biggers’ foundation control over the theater for 50 years, leasing it to the group for $3,690 a month. Congress Street Investors has donated $100,000 to the project, qualifying the foundation to receive the first $100,000 from the Rio Nuevo improvement kitty. The foundation must raise another $250,000 to match one-to-one the remaining $250,000. “I’m going to be spending the next couple of years raising money,” Biggers says with a smile. “I believe there will be a lot of community support for this project, since it combines historic preservation, cultural and economic development and Downtown revitalization.” Biggers is actively seeking major donors during this initial phase of fundraising who want to be catalysts for the project. He is also beginning a wide outreach effort to discuss the project with community leaders and potential donors. Once the theatre is up and running, however, Biggers believes the Foundation will be able to serve as a potent cultural engine and use a portion of its net operating revenues to support other arts organizations who want to leverage the theatre’s potential as a venue. “Although this is a nonprofit project, I see a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities that will generate income,” says Biggers, the co-founder and former publisher of the Tucson Weekly.
But the Rialto’s comparatively utilitarian condition works to its advantage, he says. The painstaking restoration of the Fox is taking many more years and millions of dollars than it will to fix up the Rialto. The theater and the entire block are on the National Register of Historic Places, so whatever work is done will have to follow the Department of Interior’s guidelines for historic-preservation projects, but there’s no requirement to reproduce the Rialto’s décor as it was when Tucsonans streamed in for the house’s first vaudeville shows 84 years ago. “We’ll take an approach in keeping with the respect the building is due,” Biggers promises. Behind the walls adjoining the stage is evidence of the original stencils, colors and plaster reliefs—historical architectural aspects that could be incorporated into part of the remodeling, but not necessarily continued through the house. “You could black-box the place, but that would negate its historicity,” he says. “I think we’ll end up somehow illuminating the past without spending a huge amount of money on the appearance.” Right now the goal is to get the theater up to current code and fix any structural or mechanical problems there may be, as well as improve the acoustics for amplified music. The word most often used to describe the sound over the years is “sucks.” “This was built on a European opera house model, and it was a working vaudeville house in the 1920s, but that’s obviously not what it’s used for anymore,” says Biggers. “We want to address the deficiencies and have this be a top-notch road house for live music and every other kind of attraction we can dream up. “There are structural issues to address, but this place is not going to fall down. It’s built like a railroad bridge, with amazing steel and concrete trusses up there. In fact, it was structurally designed by a railroad construction engineer.” The Rialto and the Hotel Congress across the street were part of a widely ridiculed 1920 effort to stimulate the city’s growth to the east. Indeed, development did eventually start sprawling toward the Rincons, but the Rialto’s own progress was less sure. Talking pictures killed off vaudeville, so the Rialto started showing movies, in heated competition with the Fox. Paramount bought the building in 1948, changed the marquee, ripped out the theater organ and sent it to Yuma, installed a wider screen and made some quick cosmetic changes, including the chivalric Mexican-colonial or Spanish mural to the left of the stage. (“We’ve been told that this was slapped up by some sign painter and it’s not historically significant,” Biggers says disdainfully. “It will not be preserved.”) The theater, like most of downtown, fell into disrepair over the ensuing decades. In 1984 a boiler under the stage exploded during a screening, and the place was closed. Paul Bear and Jeb Schoonover brought it back to life in 1996-97 (see adjacent story), transforming it into a still-shabby but newly lively venue for blues bands and other popular-music acts. (The place could legally hold up to 1,400 people, making it a unique venue in Tucson. Practically, seating was more like 1,200. Biggers isn’t sure whether to maintain that seating capacity, or follow Bear’s suggestion and install a dance floor in front of the stage, which would cut seating back to 800 or 900.) Then publisher of the Tucson Weekly, Biggers used his connection to City Council Member Molly McKasson to help Bear and Schoonover negotiate city bureaucracy and get the place open. Biggers gave the Rialto free advertising in the Weekly, collaborated with it on the Club Crawl to try to maximize revenue and help enliven the rest of downtown, and even, he now admits, printed some pro-Rialto propaganda when Bear ran into trouble with a fellow investor. In 2001, after Biggers had sold the Weekly, he and his wife loaned the Rialto one-third of a $150,000 balloon payment that threatened to shut the theater down. “After that,” he says, “I became more interested in what was going on, because they had my money.” Six months later Biggers had created a limited liability company called Rialto Redux and bought the other buildings on the block. (This was later transferred to Congress Street Investors, when Biggers