The series will kick off on May 27, 2012, and will continue on the fourth weekend of June, July and August. The fair will feature up to 100 vendors from antique fairs across Arizona, and Downtown retailers will have their wares on display and available for purchase. Many local Downtown merchants will open their doors before, during and after the fair, and A Perfect Pantry will provide an assortment of refreshments.

“It will be wonderful to introduce the antique community to all of the amazing restaurant and retail experiences in Downtown,” said Michael Keith, CEO of the Downtown Tucson Partnership. “We hope this becomes a regular monthly event Downtown, and with the help of A Perfect Pantry we think we can turn this into one of the largest Antique Fairs in Southern Arizona.”

The Downtown Antique Fair is one of the first events in what promises to be fun-filled summer jam packed with activity in the heart of Tucson. Upcoming events will also include scavenger hunts, penthouse parties, special movie screenings and more.

Getting Downtown is easy. Enter from the north via Stone or 6th Avenues; from the south via Stone or 6th Avenue, Broadway/Congress from the west or the quick Toole Avenue detour from the east. Parking is still plentiful with more than 15,000 parking spaces in Downtown. Patrons are encouraged to park at the Pueblo Parking lot adjacent to the antique fair or at the Pennington Street Garage, 110 E. Pennington St.

For more information, please contact Caitlin Jensen at 520-837-6516 or via email.

The Downtown Tucson Partnership is a non-profit, 501(c)6 corporation, charged with acting as the catalyst for Downtown revitalization.

The expression “food desert” was coined by the USDA for areas without access to adequate fresh food. Despite our perceived lack of grocery stores in the area, Downtown is not were classified as a food desert. The latest map outlining the areas considered food deserts is here: http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/fooddesert/fooddesert.html

The Obama Administration launched a “Healthy Foods Initiative” to support grocery stores and markets that provide whole foods to low and moderate income areas. Downtown is in a census tract designated as “highly distressed.” Here is the description of the set of programs available: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ocs/ocs_food.html

There are some private groups that have gotten involved with financing grocery stores in urban areas. One is called Urbane Development (http://urbane-dev.com/). Here is the article on them:

Urbane Development Builds Grocery Store Partnerships in Underserved Communities

Urbane Development advances local economic development strategies for health food retail with major municipal clients such as the cities of Detroit, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey. To bring about improvements, CEO James Johnson-Piett accesses capital from federal, state, municipal sources, and financial intermediaries including community development banks. Health food retail projects range from discrete projects such as façade improvements, and geographic corridor improvements to comprehensive approaches that focus on all phases of “intervention” including technical assistance and financing.

Urbane Development is working with Detroit Economic Growth Corporation to address the lack of full service grocery stores in the city of Detroit by designing a comprehensive food retail attraction, retention and expansion program through dedicated grants, lines of credit, and varieties of technical assistance. Working with the Brick City Development Corporation in Newark, NJ, Urbane Development created a small grocery technical assistance and capacity building program to increase the availability of fresh, healthy foods to Newark residents. They also created a program of grants and loans for leasehold improvements, inventory and equipment costs, plus training in grocery operations and even design and construction support.

The Reinvestment Fund, operating on the east coast, put together a paper on financing grocery stores in urban areas: http://www.trfund.com/resource/downloads/policypubs/CDFIStudySummary.pdf Reference in the paper is made to the Fresh Food Financing Initiative which seems to be a nice model, but we are aways away from getting that sort of thing set up in Tucson. We here at the Downtown Tucson Partnership would be happy to talk about next steps if you are interested.

Bottom line is that the SBA 504 program is probably the best way for a grocery store or a farmers’ market to be financed at this point.

ParkWise is offering a “construction special” flat rate at the new Centro Garage, 345 East Congress Street, which greets motorists at the east end of Downtown, and is an easy walk to all destinations on Congress Street and on 4th Avenue. Parking is just $3 a day, day or night, from Sunday through Wednesday, and during the day until 5:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. After 5:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, parking at Centro is still just $5.

On-street parking is free after 5:00pm weekdays and on weekends Downtown.

