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  #5181  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 4:10 PM
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southtucsonboy77 southtucsonboy77 is offline
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Qwijib0, I respect your rebuttal...but I did not say a couple of things, for example:

- I did not say Downtown Links was a worthless solution. I said that we would have Downtown Links and a 2 lane roadway (Broadway) connecting off of it. Look at I-10 from Phoenix to Tucson. ADOT has built 3 lanes each way for a majority of the route...except there are areas where it gets narrowed down to 2, the biggest segment being the Gila River reservation section. Heading into and out of Phoenix, it causes a bottleneck. Who would of thunk that the Gila River leaders would build so much economic development on that section 20 to 10 years ago? On a smaller scaler, this is what will happen on Broadway. I'm thinking comprehensively and regionally, not the outer fringe of another central Tucson "fill-in the blank" neighborhood. I'm afraid many people think about their own section of town. I ride the Xpress bus from Marana...but how efficient would that route be if I-10 was still a 3 lane "freeway" from downtown to Prince? Or 2 lanes? Stats and numbers could be used in any way...but numbers are also down in that segment of Broadway due to many businesses leaving. Its deserted and dead, especially at night. Doesn't mean it will not get redeveloped or get new life in years to come. Also, areas east and west of that segment are thriving.

- I did not say we need more roads...or Broadway should be 3 or 4 lanes. I said Broadway should have 3 lanes. Period. That is widening a road, not adding a road. Having a crosstown, aka east/west freeway, is not a city that would be saturated with freeways. Its have a (one) freeway. Its having balance. Economic development leaders, planners, businesses, ect. will tell you our transportation infrastructure is pretty bad...and they are not talking about transit. I support transit. I ride transit. I worked for PAG when the RTA was created. I'm all for it. But taking away (again) the true intent of why a roadway was funded for improvement and enhancement is just...another Tucson blunder. AND, just to point out...if we're talking about wasting money...the overkill and abundance of neighborhood meetings for 22nd, Grant, and Broadway have been money pits. I've seen the numbers. The RTA was regionally approved by voters. But Tucsonans still want to mess it up. SMH.