decided to team with partners.) “I was going to help (Bear and Schoonover) do the theater, and they were going to help me revitalize the block,” Biggers says. But what Biggers calls a “conflict of management styles” soon led to paralysis. “We went from being partners to being mortal enemies, and now we’re in a neutral space,” he says. Biggers was frustrated that the Rialto seemed stuck on a rather low plateau of development. “The theater had stalled out at a certain level that wasn’t compatible with our goals,” he says. “It hadn’t reached its potential from a historic-preservation standpoint or as a cultural engine to drive redevelopment of this end of Congress Street.” Despite the difficulties, in October of 2003 both parties signed a purchase contract, but it took until last month for Biggers to pull the transaction through Rio Nuevo’s public and political process, with Rio Nuevo winding up as the theater’s owner and placing it in the care of his foundation. Biggers cautions that he, his partners and his nonprofit board have not yet decided precisely what’s in store for the Rialto block. For sure, the exterior will be restored to its 1920s appearance, and that should happen soon. Biggers intends to put up a flashy new marquee once its design has been approved by officials at the National Park Service. Almost certainly, the second floor of the building will continue to have people living there, although it’s not clear whether the space will be used as spruced-up apartments or as an urban bed-and-breakfast, Biggers’ current preference. (He thinks that if the revitalization of Congress takes off, the noise and activity level on the Rialto Block will be exciting for people spending a couple of nights there, but possibly a nuisance for people trying to live there.) Downstairs, the spaces along Congress and around the corner on Fifth Avenue will eventually find some commercial use—perhaps a café on the corner and an upscale restaurant next to the theater, among other things. But Biggers is reluctant to move forward with that, facing two years of construction on the Fourth Avenue underpass and its possible disincentive to restaurateurs and retailers on that block. Behind the line of buildings on Congress is a potholed parking lot, which Biggers says by spring should be an inviting courtyard that can be used for activities by the Rialto Theatre and whatever replaces Skrappy’s, the youth nightclub, when it moves from the 350-body venue in the former Trailways building in the back of the block. That structure may be eventually replaced by a four-story multiuse building, but not for several more years. In the meantime, Biggers plans to use the building as a more intimate venue for live music and other performances as part of the Rialto’s programming mission. Biggers also envisions merging the Rialto and Fox projects at some point, efficiently sharing resources; both already use the same technical director. But if that happens, he acknowledges, it probably wouldn’t be until both theaters are up and running again. Across 5th Avenue to the west, Congress Street Investors has acquired the buildings fronting Congress to Arizona Avenue, along with the parking area to the rear. The partnership has teamed with the City in the redevelopment of the Martin Luther King Apartments on the north side of Congress. Depot Plaza will bring approximately 125 new market-rate residential units, along with the replacement of more than 60 of the public housing units currently at MLK with improved living space for its elderly and disabled residents, parking, commercial frontage along Congress, and a small plaza between the new development, the Hotel Congress and the Historic Depot. Meanwhile, Biggers intends to reopen the theater in May as “a busy locus of cultural activity across the spectrum—rock music, world music, art music, family events, and things that will bring retirees downtown and help them energize the place in the daytime.” Overseeing the programming is booking agent Curtis McCrary, who has worked in similar capacities for Solar Culture and Club Congress. “We haven’t ruled anything out yet,” says McCrary. “Curtis’ charge is not just being a talent buyer,” says Biggers, “but doing extremely active outreach to connect with various segments of the community who haven’t connected with the Rialto before.” Says Biggers, “Curtis and I are the same in this way: Our inner impresario is trying to get out.” Right now, though, Biggers is raising money through the foundation to get the Rialto project off the ground.
Doug Biggers, Executive Director The Temple that could be Kingby D.A. Barber
“The Scottish Rite Masonry is taught in degrees from the 4th to the 32nd and each one has its own costumes that define the period that it’s representing – the renaissance or biblical times, or whatever,” says Larry Knight, current Secretary of the Scottish Rite. Besides being listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Scottish Rite’s “Red Room” is what makes the building a gem. Just counting the costumes, wigs and over 65 stage back-drops, it’s estimated the theatrical value of this little-known venue is over $1 million. But this venue, just one block north of the Temple of Music and Art, is keeping its doors closed to the public for now. It’s not that they don’t want to be part of the emerging local arts scene, it’s just that they’ve tried before and local property taxes were killing them. The Scottish Rite Temple was actually constructed before the Temple of Music and Art, and the Mason’s building had its own heyday.