The streetcar construction has not impeded access to either the Pennington Street Garage (110 E. Pennington St.) or Depot Plaza Garage (45 N. 5th Ave.). Pennington Street Garage can be accessed at its Scott Avenue entrance from either direction of Pennington Street. Access Pennington Street from Stone Avenue on the west and 6th Avenue on the east. Sixth Avenue is now two-way up to 6th Street, so enter Downtown on southbound 6th Avenue, and the Pennington Garage is on your right at Pennington Street. Depot Plaza can be accessed from 5th Avenue and Toole.

Monthly parking permits for covered parking at Centro Garage and Depot Plaza Garage are now more affordable, during the duration of the streetcar construction project. A monthly pass at Centro is now just $55, and a monthly pass at Depot Plaza costs $65.

Main Gate Square will validate parking after 5:00pm every day at the Tyndall Parking Garage, accessible from 4th Street off of Euclid. The Tyndall Garage is a very short walk to all the shops and restaurants on University Blvd. in Main Gate Square.

For more information on parking locations and rates Downtown, click here.

Some small businesses are now using this technique to raise early stage money for their ventures. Think of it as an extension of your friends and family.

Excellent article on this technique here: http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/biz-on-main/2012/05/11/crowdfund-your-way-to-success/

Tucson’s tallest building, the glass tower now called One South Church, was meant to have a twin tower.

Instead, a 12-foot-tall utility plug for a second tower has decorated the Stone Avenue side of the plaza for 25 years.

Jeannette Maré took immediate notice of this concrete stump when she moved her Ben’s Bells office into the Charles O. Brown House, 40 West Broadway, a half block away and within plain sight of One South Church and its phantom twin.

As soon as Ben’s Bells’ January 20 grand opening simmered down, Maré bore down on One South Church. It took barely an ounce of her powers of persuasion to win over Buzz Isaacson, the CB Richard Ellis broker who represents One South Church.

“I was speaking with Buzz Isaacson,” said Maré, founder and executive director of Ben’s Bells. “He made it happen. The owners were very cool about it.”

And how could they not be?

What Maré proposed was for Ben’s Bells to adorn the walls of the utility plug with tile murals.

Tiles started getting installed on the plug’s north wall on May 9. The tile work should be done May 15, when grouting work starts.

Artist Gary Mackender created a series of flowing figures that are connected and draw attention away from the very large but very subtly presented word “Kindness”.

The mural was funded with grants from the Tucson Pima Arts Council, the Kresge Foundation and the P.L.A.C.E Initiative.

Spreading kindness and instilling kindness is what Ben’s Bells is all about. Mare principally does this by creating thousands of ceramic bells that are randomly scattered around the community and country and which typically bring a smile to the person who unexpectedly finds one.

Ben’s Bells has crafted more than 26,000 bells since Maré founded the organization in 2005 following the sudden death of her son, Ben. The most recent shipments delivered 500 bells to New Jersey, another 500 to Idaho and 300 to Illinois.

“I was amazed how normal I looked outside and how broken I was inside,” Maré recalled. “Any time somebody would do an act of kindness for me, I felt I had something to hold on to. I just started appreciating the gestures like I never had before. It was a lifesaver for me. I wanted to do something to honor Ben and I had to communicate this message that kindness is way more important than we realize.”

Much of the mural consists of 2½ circular tiles, each inscribed with a name from a person who signed a Ben’s Bells Kindness Contract.

“It takes some practice to be intentional about kindness,” Maré said. “The contract is about being committed to trying harder to be kind.”

So far more than 4,000 round tiles have signatories.

Maré’s quest for kindness has become mainstreamed since she started Ben’s Bells.

“It’s a testament to people’s belief in this message,” she said.

Maré eventually plans to fill all four sides of the utility plug with murals. The second wall will be decorated by Greater Tucson Leadership and “I am Tucson.”

Bright paint, cool neon and a polka-dot bikini now adorn the Pueblo Hotel & Apartments neon sign that had stood dark, faded and rusted at the corner of 6^th Avenue and 12^th Street for a good four decades.

