Tucson Development Thread

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

Was pretty excited until I realized it wasn't high-speed rail.

Why would it be high speed? Nowhere in the country is their high-speed why would Phx-Tucson have the first line?

[Qwijib0]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

Was pretty excited until I realized it wasn't high-speed rail.

Still, ~90min city center to city center is comparable to speeding slightly except I could take a nap instead or go to a concert/sporting event and not worry about drinking. Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Why would it be high speed? Nowhere in the country is their high-speed why would Phx-Tucson have the first line?

Who said it would be the first? California is working on actual HSR and is way farther along than this project. Since this will most likely link up to California at some point, likely via Las Vegas, I assumed and hoped it would be HSR. This project is still likely many years from being more than a dream, and at the least, California's first HSR lines should have started running long before this is even started.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Patrick S

Who said it would be the first? California is working on actual HSR and is way farther along than this project. Since this will most likely link up to California at some point, likely via Las Vegas, I assumed and hoped it would be HSR. This project is still likely many years from being more than a dream, and at the least, California's first HSR lines should have started running long before this is even started.

There is a very real possibility that that rail will never be completed. And it is the only one that has ever been proposed with any seriousness in the United States.

It would be great if we could some day get HSR in a loop from San Diego to Tucson to Phoenix to LA (maybe flag or Prescott and Vegas too)

but that is a long long way off. and it wouldn't be feasible until Arizona has several million more residents.

[southtucsonboy77]

Three downtown projects moved forward with tax incentive applications at Wednesday’s Tucson City Council meeting.

Art Wadlund, a developer on the completed One East Broadway project and the proposed One West Broadway project, said incentives are important to developers because lenders are reluctant to finance downtown Tucson projects.

Nothing new has been built downtown in 21 months, he said, and development projects work with the Government Property Lease Excise Tax (GPLET) incentives — but “barely.” “Without a GPLET, it’s impossible,” Wadlund said.

The One East Broadway project was among the first to use the GPLET incentive program.

One West Broadway

The proposed $13 million project would put 40 apartments, retail and office spaces and parking on a lot at the southwest corner of Broadway and Stone Avenue. Construction is expected to begin in December.

The value of the incentive to the developers is $242,700 a year for eight years. The developers, Wadlund and Rob Caylor, also are requesting a rebate of $67,000 in construction sales taxes to put toward streetscape and utility improvements.

After the incentive period, the city expects to receive about $21,000 a year in tax revenue from the project, city economic development specialist Camila Bekat told the council. Currently, as a surface parking lot, the site provides about $850 a year to the city, she said.

The council approved the economic analysis, which is the second step in a three-step process. One additional council action is necessary to approve a lease agreement.

Stone Avenue Homes

This $4.2 million project at 201 S. Stone Ave. “takes an underutilized parking lot and transforms it into 25 town homes, bringing approximately 50 new residents to downtown,” Bekat said.

The developers, Holualoa Cos. and Scotia Group, are requesting a tax abatement of about $68,600 a year for eight years.

As a parking lot, the site provides $815 a year in property taxes to the city, Bekat said. As a housing project, it would provide $6,000 a year to the city after the incentive expires, she said.

The council would still need to approve a lease agreement.

Riverpark Inn

Owner Brian Corbell plans a $2.2 million renovation of the 134-room hotel, at 777 W. Cushing St., to make the hotel more competitive for conventions in downtown Tucson and to expand the Pueblo Gem & Mineral Show.

“The hotel itself has not been profitable for the company as it was first challenged by heavy area construction which obstructed guests from staying at the Riverpark Inn and following that by the hotel’s current poor physical condition that makes it very uncompetitive in the market,” Corbell’s company said in an application for a GPLET incentive.

The council approved the first step in a three-step process. The next step is an economic analysis of the project.

[southtucsonboy77]

I think the Riverpark Hotel needs to be demolished and re-built...not renovated.

I noticed the Theresa Lee Bldg being demolished adjacent to the Cushing Bridge...any idea what's going there?

[farmerk]

Grocery store planned for Broadway and Rosemont

A new grocery store and shopping center could be coming to an underdeveloped corner of Broadway, but only if the city approves new zoning for the site.

Plans call for a 60,000-square-foot grocery store and six smaller, 4,800-square-foot shops situated around a central parking lot at the southwest corner of Broadway and South Rosemont Boulevard.

The plans drew mixed reactions from neighbors at a city zoning examiner hearing Thursday evening.