All of this is just an opinion.
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  #5182  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 5:36 PM
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You realize this forum is pretty much dedicated to discussions of urbanism, right? Redevelopment projects meant to enhance the viability of daily commutes across an entire city are kind of antithetical to that concept.
Yes, I'm aware. And Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. I was born in Tucson and have lived a good chunk of my life there. Tucson is always guilty of the same old-think: social-engineer poor quality of life. It doesn't matter what reality is, keep placating those that don't need to go across town for jobs. Don't build a freeway even though *for now* that is the best solution. Why make life easy on people? Let's punish them for having those damn cars. Look, I'm as much for density and alternative modes of transport and reduction of greenhouse gasses HOWEVER you have to balance the short- and long-terms. That's the human condition on this planet. You know what will continue to keep Tucson grossly non-competitive to the Portland, Austins and even (ugh) Albuquerques??? 40 minutes to go 10 miles across the city. Ridiculous. Tucson needs to get its friggin act together, period. Almost 30 years ago they voted down the Rillito Parkway. Keep it up and nobody will want to live in Tucson and there won't be any traffic.
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  #5183  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 5:51 PM
soleri soleri is offline
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Almost 30 years ago they voted down the Rillito Parkway. Keep it up and nobody will want to live in Tucson and there won't be any traffic.
Well, that actually might work! In Portland, where I live, traffic is a nightmare. At some point, most people will have to get out of their cars and start taking the trains and buses, or even riding bicycles. Increasing road capacity only leads to increasing usage. Build it and they will drive. Hence, Phoenix, which has excellent traffic movement but no real reason to live there because there's no city, just drive-everywhere suburban clusters filled with nondescript strip malls and chain retail. That's what you want?
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  #5184  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 6:05 PM
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Well, that actually might work! In Portland, where I live, traffic is a nightmare. At some point, most people will have to get out of their cars and start taking the trains and buses, or even riding bicycles. Increasing road capacity only leads to increasing usage. Build it and they will drive. Hence, Phoenix, which has excellent traffic movement but no real reason to live there because there's no city, just drive-everywhere suburban clusters filled with nondescript strip malls and chain retail. That's what you want?
I assume that's a rhetorical question...and what I want is immaterial. What I know is that most everyone I know who wants to make any kind of decent living has to leave Tucson. I love Tucson for a lot of reasons. I hate it for a lot. Non-forward thinking and Soviet-like group-think to socially engineer what the few call "progress" is not working nor will it. Freeways in of themselves are not bad. Nor is lighttrail in of itself a good thing. One must balance the unique nature of each city to come up with a mix that both serves the current needs and gently influences the future the city wants to see. Tucson RARELY concedes current needs. Look, all that anti-freeway/anti-progress (NIMBY's and all) didn't stop Tucson from growing from 500,000 in 1980 when I moved back there as a kid to the 1.05 million 30 years later. I would say that road infrastructure during that time-span has not doubled but maybe "grown" by a meager 20%. Just a guess. But you get my point. If your argument is that other places have bad traffic, so be it. Yes, Washington, DC has some of the worst traffic in the nation (another place I've lived and currently live after leaving Phoenix for a job) yet it has one of the highest per-capita incomes. So if there's some devil'd deal regarding quality of life/income and traffic -- well, Tucson is getting doubly screwed because real incomes in Tucson are stagnant at best and I suspect outpacing the rest of the nation on the down side. But what do I know? I'm just a guy that lived there often and long enough to know that I would not trade Tucson's "Old Pueblo" quaintness and natural beauty for a lack of opportunity and endless frustrations as cars creep along at 28 mph from one red light to another and big, half-empty buses bring the entire snail's pace to a crashing halt every few minutes. Rio Nuevo. Ballparks in the middle of nowhere. 30% vacancy rates in a downtown that hasn't added any meaningful space outside the TEP building in 25 years. Pie-in-the-sky talk of alternatives to freeways that never materialize into actual solutions. No thanks. I'll take actual progress over ineffective and corrupt leadership and hard-scrabble delusions thereof.
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  #5185  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 8:02 PM
Ted Lyons Ted Lyons is offline
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That's what you want?
Sadly, many here do want that in one form or another.
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  #5186  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 10:24 PM
soleri soleri is offline
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Originally Posted by Ted Lyons View Post
Sadly, many here do want that in one form or another.
I grew up in Phoenix, so I know that tragedy. The city is unfixable. You can't retrofit that kind of sprawl with light rail or real density. Yes, driving from one end of nowhere to the other has its pleasures, one of which, unfortunately, does not include living in a real city. Why would Tucson want to emulate Phoenix? So you can drive faster through the forgettable and interchangeable "neighborhoods" that could find in Riverside or Lubbock? Why would anyone who isn't prematurely jaded want that?

For all of Phoenix's ease of driving, its downtown is anemic and Its midtown is comatose. Driving fast won't fix Tucson. It would just be the final nail in its coffin.
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  #5187  
Old Posted Oct 20, 2014, 11:17 PM
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Originally Posted by soleri View Post
I grew up in Phoenix, so I know that tragedy. The city is unfixable. You can't retrofit that kind of sprawl with light rail or real density. Yes, driving from one end of nowhere to the other has its pleasures, one of which, unfortunately, does not include living in a real city. Why would Tucson want to emulate Phoenix? So you can drive faster through the forgettable and interchangeable "neighborhoods" that could find in Riverside or Lubbock? Why would anyone who isn't prematurely jaded want that?