The Diving Lady neon is glowing for the first time in nearly 40 years.

Restored 1950’s Tucson neon history has started lighting the nighttime streetscapes in recent weeks.

Four neon signs from a bygone era have graced the north edge of the Pima Community College Downtown Campus on Drachman Road since April 25. The colorful neon tubes were illuminated on April 27 on these good-as-new signs from the Tropicana Motor Hotel, Medina Sporting Goods sign, the Magic Carpet Golf sign and an Arizonan Hotel/Canyon State Motor Lodge sign.

The Pueblo Hotel & Apartments sign, aka the Diving Lady, followed suit as signmaker Jude Cook reinstalled the sign at its original location on May 8, did finishing electrical touches on May 9, and joined the building’s co-owner, Barry Davis at the Diving Lady’s grand lighting and robe unveiling on May 11.

Public interest in the Diving Lady has been especially intense.

“It is very apparent that the people around here have ownership of that sign,” said Davis, who has wanted to restore the Diving Lady since he moved his law office into the building in 1993. “I honestly can’t say I expected this much attention. I’m surprised by it. It makes me happy.”

Cook, owner of Cook & Co. Sign Makers, restored the Diving Lady and all the PCC Drachman signs except Magic Carpet. The Diving Lady stands out for him, largely because its in the same location as its been since about 1950 and it’s in the heart of Downtown.

“This is the poster child of restoration,” Cook said. “It’s the first real total restoration. (Rusting) was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. All in all, she was in pretty good shape.”

So far, neither Cook, nor Davis, nor the historical preservation team that made this project possible, really know what the Diving Lady sign said when it was first put up, what the original color scheme was, or even exactly what year the sign first went up. Based on its metal structure, the closest guess Cook has is about 1950.

The sign comes in four sections: the one that says “swimming pool” and is topped by the diving lady; a narrow strip that said “refrigerated” before the restoration but now announces the building’s present tenants, the Piccaretta Davis law firm; the largest section that says Pueblo Hotel & Apartments; and the panel with “no vacancy” and “hotel parking”

“There was a certain amount of hesitation when we started sanding,” Cook said. “We found a bunch of stuff that just didn’t make sense. There was a gold color that didn’t match the green. The “refrigerated” panel had scalloping waves. We found some blues. They did not go with the greens.”

Cook discovered different layers of green almost to the base of the Pueblo Sign. He discovered a wood grain waterboard look on all four panels, but he chose to only replicate the waterboard look on the Pueblo panel with a black outline of wood planks.

Cook decided to make all the signs the same green. The Pueblo sign he gave ivory letters with an orange outline, and the other panels got white letters with a black outline.

The 1950 look of the diving lady herself was a complete mystery. Cook went with a green bathing suit with white polka dots.

“We did a two-piece bathing suit,” Cook said. “We don’t know if it originally was a one-piece or a two-piece. We had nothing to work with. We went with what the attorneys wanted.”

The Diving Lady was completely rewired and all the neon – shade of aqua and white – are brand new. Cook was amazed to discover it took 200 feet of neon to build all the words.

The most time-consuming aspect of restoring the Diving Lady was Cook’s hand-lettering.

“I put in 20-25 hand lettering,” Cook said. “ I have not pushed a brush for that long in 10-15 years. All the white is triple coated. I double coated all the orange.”

People may see a nostalgic Diving Lady sign at 145 S. 6^th Ave., but for Davis restoring the sign is a crusade dating back to when he and partners bought the building in 1991. Since the day Davis occupied the building in 1993, he’s wanted to fix up the Diving Lady, which had been dark at night since at least 1974.

“To me, it’s not the lighting of the Diving Lady. To me it’s a glimmer of hope that our city government is figuring out the forest through the trees,” Davis said.

Davis was hamstrung by an arcane city sign code that did not allow building owners to take down old signs, fix them up, and put them back up. Leaving signs up in disrepair was acceptable. It was a Catch-22: leave old signs up or take them down without being allowed to put them back up.

