[kaneui]

Tucson is lobbying the state legislature to extend funding for Rio Nuevo--its downtown redevelopment project--by 20 or 30 years beyond 2012:


Rio Nuevo life span on way to extension

By Rob O'Dell
Arizona Daily Star
12.27.2005


The life of the Rio Nuevo district seems to be a train that already has left the station.

Despite the fact that the Tucson City Council has never had a public discussion on extending the Downtown development district, all of the council members said they were on board to extend its life past the original 10 years. In addition, state Rep. Steve Huffman, a Tucson Republican, has begun drafting a bill in the House of Representatives to try to make it happen. "I think the council is ready to extend" the Rio Nuevo district, said Ward 4 Democrat Shirley Scott. "My sense is the council is headed in that direction."

The city also has moved up the timetable for finishing a feasibility study on constructing an underground section of Interstate 10 through Downtown, moving the deadline from March or April to the end of January. Earlier this month, the city and county asked the state to delay work on widening I-10 to provide time to study putting the freeway below ground level roughly from St. Mary's Road to 22nd Street, a part of which would be a tunnel. The shortened study period was partly brought about by the Legislature's calendar, City Manager Mike Hein said.

Receiving the report in January will ensure that the city knows the cost and practicality of a depressed freeway so it can take a vote on whether to ask the Legislature for an extension of the Rio Nuevo district, Hein said.

If the feasibility study came back in March or April, the city would have little or no time to lobby the Legislature for an extension, because the state lawmakers' session runs only until spring. Hein said a formal council vote to endorse an extension could coincide with the late-January completion of the I-10 study.

Michael Johnson, senior engineer at HDR, the company conducting the study, said he'll try to come up with a rough cost estimate, and an overview of what it would require — such as possible environmental impact studies — and a rough schedule for how long it would take to complete the project.

"We can't do a very detailed study in 30 days, obviously," he said. Huffman said he has opened a file on extending Rio Nuevo — the precursor to a bill — and is drafting its language so he can introduce it after the Legislature convenes in early January.

He said he is meeting with legislators to try to gain their support. The initial response has been positive, he said, and he expects the bill will pass this session.

Barrett Marson, a spokesman for the House Republican majority and for Speaker of the House Jim Weiers of Phoenix, said that although the speaker met with Tucson officials, including Hein, in Phoenix two weeks ago, Weiers didn't have much to say about the extension. He referred calls to Huffman, who he said is responsible for generating support to get the bill passed.

Tucson wants a 20- to 30-year extension, because 30 to 50 years is the typical life span of a district such as Rio Nuevo, said Mary Okoye, the city's lobbyist. A special law sets aside a portion of state taxes for a mix of museums, historic restorations and other cultural and commercial projects, but it requires the city to put an equal amount of its own money into the redevelopment, either in money or public projects.

The law is now expected to feed $124 million into Rio Nuevo by the time it expires in 2012. A 20-year extension would add $580 million that the city would have to match, while a 30-year extension would add $1.01 billion that the city would need to match, said city Finance Director Scott Douthitt.

The Rio Nuevo extension is being discussed now because of the proposals for an underground I-10 and for the massive suspension bridge that the University of Arizona wants to build, said Councilwoman Karin Uhlich, a Democrat from Ward 3. The $350 million bridge would be part of the UA's new Downtown science center. Another possible project that has come up in conversations with city officials is a new Downtown arena.

Getting state legislative approval to extend the diversion of taxes to Rio Nuevo could be a hard sell because it means more money for Tucson at the expense of cities in Maricopa County, whose lawmakers make up about 60 percent of the Legislature.

Huffman said the incentive for the approval by the Legislature was that an extension of Rio Nuevo would build the economic base of Downtown Tucson and would give the state more revenue in the long term.

He said voters wouldn't have to approve an extension because the electorate only authorized the creation of the district, and it was the Legislature that approved its 10-year life span.