Owner Andrew Romo and developer Tom Warne want to rezone about seven acres from residential to commercial zoning.

The shop facades would be made of bricks similar to those used in the surrounding neighborhoods to match the area’s character, Warne said.

He didn’t say what company would operate the grocery store.

The site currently holds a small strip mall, which would be demolished to make way for the new stores, and a seasonal Christmas tree and produce stand.

Some neighbors at the hearing said they support the project because it will improve property values and because it’s not two-story houses, which would be allowed under the current residential zoning.

“I think a grocery store in that neighborhood would be the greatest thing since we moved into the neighborhood in 1972. I’m all for it,” said Mary Riley, who lives in the area northeast of the project.

The Rosemont West Neighborhood Association agreed to support a project with a somewhat smaller scale. Different versions of the plans have made the grocery story bigger and taller, said president Barbara Stoddard.

Warne said he has attended about 20 meetings with the neighborhood.

The rezoning must have the approval of the mayor and City Council.

The zoning examiner also held a hearing for a project to turn a home near Saguaro National Park into a bed and breakfast for bicyclists. The owner, Thomas Danielson, is asking for a special exception to allow him to run the business from his home.

The project is not related to last year’s controversial plan for a larger “bicycle ranch” in the same area. While that plan called for 49 new rooms, this one allows for four existing rooms.

No additional development is planned for the B&B site, which is located on three acres at the northwest corner of Old Spanish Trail and Melpomene Way, near popular bicycling areas and a 10-minute bike ride away from Saguaro National Park.

The site isn’t in the middle of a neighborhood, and immediately behind the property is a cemetery “so there’s obviously minimal impact on those neighbors,” said attorney Pat Lopez.

The city planning department recommended approval of the project.

[aznate27]

Originally Posted by Obadno

There is a very real possibility that that rail will never be completed. And it is the only one that has ever been proposed with any seriousness in the United States.

It would be great if we could some day get HSR in a loop from San Diego to Tucson to Phoenix to LA (maybe flag or Prescott and Vegas too)

but that is a long long way off. and it wouldn't be feasible until Arizona has several million more residents.

They've already started construction on the HSR in California, it's been past proposal stage for a while now. The first phase is due to be completed in 2017.

[southtucsonboy77]

TMC HealthCare is asking the city for a tax incentive for a new medical office project on Tucson’s southeast side.

TMC’s plans call for an $11 million project to be called the TMC Rincon Health Campus at Civano.

It would be a 44,000-square-foot, two-story building at the southeast corner of South Houghton and East Drexel roads. Patients could visit a primary-care clinic, a pediatric clinic, a wound-care center and specialists.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year, with the second floor built as a shell space for future development. The campus could open in September 2016, said TMC Vice President.

I'm all for infilling land within the City limits...while addressing a community need.

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by southtucsonboy77

TMC HealthCare is asking the city for a tax incentive for a new medical office project on Tucson’s southeast side.

TMC’s plans call for an $11 million project to be called the TMC Rincon Health Campus at Civano.

It would be a 44,000-square-foot, two-story building at the southeast corner of South Houghton and East Drexel roads. Patients could visit a primary-care clinic, a pediatric clinic, a wound-care center and specialists.

Construction is expected to begin by the end of the year, with the second floor built as a shell space for future development. The campus could open in September 2016, said TMC Vice President.

I'm all for infilling land within the City limits...while addressing a community need.

I'm all for this project and agree that it fits a community need for healthcare on the southeast side (a sorely underserved part of town that is one of the two fastest parts of Tucson), but this is hardly infill, in the traditional sense at least. Though there is a neighborhood directly east, north and south of it, across Houghton to the west is wide open desert for a mile or so until you hit DMAFB, and not far south of it is another mile or so stretch of open desert before you hit the northern part of the Rita Ranch area. By all measures this is a sign of urban sprawl, serving the far-flung outskirt portions of the city. But, again, it is a needed service in the area. It's warranted by the fact that there is a big, and growing, population in that area. This will also, likely, make the area more desirable to live in (along with the planned stand-alone ER that Northwest Hospital is planning to build out by the new Walmart on Houghton/Mary Ann Cleveland Way).

[farmerk]

Originally Posted by Obadno

There is a very real possibility that that rail will never be completed. And it is the only one that has ever been proposed with any seriousness in the United States.