Davis applied several times since 1993 to restore the Diving Lady but was always denied – until the City Council revised the sign code on June 28, 2011, to allow restoration of battered and rusting historic signs.

That came following an 18-month effort to revise the sign code ordinance, prompted by Davis’ most recent application. The city’s historic preservation officer, Jonathan Mabry, took up the cause, as did Demion Clinco, president of the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation; and the city’s sign code administrator, Glenn Moyer.

“Those three guys spearheaded this,” Davis said.

The new sign ordinance allowed historic designation to be assigned to the PCC/Drachman signs, the Diving Lady and the Hotel Congress sign.

“Each one of these signs brightens Tucson’s history a little,” Clinco said. “This represents the eclectic, modern, mid-century America. It’s alive. It’s on. If you turn on the lights, people will come.”

What it also represents for Davis is a bit of sanity in redrafting historic regulations. Since Davis was paying the restoration cost, he insisted he be allowed to put the Piccaretta Davis law firm name into the sign – unless the city wanted to pick up the restoration cost.

That, naturally, created a stir with the committee evaluating the sign code ordinance recommendation. Mabry went to bat for Davis.

“When we worked on the sign code ordinance, we added a criteria that adaptive reuse be allowed,” Mabry said. “We can do new as long as the character defining issues are preserved.”

Historic preservation can be ticklish at very best. Case in point: the Pueblo Hotel & Apartments building. What is the proper historic preservation for a structure built in 1903 with a sign from 1950? That has a Pueblo Hotel sign even though no Pueblo Hotel has operated there for more than 40 years? Especially since the hotel name was changed from Willard to Pueblo when the Diving Lady may or may not have already been in place?

“We believe in preserving the tone of Tucson that will continue to make us distinguishable,” Davis said. “Within that, you have to be practical.”

If you have any questions or concerns, call the info line at 624-5656 to speak to a team member about the project. Please note: Roadway closures indicate areas where roads are closed to vehicular and bicycle traffic. Pedestrian access adjacent to these closures will be maintained at all times. Cyclists must walk their bikes while using the sidewalks.

Downtown

This area of the project includes Congress Street and Broadway through downtown from Granada Avenue to 5th Avenue. Traffic control in this area is as follows:

• On-street parking will not be permitted along Broadway between Granada and Fifth Avenues.
• ONGOING: During Congress Street work, there will be intermittent closures of 5th Avenue and 6th Avenue at Congress Street.
• ONGOING: Scott Avenue is closed at Congress Street for approximately four months. Access to businesses north and south of the intersection, as well as access to street parking and garages off Scott Avenue, will be maintained.
• Construction on Congress Street includes curb to curb removal of asphalt and major excavation for utility relocations before the roadway is reconstructed with rail. The extensive nature of this work requires full closures 24 hours per day.

Fourth Avenue and University Boulevard

This area of the project includes 4th Avenue from the 4th Avenue underpass to University Boulevard, University Boulevard to Main Gate Square, and Park Avenue to 2nd Street. Traffic control in this area is as follows:

• On Monday, May 14, University Boulevard will be closed to vehicular and bicycle traffic between Third Avenue and Euclid Avenue and between Euclid and Park Avenues. This closure will be in place for approximately four months while the contractor completes the removal of the existing roadway, underground utility work, rail placement and installation of the Overhead Conductor System.

• The intersections of University Boulevard with Bean Avenue, Second Avenue, Jacobus Avenue, First Avenue and Tyndal will be closed to through traffic.
• Traffic along Third, Euclid and Park Avenues will not be affected during this work.
• Sidewalk access will be maintained at all times.

• On May 17 and May 18, the contractor will transport welded rail to the work area along Fourth Avenue north of Sixth Street. The rail will be moved from an area near Tenth Street, north on Third Avenue to Seventh Street, west to Fourth Avenue and north through the intersection of Sixth Street. Several segments of rail will be transported each day.

• Officers will be on site to direct traffic at the intersections of Sixth Street at Fourth Avenue and Seventh Street at Fourth Avenue. Motorist should plan for delays.
• On-street parking along Third Street between Tenth and Seventh Streets will not be permitted.
• On-street parking along Seventh Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues will not be permitted.
• On-street parking along Fourth Avenue, between Sixth and Seventh Streets will not be permitted.