For all of Phoenix's ease of driving, its downtown is anemic and Its midtown is comatose. Driving fast won't fix Tucson. It would just be the final nail in its coffin.
I think you make some great points and I'm not trying actively to argue anything contrary. I'm typing this in Phoenix but will be back in the DC area in two months. Agree, Phoenix has little offer except "new"...and everything new is old rather quickly. I lived in Phoenix in the early 90's and I much preferred that Phoenix of 2.4 million to the 4.whatever of this Phoenix. It's too much. At least 20 years ago it was all brand spanking new and houses were truly affordable and that kinda made up for the lack of any real sense of community and culture. And that's the biggest problem with Arizona to me: it's been invaded by every other part of the country and what was once a maverick kind of state is now so pedestrian and synthesized...it has no personality at all. Tucson is FAR more interesting than Phoenix to me but it doesn't make what's wrong with Tucson any less infuriating. Building a "street" car from the UofA to downtown is not meaningful improvement. It's great for the UofA and whoever it is that actually goes downtown these days (like Phoenix) but it doesn't do much for the guy out east that has to work in Oro Valley? Do we just not care because he isn't embracing the new anti-sprawl pathos? Maybe he can't afford to live elsewhere. I digress. You can't make much of a living in Tucson unless you're a doctor, lawyer or college professor. Tucson has never been about improving the lives of its citizens. That's my biggest complaint. It's small-minded and elitist at the civic leadership level. And corrupt. You get exactly what you ask for. Did it occur to anyone that a cross-town freeway in a mountain-locked valley might actually encourage higher densities around said freeway? Ha, see! And that's where smart zoning comes in. Create greater densities through traffic flows that are efficient and then force denser and more vertical living. It can be done. But it takes the courage to look at the problem without an agenda on either side of the politics.
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  #5188  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 6:37 AM
cdsuofa cdsuofa is offline
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I think an east west freeway north of I-10 is something that will never happen. It is too late. The city on the other hand can use other methods to speed up traffic such as sections of parkways/expressways, grade separated intersections and maybe one of the most promising possibilities in a city ruled by traffic lights is the ever increasing advances in "smart roads". Traffic controls working with traffic flow as opposed to sitting at a red light to watch nobody go through, digital signage directing and recommending routes based on current conditions. A traditional freeway going east west in the area north of I-10 and south of the Catalinas will never happen. The great thing is there are so many alternatives we can use to gain the same result.
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  #5189  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 3:04 PM
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Gem-show firm plans $12 million exhibit hall in Tucson




Images: Rob Paulus Architects

From Today's AZ Daily Star...

Quote:
The owners of one of Tucson’s biggest mineral shows has purchased a plot of land near downtown from the city, with plans to build a $12 million cooperative exhibit hall.

The proposed permanent home for the 22nd Street Mineral, Fossil and Gem Show is near 22nd Street and Interstate 10.

The 22nd Street Co-Op is a planned 150,000-square foot, three-story building with selling rooms that dealers will own.
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  #5190  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 3:45 PM
soleri soleri is offline
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Originally Posted by somethingfast View Post
Did it occur to anyone that a cross-town freeway in a mountain-locked valley might actually encourage higher densities around said freeway? Ha, see! And that's where smart zoning comes in. Create greater densities through traffic flows that are efficient and then force denser and more vertical living. It can be done. But it takes the courage to look at the problem without an agenda on either side of the politics.
I have never heard of this idea. I don't want to discount it - you might have some corroborating data I'm not familiar with - but it sounds counterintuitive. An example from the other side would be Vancouver, BC which has no in-city freeways period. It's an urban paradise. Now, I get Tucson will never be like that even if makes driving even more difficult. There are other factors at play here, such as the city's built environment. Tucson, outside its core, has very weak bones. Also, Tucson's relative low density cannot support effective mass transit, which means you get caught in that vicious cycle. Too little density means too few transit nodes which means too little development creating the density you needed in the first place.

The streetcar offers Tucson this one hope: possibly creating enough value in its core to set up a virtuous cycle. The line runs close to Tucson's few architectural assets, along with its old retail districts that are properly scaled for urban life. The city as a whole, unfortunately, cannot be part of this experience. It is too relentlessly suburban in scale and texture. It may be nice in some of its parts but it cannot be repaired.

I went to UofA in the 1970s and the city then was much more attractive than it is today. If the city had been able to establish growth boundaries and effective transit then, it would be the Portland of the Southwest. Republican refugees from California and the city's low-brow economic elite killed that dream. The idea that there's a liberal elite frustrating Joe Sixpack's commute is laughable. If only it were true.

Tucson has some advantages. Its climate is mostly benign and its setting is borderline magnificent. The city is not exactly flat but it's reasonably close. Bicycling, for that reason, ought to be emphasized more than it is. Tucson will never be Copenhagen where 50% of commutes are by bike, but it could do a much better job if there infrastructure was there.