It would be great if we could some day get HSR in a loop from San Diego to Tucson to Phoenix to LA (maybe flag or Prescott and Vegas too)

but that is a long long way off. and it wouldn't be feasible until Arizona has several million more residents.

Rail Projects in the U.S.A.


Whether it’s the gambling, night life, or boxing bouts, Las Vegas has long been one of the premier destinations in the Western United States for those with money to blow. And thanks to a new deal between parties in the US and China, ground transportation from Los Angeles to Sin City will soon be just as fast as flying there on a plane.

After four years of negotiations, a private US venture and the China Railway Group have reached an agreement to launch XpressWest, a high-speed railway that will transport travelers the 230 miles from LA to Las Vegas in approximately 80 minutes. Traveling at speeds of 150 mph, the railway will be a far more efficient trip than the usual four-hour drive between the two cities.

Marking China’s first high-speed rail project on U.S. soil, construction of the XpressWest will start with $100 million of initial funding, with the long-term cost of the project expected to be around $7 billion. The railway has only received funding from the private sector thus far, but applications for loans from the Federal Railway Administration have already been filed. Construction on the railway is expected to begin in September 2016.

XpressWest isn’t the nation’s only new high-speed railway under way. There’s also a proposed train from Dallas to Houston, which would be a replica of Japan’s shinkansen, or bullet train. California, although undecided on which country’s trains will serve as a muse, has already started construction on its own high-speed railway.

Earlier this year, China signed a $567 million deal to bring regular-speed trains to Boston last year. The deal marked the first stateside railway venture for the Chinese.

[Patrick S]

Lots of news out of the last city council meeting:

City Council approves downtown deal, TMC incentive

The Tucson City Council gave the go-ahead to a major hotel project in downtown Tucson when it signed an agreement Thursday with Rio Nuevo and Nor-Generations.

The agreement lets Rio Nuevo take over as landlord of the temporary Greyhound bus station currently on the site of the proposed hotel development. That expedites the relocation of the station, allows Rio Nuevo to close on the sale of its part of the site to developer Nor-Generations, and allows the developer to move more quickly on construction.

Rio Nuevo chair Fletcher McCusker told the council this project is an opportunity to preserve the gem shows, which are a major contributor to Tucson’s economy and which need more hotel and exhibition space downtown.

The relocation of the Greyhound station had threatened to derail the project, but the parties came to an agreement before next week’s deadline for the procurement contract. McCusker said he is committed to working with the city to make sure the relocation is a coordinated effort.

Council member Steve Kozachik said the agreement is an example of the evolving positive relationship between the city and Rio Nuevo.

TMC INCENTIVE

The council approved a tax incentive deal for TMC HealthCare to build an $11 million medical office building at the southeast corner of South Houghton and East Drexel roads.

TMC qualified for the Primary Jobs Incentive program by making a large capital investment and by creating 22 new jobs that pay above-average wages. The project will create about 60 jobs, with room to grow.

The city expects to receive more than $286,000 in new tax revenue over five years from the project.

TMC will get an 88 percent discount on building permit fees and will be allowed to apply 88 percent of the construction sales taxes from the project to offset impact fees. The value of the incentive is about $120,000.

The building, to be called the TMC Rincon Health Campus at Civano, is expected to open in September 2016.

In other action, the council finalized a Primary Jobs Incentive deal for the new Comcast customer service center at 4690 N. Oracle Road and finalized a site-specific sales tax incentive for Main Gate Partners, which plans to build a new hotel in the university area.

[farmerk]

El Rio Broadway Branch relocates to 22nd/Kino

"....
El Rio will relocate operations from its Broadway Health Center, on Broadway east of Euclid Avenue, to the new property in the South Park neighborhood. The health care provider plans to build an 18,600-square-foot facility on the land.

El Rio is moving the health center because the Broadway widening project would have required the city to acquire the Broadway Health Center, said Nancy Johnson, chief operating officer for El Rio.
...."


In other news, Gadsden's downtown west project still hasn't taken off. I drove by that area today and it's still an empty lot filled with dust.

[InTheBurbs]

Best Cities for Millennials

According to Money Magazine Tucson is the 4th best large city in the country for Millennials, behind Austin (of course), Atlanta, and Columbus, and just ahead of Seattle.

Though it might see sleepy to outsiders, Tucson is a bit of a hidden gem for Millennials, thanks in part to a revitalized downtown, including a big new supermarket and a range of ethnic restaurants...

