Quote:
Originally Posted by farmerk
Biggest Excitement : Tucson's growing acceptance of a real urban core. Streetcar. Downtown Links. Tucson's Bridges with Costco/Walmart.
Biggest Disappointment : Urban core growth in Tucson is NOT fast enough. Extremely disappointed with the cancelled projects and some ugly looking projects around downtown. 1 million people in the Old Pueblo and you still have people that want to keep Metro Tucson into a small town, LOL.
Best rendering : HUB. Sentinel Plaza. MLK. ALoft. And looks like the new Pima Courthouse is turning out to be nice. The county's Pennington Garage's Art Deco looks nice too.
Building that will age best : Sentinel Plaza
Worst rendering : Cadence
Let me amend RRancher's comment with "What do you want Tucson to accomplish by 2023...10 years from now"
- Cover at least 50 percent of Central Tucson with at least mid-rise buildings (5+ floors).
- Extend the streetcar (and yes, convert the rest of the tracks to light rail - dedicated lanes/tracks)
- Brand name retail/restaurants downtown
- This one is real ambitious --> Would love to have a handful of 20+ floor buildings and 1-2 skyscrapers downtown.  |
I would like to see in the next 10 years (not in order):
1) Arena/Hotel built: We need an arena badly. Our current facility is outdated...decent concerts can't come because the ceiling is too low. And the obvious, the arena amenities are just embarrassing. If we build the arena then Phase 1 Hotel and Phase 2 Hotel, pending on success of arena.
2) Build on the ol' Unisouce Tower "twin" pad. The elevator shaft and base is already built and ready...please please build on it for once. Get some offices off of River and/or Williams Centre to move downtown.
3) Building 10 stories or taller (may fulfill #1, #2)
4) Building 15 stories or taller (may fulfill #1, #2)
5) Building 20 stories or taller
6) Streetcar extension down 6th ave, Campbell, and/or Oracle. Southern Downtown and 6th Ave is ripe for density.
7) Light Rail down Kino to Airport
8) Buildings on parking lots throughout downtown, for example, the big one adjacent to El Charro...the cancelled "El Mirador" lots...the lots on Broadway
9) In conjunction with the arena, expand the AVA amphitheater and/or build another larger amphitheater. In Albuquerque, they have the Hard Rock/Journal Pavilion which is larger than AVA, but smaller than Desert Sky in Phx. They book way better acts than AVA. Now, on the northside of Albq they built a new amphitheater on the Sandia Rez. And, the suburb of Rio Rancho has a modest, yet capable, modern arena.
10) Build the Greenline.
11) Build the proposed Westside/Rio Nuevo developments.
12) Last, but not least, build a downtown MLS soccer stadium