Such an open public use policy continued until about three years ago when the financial realities kicked in. While Mason membership has been dropping due partly to its aging membership, which has been a challenge since World War II, the Masons’ financial commitments to causes such as the Child Language Learning Centers remains robust. But there are pesky tax issues. “We used to do public rentals, but if we don’t do public rentals we’re exempt from property taxes, which are hefty,” says Knight. “If it wasn’t for the tax burden we would rent,” says Harold York, the Tucson Valley Representative of the Scottish Rite. And rent they could. Besides the “Red Room” theater, which seats 350, there is also a main banquet room (and kitchen) which seats another 250, plus two smaller banquet rooms with yet another kitchen. The interest in the property has been somewhat forthcoming. The adjacent parking lot south of the building was viewed as a prime “townhouse” location which would wrap around the building as part of Plaza San Augustin, but the idea didn’t fly with the Masons. “They wanted us to donate the parking lot but if we do that we’ll have no place left to park, so we weren’t interested in that,” says Knight. Then there was interest from the University of Arizona, possibly from UA presents or using the site as a museum. “There was somebody promoting that but it never came to be,” says Knight. “The UA ended up having less money than we had.” Harold York adds that the Temple made it clear up-front to the UA that they were not willing to pay for any capital improvements and, according to York, that was the last they heard from the university. But the building is not in bad condition. Two recent matching grants allowed them to fund improvements on the front façade and a new roof – both prime, high-ticket items towards the value of the structure. Still it sits waiting for, what? Rio Nuevo? “I have not been approached by anybody with any kind of plan where we would be included in that,” says York. “We’ve kind of taken a ‘sit back and wait and see’ because if someone is trying to make a deal with the Scottish Rite folks, it’s not for us to get in the middle of something like that,” says Rio Nuevo director, Greg Shelko. “I know that there have been people making passes at them to try to buy the property and incorporate it into Plaza San Augustin and get that building back into public use as a performing arts venue.” But, according to rumors, the asking price was reportedly some $5 million and developers weren’t willing to make that kind of commitment. Still, at some point the Scottish Rite Temple just may change hands after all. “We are, at some point, not going to be able to stay in this building because we can’t afford the up-keep,” says Knight. Cushing Street Bar and Grill
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alk through the Rialto Theatre with Doug Biggers right now, and you’ll see what looks like a Warehouse District annex: a big, open interior space, all but one short row of seats removed, walls banded with indifferent white paint and indifferent old murals and some smudgy mystery up near the ceiling, a ceiling itself black with smoke damage from fires, and sunlight peeking through cracks between the bricks in the backstage wall.
He knows there’s plenty of work ahead, aside from banging a very big tin cup. “You don’t get the same ‘wow’ walking into the Rialto Theatre as you do when you walk into the Fox,” he admits. “There’s definitely a grandeur gap. It’s really been stripped down.”
For information, 
ooming as a magnificent monolith at 160 S. Scott Avenue, the Scottish Rite Temple has seen more than its share of traditional Mason ceremonies. Built in 1915 (with the annex added in 1955) the original historic building’s main attribute is the “Red Room,” a ball room-size theater with elegant red carpeting, a cathedral ceiling and state-of-the-art glass-enclosed sound booth overlooking a stage where southern Arizona’s Masons perform their ceremonies.
“For years this was the place where people wanted to have concerts and things like that,” says Knight. “So this facility was big enough to accommodate large groups of people and it was used extensively for that - it wasn’t just Masonic groups that were meeting here.”
A step back in time to El Barrio Viejo
uilt in the 1870’s, the Joseph Ferrin house was in the heart of the original El Barrio Libre. Designated El Barrio Historic District by the City of Tucson in 1975, the original Barrio Libre was settled when Arizona was still a territory in the mid-1880s as a working-class Mexican neighborhood whose residents began building homes and businesses outside the original Presidio walls. ©2002-2008 Downtown Tucson Partnership