Tucson's story is an old one: you cannot grow your way out of sprawl, and if you try, you really just ruin the sense of place that is vital for quality of life. Phoenix gave up on quality of life and now its economic rationale is beginning to implode. LA is having a hard time, too, except in its core which is enjoying a remarkable renaissance. That's my hope for Tucson, if on a much smaller scale. Emphasize the core. Don't try to save the suburbs. You can't. They don't have enough inherent value to begin with.
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  #5191  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 3:58 PM
Ted Lyons Ted Lyons is offline
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Originally Posted by InTheBurbs View Post
Gem-show firm plans $12 million exhibit hall in Tucson




Images: Rob Paulus Architects

From Today's AZ Daily Star...
While a bit skeptical of the scale of this project, the article did note $8 million in presales. If true, that's pretty impressive.

EDIT - I guess that part could be read as a projection that hasn't been achieved yet.
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  #5192  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 7:01 PM
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Is that mentioned Gem Show exhibit hall in addition to the exhibit hall Norville plans to build? Didn't Norville plan to build a 120,000sqft hall very near this location or are we talking about the same project? If these are 2 different projects, is there that much demand along with the TCC's exhibit capabilities?
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  #5193  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 8:50 PM
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Is that mentioned Gem Show exhibit hall in addition to the exhibit hall Norville plans to build? Didn't Norville plan to build a 120,000sqft hall very near this location or are we talking about the same project? If these are 2 different projects, is there that much demand along with the TCC's exhibit capabilities?
I believe they are two different projects. There is the exhibition hall for the Arena site right next to the TCC (proposed by Norville) and apparently now there is one south of downtown on 22nd and I-10 (proposed by Eons Expo). As far as demand goes, the article does state that since 2011, the company that bought the land had been putting up tents for their events. This sort of investment puts in perspective that the Gem and Mineral Show in general is here to stay in Tucson and the amount of money that is being invested shows that they really believe in their risk analysis for additional exhibit space.
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  #5194  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 9:24 PM
Ted Lyons Ted Lyons is offline
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Originally Posted by crzyabe View Post
Is that mentioned Gem Show exhibit hall in addition to the exhibit hall Norville plans to build? Didn't Norville plan to build a 120,000sqft hall very near this location or are we talking about the same project? If these are 2 different projects, is there that much demand along with the TCC's exhibit capabilities?
Definitely two separate projects. Curious to see how quickly this one sells as that will be a major indicator of whether Norville's much bigger project is viable. If it's not, I wouldn't bet on him building anything he proposed to Rio Nuevo.
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  #5195  
Old Posted Oct 21, 2014, 9:44 PM
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I have never heard of this idea. I don't want to discount it - you might have some corroborating data I'm not familiar with - but it sounds counterintuitive. An example from the other side would be Vancouver, BC which has no in-city freeways period. It's an urban paradise. Now, I get Tucson will never be like that even if makes driving even more difficult. There are other factors at play here, such as the city's built environment. Tucson, outside its core, has very weak bones. Also, Tucson's relative low density cannot support effective mass transit, which means you get caught in that vicious cycle. Too little density means too few transit nodes which means too little development creating the density you needed in the first place.

The streetcar offers Tucson this one hope: possibly creating enough value in its core to set up a virtuous cycle. The line runs close to Tucson's few architectural assets, along with its old retail districts that are properly scaled for urban life. The city as a whole, unfortunately, cannot be part of this experience. It is too relentlessly suburban in scale and texture. It may be nice in some of its parts but it cannot be repaired.

I went to UofA in the 1970s and the city then was much more attractive than it is today. If the city had been able to establish growth boundaries and effective transit then, it would be the Portland of the Southwest. Republican refugees from California and the city's low-brow economic elite killed that dream. The idea that there's a liberal elite frustrating Joe Sixpack's commute is laughable. If only it were true.

Tucson has some advantages. Its climate is mostly benign and its setting is borderline magnificent. The city is not exactly flat but it's reasonably close. Bicycling, for that reason, ought to be emphasized more than it is. Tucson will never be Copenhagen where 50% of commutes are by bike, but it could do a much better job if there infrastructure was there.