• ONGOING: 4th Avenue is closed to vehicular and bicycle traffic between 6th Street and University Boulevard. This closure will be in place for approximately four months.
• Pedestrian access along 4th Avenue will be maintained at all times.

U of A and Health Sciences Center

This area of the project includes 2nd Street to Warren Avenue, the Warren Avenue underpass and a section of Helen Street that connects to the Health Science Center. Traffic control in this area is as follows:

• On Monday, May 14, Second Street will be closed to vehicular and bicycle traffic between Park Avenue and Palm Drive and between Highland and Warren Avenues. This closure will be in place while the contractor completes the removal of the existing roadway, underground utility work, rail placement and installation of the Overhead Conductor System.

• The intersection of Cherry Avenue at Second Street is closed. Signs will be in place to direct motorists around the work area. This intersection closure will be in place through the summer.
• Access to the Second Street garage will be maintained.
• Pedestrian access across Second Street near Highland Avenue will be maintained.

• On Monday, May 14, First Street will be converted to two-way travel between Mountain and Campbell Avenues. This conversion helps facilitate traffic flow during Second Street construction activities. 
• On Wednesday, May 16, Martin Avenue will be converted to two-way travel between First and Second Streets, and Second Street will be converted to two-way travel between Warren and Martin Avenues. These conversions will help facilitate traffic flow during Second Street construction activities.
• Palm Drive access at 2nd Street remains open, with easy access from Speedway Boulevard by taking Mountain Avenue to 2nd Street and heading west to Palm Drive.

Tucson will have the most spectacular sunset, perhaps ever, on May 20.

This is roughly what the sun will look like in Tucson at about 6:40 p.m. on May 20.

This will have nothing to do with thunderstorm clouds radiating all sorts of color.

This sky show will feature just the sun and the moon.

A total solar eclipse (technically, an annular solar eclipse) will travel across the Pacific Ocean late in the afternoon on May 20 and cross into the United States in far northern California. The eclipse’s center line (where all of the moon is in front of the sun) will pass just east of Reno and Carson City, NV.

The best viewings of the total annular eclipse in Arizona will be in Page, Canyon de Chelly and the northern reaches of the Navajo Nation. The total eclipse also passes directly over Albuquerque.

In Tucson, the moon will spill over one edge of the sun, but Tucsonans will still have the moon blocking 86.9 percent of the sun.

The eclipse will be at its maximum in the couple minutes before and after 6:40 p.m. in Tucson. The moon takes it’s first nibble out of the sun at 5:31 p.m. and the eclipse ends at 7:41 p.m. Note: the sun will set in Tucson while it’s still in eclipse.

This is called an annular eclipse because the moon will be a bit smaller than the sun. For a true total eclipse, the moon blocks the sun entirely.

Look now and you see the Mercado San Agustín, 30 luxury homes with varying Mexican colonial styles and the six-story senior housing complex now being called Sentinel Plaza in the finishing stages of construction.

A drawing of the West End Station.

Piece by piece, since 2005, the Gadsden Company, at a very measured pace, has given the south edge of West Congress Street just the tiniest sense of what Jerry Dixon and his family have been envisioning for a decade for what they call the Mercado District of Menlo Park and the neighboring Mission District.

These are both roughly 14-acre lots, split by Avenida del Convento, for which Gadsden won the development agreements from the city in 2003 and 2008.

So far, it may be hard to tell the grandiose urban scene they have in mind for the near West Side.

The next 18 months could finally bring West Congress Street the first real taste of the big city urban setting that’s been talked about for a good five years for this near 30 acres of parched desert.

In about a year, Gadsden wants to start building pair of apartment complexes about the height of Sentinel Plaza (formerly called New Armory Apartments). They will be unlike anything in Tucson and more like something you might find in Europe or on the East Coast.

The Monier Apartments and West End Station both will be built around two courtyards, that is, complex in the shape of a figure eight with squared corners.

