ince I wrote last month about Nimbus Brewing Company’s desire to move its restaurant and brewery to Downtown, owner Jim Counts has been busy meeting with neighborhood groups, the City, and the Tucson Downtown Alliance Board of Directors, selling his vision, as he and his team of architects and investors refine their plan.
Doubtless he’s been courted by suitors from places other than Downtown, as news of his desire to relocate has assuredly piqued the interest of developers, land owners, and public officials in other areas of Tucson and Pima County.
I look at this Nimbus opportunity as a test of Downtown’s ability to pull off the breakaway slam dunk. Nobody’s back on defense yet, but if we mess around, we’ll lose our advantage.
We’ve been handed a gift. No recruitment was necessary. No out-of-town visits to a company that is not familiar with Tucson. No arm-twisting, and having to show renderings of Downtown after a Rio Nuevo facelift to persuade them to give us a look. This is a local business, with its own established customer base. Counts wants Nimbus to be next to the railroad tracks, as close as possible to the railroad depot Downtown.
It should be easy to make something work for this company that came up with the idea of moving to Downtown on its own. Supportive stakeholders, from what I’ve seen. City officials seem eager to help.
True, the ambitious development program needs to be shown to be feasible and realistic. The ball is in Counts’ court to show a workable business plan.
The one thing that concerns me here relates to a tendency that we see in Downtown, where, as one building owner puts it, we keep trying to “boil the ocean”. That is to say, we try to do too much, be all things to all people, solve all of Downtown’s problems with one project. I don’t want to see this tendency undermine our ability to make this happen.
Counts’ plan includes—in addition to the brewery and restaurant—housing, possibly “affordable” housing, underground parking, retail, perhaps gallery space, performance space, and now there’s talk of refurbishing the Steinfeld Warehouse just west of the main project site. Part of the impetus for this is the city’s approved Warehouse District master plan, which envisions some of those uses on that site, less the brewery, restaurant, and underground parking.
I’m sure that Counts is surrounding himself with experienced people who can help him pull all of this off. He is a successful brewer and businessman, and I’m sure he can handle the brewery and restaurant development mostly on his own.
It just makes me a little nervous that all of these constituencies need to be satisfied—neighbors, artists, master plans, etc.—when there are probably wolves at the door, watching for a breakdown in the planning for this Downtown project, waiting for a moment when the project looks vulnerable, to say to Jim Counts, “we’ll help you build the new Nimbus in (insert town name here), and we won’t burden you with all of the expectations and obligations that you’re finding in Downtown Tucson”.
I hope that the grand plan for Nimbus as anchor of a mixed-use development works out, because it would be great, no question. But if it looks like it would be easier just to do the basic project, the brewery and restaurant, without all the other elements, let’s make sure that Nimbus is able to find the right location to make that work for them and for Downtown, and let’s see that it happens here rather than in (insert name here).
I don’t want to see Counts get fed up with the expectations of how to do his project, with everyone telling him how best to do it, and then finally say, what the heck, let’s just go to Oro Valley or Marana, or wherever it may be where opportunists are probably already whispering in his ear: “we can help you make this happen. Forget about the housing and the parking. We’d love to have your business here.”
Downtown Tucson: let’s pull together and slam this dunk. But let’s be ready to bank it off the glass if we have to. It doesn’t have to be a fancy shot for the highlight reel. If Nimbus can make this work on their end, let’s make sure we can make it work on our end. Let’s not put ourselves in a position to be kicking ourselves for losing this because we made too many demands, set the bar too high, and let it get away from us.
From The Editor