Tucson's story is an old one: you cannot grow your way out of sprawl, and if you try, you really just ruin the sense of place that is vital for quality of life. Phoenix gave up on quality of life and now its economic rationale is beginning to implode. LA is having a hard time, too, except in its core which is enjoying a remarkable renaissance. That's my hope for Tucson, if on a much smaller scale. Emphasize the core. Don't try to save the suburbs. You can't. They don't have enough inherent value to begin with.
i'm mostly a lurker here and only casual at that...but i've always appreciated your posts, soleri. always thoughtful and realistic. no, i don't have any kind of data to back up the idea that a central unobstructed high-capacity (heck, let's put light rail in the middle while we're dreaming!) freeway (and depressed also while we're dreaming) would encourage and attract denser development. zoning can definitely influence what happens and phoenix has plenty of examples of development following new freeway creation. it doesn't have to be zoned for commercial but residential is all i'm really suggesting. go against the grain. back in the DC area there are lots of urban villages being built in the burbs in the goal of not only creating community but also indirectly (maybe directly...maybe both) discouraging driving to other commercial centers. and it's working. leesburg, virginia is 35 miles from DC and it's building urban villages. the point is to keep people as close to their work as possible but it's not always possible and the primary advantage i'm suggesting by the cross-town freeway is that it would terminate downtown where a flow of *population* can easily access and flow toward the urban core we all want. it's a moot point. it won't happen. for all of tucson's stubborn individuality (and it's commendable in some ways) it's hardly progressive by the strictest of definitions. if anything, it's reactionary to the core. the single most important issue for Tucson now and in the future is attracting industry and quality jobs and the ONLY way it can do that is by embracing it's somewhat "cool" factor (call it Austin or Portland-Lite) and encourage (tax incentives...dirty phrase i know) development downtown and through the light rail (street train...whatever the f it is) corridor to the UofA. frankly speaking, Tucson is not and never has been in danger of becoming the next Phoenix...it's too land-locked and vehemently opposed to it from a philosophical standpoint. it's anti-phoenix to its core. and that's great, neither right nor wrong. but if it's wants better quality of life for its citizens and wants to keep its children from fleeing to find better jobs, it needs to sacrifice for it. it needs to pull in one or two major coupes and foster small-biz innovation. rio nuevo could simply be a think-tank with a checkbook subsidizing jobs and business creation in those corridors we talked about. and, oh, damning up the santa cruz and creating a town lake in the downtown area a la tempe just might be a great idea. tempe seems to be reaping some rewards 20 years later
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  #5196  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2014, 6:49 AM
cdsuofa cdsuofa is offline
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Awesome project being built for the gem and mineral show and other year round use and by a private investor at that. Only one comment, it seems like it is going to be pretty detached from downtown/Streetcar. Wish the city would have (if available) offered another parcel of city owned property closer to downtown, possibly in the mission district. Of course it could be a blessing in disguise and combined with the improvement of 22nd street be a piece in revitalizing southern downtown (north of 22nd) where a lot of the historic Tucson charm resides.
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  #5197  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2014, 1:01 PM
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Tower Project on Speedway & Campbell moving right along...

--------Article and link to ADS below----

The one thing you’d expect would result from a proposed 20-story tower in midtown Tucson is neighborhood protests.
But plans for the tower on the northwest corner of East Speedway and North Campbell have received something remarkable — an embrace from most neighbors.

“We’ve never heard any opposition to this project in our neighborhood,” said Grace Rich, president of the North University Neighborhood Association, where the proposed project is located. “We think it would be nice to have something interesting there. We would love to see it also function as a place where people could go and have tea or see a movie and art exhibit or something like that.”

Only one neighbor seems to be aloof from the project, and it’s a big one — the University of Arizona. The UA owns three neighboring properties and last year described itself as a possible joint-venture partner in the project. But for now the university is no longer involved because it is about to launch a master-planning process, spokeswoman Andrea Smiley said.

That leaves the project, led by property owner Richard Shenkarow, isolated to 2 ½ acres where the private Palm Shadows Apartments property sit. And it’s likely to be taller than it would be if the neighboring, UA-owned Babcock Apartments were also part of the project as previously discussed.

“The shame of it is that what is a really good project right now could have been a really, really good project if we could have incorporated a bigger footprint,” said Council Member Steve Kozachik, who represents the ward.