“We’re trying to make a big city feeling the appropriate way for Tucson,” said Jerry Dixon, Gadsden’s chairman. “We have all fresh air corridors. I never thought you want to be in an enclosed corridor in Arizona. We are preserving the views of the mountains and A Mountain.”

Unlike Mercado District homes, destined for those with six-figure salaries, West End Station and the Monier Apartments will be largely priced for the working class, those within 125 percent of the region’s median income range.

West End Station specs call for a 239-unit apartment complex with 30,000 square feet of street level retail that could include a restaurant, a bank or credit union, and a few other small businesses. One courtyard will be more public in nature, the other courtyard more for residents, with a swimming pool.

West End Station’s height along West Congress Street will be four stories – like Sentinel Plaza a few hundred feet to the east – but will also have five- and six-story sections more away from the street. The complex will sit at the corner of Avenida del Convento, across from Mercado San Agustin, another Gadsden project.

“It’s in proportion with the senior housing (Sentinel Plaza),” said Adam Weinstein, Gadsden’s chief executive. “It’s a larger city mixed-use building.”

Rents in West End Station are expected to range from $502 for a studio and $900 for two bedrooms. The first set of tenants will get a free one-year streetcar pass, Dixon said.

“We are building an urban core that is walkable and enjoyable,” Dixon said. “We have all of the things that you would want to live here and stay there. Every 10 minutes there’s a 90-passenger streetcar right there.”

The streetcar will loop through the Mission District, around three sides of West End Station. The streetcar will reach the Gadsden project via the new Luis G. Gutierrez Bridge that is nearing completion and will carry Cushing Street across the Santa Cruz River.

Concurrent with West End, Gadsden will also start building the Monier Apartments behind the Mercado San Agustín in about a year. Dixon and Weinstein hope to have them both online within six months of each other at the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 at latest. Consistent with all the other Gadsden projects, these will be masonry buildings, not wood frame structures.

The Monier Apartments have been in the works since 2005 and Gadsden Company has renewed and updated its building permits for Monier since 2007. Back then, it was knows as Monier Brickyard Building with offices and commercial projected for the lower levels.

“Ultimately, it turned out the highest and best use is the apartments,” Weinstein said. “The ground floor will be built with commercial infrastructure so it can be converted to commercial.”

Monier will be built with 169 units with rents ranging from $695 for pied-à-terre studios to $1,025 for two-bedroom apartments, Weinstein said.

Gadsden is forming a joint venture for Monier with Holualoa Companies, which owns the Pioneer building Downtown.

“It brings a whole lot of bodies,” said Weinstein, adding that neither Monier nor West End are designed for families, in keeping with the growing trend of single households nearly matching married households across America. “The home owners (at Mercado District) have been waiting for the next density housing to come.”

The West End, Monier and Sentinel projects are a sneak peak for the housing density in store for the Mission District. Three eight- to 10-story housing towers are planned for the back acreage alongside the Santa Cruz River. Timelines for building these towers will be determined once the streetcar is in service, Dixon said.

The 14.3-acre Mission District is in seven blocks designated with the letters A through G. Block G was sold to Senior Housing Group for the 143-unit Sentinel Plaza, which should be ready for the residents of the Armory Park Apartments in fall. West End Station fills Block A, while Monier Apartments are across Avenida del Convento and are part of the Mercado District.

A parking garage is slated for Block B, directly behind West End Station, and Dixon wants to build a boutique hotel on Block C – on the other side of the garage.

The hotel is not immediately penciling out so Dixon and Weinstein have short-term ideas for Block C for the next five years for a possible beer garden or steakhouse.

The Mercado and Mission projects fell victim to the economic collapse and financing freeze, which added years to their projections for each phase of these projects. West End and Monier finally launches Gadsden’s larger scale vision for the Menlo Park Neighborhood.

“It’s just the start,” Dixon said.

We’ve got the amazing weather and natural beauty of the desert, a world-class research university here, top high schools, and a fabulous Downtown — let’s get this party started! How can we help bring your business to Downtown Tucson?