Kozachik and the five other council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a change to the University Area Plan that is necessary for the proposal to move forward to the re-zoning process. The current, outdated zoning would limit the height of a building on that corner to 30 feet, architect Philipp Neher told me as we discussed the project outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

Team members Neher, Shenkarow attorney Keri Silvyn, Jim Portner of Projects International Inc. and others have made a point of having regular communications with neighbors leading up to the vote Tuesday night. They’ve done five presentations to neighborhood groups and held two broadly publicized neighborhood meetings. They also formed an advisory group of neighborhood leaders and met with them.

One of the key factors in their presentation is that this is transit-oriented development — a project that lends urban density to a key transit corridor. In this case, the project is about a block from the northeastern end of the new streetcar, another factor that has won over neighbors.

The West University Neighborhood Association, known as tough battlers against some proposed developments, supported the plan amendment that the council approved Tuesday night.

“Part of the reason we’ve supported it is the process has been the most inclusive process that we’ve seen to date,” West University president Chris Gans told me. “Hopefully this becomes the prototype.”

The Blenman Elm Neighborhood Association did not take a vote on whether to support the plan amendment, because support for the plan wasn’t unanimous, president Alice Roe said. But she is a vocal supporter of the plan — in part because the planned housing that will be part of the project is not student housing but market-rate.

“New housing that might appeal to a higher income level and a good job level is really highly appropriate for our community. I can’t think of a better place to put it than right there,” she told me Tuesday.

Shenkarow, who has been building this plan for years, is himself a resident of Blenman Elm.

While the project won’t be completely fleshed out until the re-zoning process, it is intended to include a grocery store — probably a Whole Foods — on the ground floor, with a parking structure to the north, and offices and residences in the stories above.

If the tower ends up at 250 feet or so, it would easily be the tallest building in the area. That’s about the same height as the blue Pima County Legal Services building downtown.

And that’s likely to be the main sticking point in the re-zoning debate — that the tall part of the structure is just too tall.

“If that first digit were anything but a 2, this would be a no-brainer,” Kozachik said.

My suspicion is that the 20-story height will be reduced to, perhaps, 18 stories in the final analysis — a height that seems much more reasonable once 20 stories are considered.

However tall the project ends up, Neher explained that the height is, in part, a function of the small footprint allowed by the 2.5-acre Palm Shadows site and in part a result of the desire to create open space on the ground floor.

“Going up gives us freedom to design the ground floor,” he said.

It’s a shame that the university, the big brother of all the neighbors in the area, has pulled back from being involved in what is likely to be a groundbreaking Tucson development.

But at least the project has largely won over the neighbors, who in the past have been likely to put up obstacles to this kind of development.

Arizona Daily Star
http://tucson.com/news/local/column/...c581b36c4.html
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  #5198  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2014, 1:05 PM
hthomas hthomas is offline
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Infill in Barrio Viejo / Santa Rosa

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Originally Posted by cdsuofa View Post
Awesome project being built for the gem and mineral show and other year round use and by a private investor at that. Only one comment, it seems like it is going to be pretty detached from downtown/Streetcar. Wish the city would have (if available) offered another parcel of city owned property closer to downtown, possibly in the mission district. Of course it could be a blessing in disguise and combined with the improvement of 22nd street be a piece in revitalizing southern downtown (north of 22nd) where a lot of the historic Tucson charm resides.
I think this is a good spot for another Gem show exhibition center, there's a lot of room for infill in this part of downtown and really connects the southern corridor to downtown. It's only a 15 minute walk from 22nd to Broadway, 10th Ave/Main to 22nd are on the bus line, etc. I think that this could really enhance the Southern Gateway to the City.
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  #5199  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2014, 3:46 PM
Ted Lyons Ted Lyons is offline
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I think this is a good spot for another Gem show exhibition center, there's a lot of room for infill in this part of downtown and really connects the southern corridor to downtown. It's only a 15 minute walk from 22nd to Broadway, 10th Ave/Main to 22nd are on the bus line, etc. I think that this could really enhance the Southern Gateway to the City.
Agreed. This location is where these people hold their yearly event anyway, so they may not have wanted another location.
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  #5200  
Old Posted Oct 22, 2014, 3:48 PM
Ted Lyons Ted Lyons is offline
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Originally Posted by hthomas View Post
Tower Project on Speedway & Campbell moving right along...

--------Article and link to ADS below----

The one thing you’d expect would result from a proposed 20-story tower in midtown Tucson is neighborhood protests.
But plans for the tower on the northwest corner of East Speedway and North Campbell have received something remarkable — an embrace from most neighbors.

“We’ve never heard any opposition to this project in our neighborhood,” said Grace Rich, president of the North University Neighborhood Association, where the proposed project is located. “We think it would be nice to have something interesting there. We would love to see it also function as a place where people could go and have tea or see a movie and art exhibit or something like that.”

Only one neighbor seems to be aloof from the project, and it’s a big one — the University of Arizona. The UA owns three neighboring properties and last year described itself as a possible joint-venture partner in the project. But for now the university is no longer involved because it is about to launch a master-planning process, spokeswoman Andrea Smiley said.

That leaves the project, led by property owner Richard Shenkarow, isolated to 2 ½ acres where the private Palm Shadows Apartments property sit. And it’s likely to be taller than it would be if the neighboring, UA-owned Babcock Apartments were also part of the project as previously discussed.

“The shame of it is that what is a really good project right now could have been a really, really good project if we could have incorporated a bigger footprint,” said Council Member Steve Kozachik, who represents the ward.

Kozachik and the five other council members voted unanimously Tuesday night to approve a change to the University Area Plan that is necessary for the proposal to move forward to the re-zoning process. The current, outdated zoning would limit the height of a building on that corner to 30 feet, architect Philipp Neher told me as we discussed the project outside City Hall Tuesday afternoon.

Team members Neher, Shenkarow attorney Keri Silvyn, Jim Portner of Projects International Inc. and others have made a point of having regular communications with neighbors leading up to the vote Tuesday night. They’ve done five presentations to neighborhood groups and held two broadly publicized neighborhood meetings. They also formed an advisory group of neighborhood leaders and met with them.

One of the key factors in their presentation is that this is transit-oriented development — a project that lends urban density to a key transit corridor. In this case, the project is about a block from the northeastern end of the new streetcar, another factor that has won over neighbors.

The West University Neighborhood Association, known as tough battlers against some proposed developments, supported the plan amendment that the council approved Tuesday night.

“Part of the reason we’ve supported it is the process has been the most inclusive process that we’ve seen to date,” West University president Chris Gans told me. “Hopefully this becomes the prototype.”

The Blenman Elm Neighborhood Association did not take a vote on whether to support the plan amendment, because support for the plan wasn’t unanimous, president Alice Roe said. But she is a vocal supporter of the plan — in part because the planned housing that will be part of the project is not student housing but market-rate.

“New housing that might appeal to a higher income level and a good job level is really highly appropriate for our community. I can’t think of a better place to put it than right there,” she told me Tuesday.

Shenkarow, who has been building this plan for years, is himself a resident of Blenman Elm.

While the project won’t be completely fleshed out until the re-zoning process, it is intended to include a grocery store — probably a Whole Foods — on the ground floor, with a parking structure to the north, and offices and residences in the stories above.

If the tower ends up at 250 feet or so, it would easily be the tallest building in the area. That’s about the same height as the blue Pima County Legal Services building downtown.

And that’s likely to be the main sticking point in the re-zoning debate — that the tall part of the structure is just too tall.

“If that first digit were anything but a 2, this would be a no-brainer,” Kozachik said.

My suspicion is that the 20-story height will be reduced to, perhaps, 18 stories in the final analysis — a height that seems much more reasonable once 20 stories are considered.

However tall the project ends up, Neher explained that the height is, in part, a function of the small footprint allowed by the 2.5-acre Palm Shadows site and in part a result of the desire to create open space on the ground floor.

“Going up gives us freedom to design the ground floor,” he said.

It’s a shame that the university, the big brother of all the neighbors in the area, has pulled back from being involved in what is likely to be a groundbreaking Tucson development.

But at least the project has largely won over the neighbors, who in the past have been likely to put up obstacles to this kind of development.

Arizona Daily Star
http://tucson.com/news/local/column/...c581b36c4.html
I wish UA would get their act together on this. The remaining university buildings that won't be part of this project are all eyesores on lots that are not big enough to be developed into anything significant on their own.
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