They also say that Moody's projects a job increase of about 11% over the next 5 years, compared to a national average of about 9%. They didn't say what kinds of jobs though.

[farmerk]

After 40 years, new movies are returning downtown

For the first time in 40 years, downtown Tucson will have a first-run movie theater.

The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress St., will begin showing current releases next month when Grand Cinemas takes over daily operations from the nonprofit Arizona Media Arts Center. The theater will also show independent films and will continue to host the annual Arizona International Film Festival, said Grand Cinemas managing partner Kent Edwards.

Tucson-based Grand Cinemas quietly began an extensive renovation of the theater in mid-May, weeks after Grand Cinemas closed its Crossroads 6 theaters on East Grant Road. In addition to plumbing and electrical upgrades, the $100,000 project includes a new state-of-the-art screen and seats, an expanded snack bar and a $45,000 HD digital cinema projector like the ones used by multiplex companies including Harkins and Cinemark. The theater will seat 120 people.

This will be the first time since Fox Tucson Theatre at the west end of Congress closed in 1974 that folks can go downtown to catch a movie still playing at the multiplex. Fox, once the Hollywood heartbeat of Tucson, closed after suburban malls lured people from downtown. After a multimillion-dollar taxpayer-funded renovation, it reopened in 2005 as a multiuse venue that includes screenings of classic films, along with concerts and other live events.

Arizona Media Arts Center Director Giulio Scalinger opened the Screening Room in 1989 as an incubator and champion of independent filmmaking. He launched the international film festival the following year, and one of the theaters involved in the early years was Grand Cinema’s now-closed Grand View 4 on West Valencia Road. Grand Cinema has been a regular partner in the festival since 2002, hosting screenings at Crossroads through this year’s festival in April.

Scalinger said the Arizona International Film Festival, held every April for the last 24 years, has become too big of a job alongside running the theater. So after years of dancing around the idea of bringing in an outside theater operator, he and Edwards entered serious negotiations this year.

“We just felt that he supported what we were doing with independent film, and we just thought he would be a good entity,” Scalinger said.

A full-time movie theater also fits into the latest downtown resurrection. Fueled by the promise of the streetcar set to begin rolling next month, dozens of new restaurants and clubs have sprung up downtown in the past two years. A boutique hotel — the downtown area’s first since 1976 — is in the works, and a grocery store is set to open in December to meet the needs of residents who have moved into the Cadence student housing complex and other housing developments circling the area.

“This is terrific timing,” said Downtown Tucson Partnership CEO Michael Keith. “Downtown is becoming a more exciting place to be. You are going to see a whole lot of new retailers and restaurants coming in the next six months. It’s getting crazy good down here.”

“It’s going to be pretty exciting that I can hop on the streetcar from work and go down and see a movie,” said Mia Schnaible, who works at the University of Arizona and has volunteered a dozen years to do marketing and development for the Arizona International Film Festival. “All the people downtown, especially west of I-10, this will be their theater now. It is going to be the only theater on the streetcar line, and 100,000 people live (and work) within a mile of the streetcar line, so this is huge for Tucson.”

Grand Cinemas has a long-term lease with the Arizona Media Arts Center, and Edwards said he anticipates they will be downtown for the long haul.

“I think the theater is going to do well, and I hope it is supported by the community — not just people who want to go downtown on a Saturday night but people who work there and want to come in and see a movie,” he said. “There’s a lot of restaurants and there’s entertainment downtown. I think all we are going to do is complement them.”

Grand Cinemas operates one other Tucson movie house, the six-screen, discount Oracle View theater near the Tucson Mall. In April, the company ended a 13-year run at the Crossroads theaters, which will open this fall as a restaurant-theater concept called Roadhouse Cinemas.

Grand Cinemas ran the 12-screen Tower Theatres in Marana — the area’s only independently owned cineplex — for more than five years before losing its lease in spring 2013 after years of financial hardships.

“We have had a rough time,” Edwards admitted. “Our departure from Tower Theatres was humbling. I think we have learned from it and we can move forward.”

....................................................................................

"grocery store is set to open in December" - another grocery store opening downtown (in addition to Johnny Gibsons?).

[crzyabe]

Originally Posted by farmerk

[B][SIZE="4"] "grocery store is set to open in December" - another grocery store opening downtown (in addition to Johnny Gibsons?).

I believe this is an old article from last year. They mention that the streetcar is not running yet. The Screeening Room did show some new-sih movies over the past year.

[ArbyW]

I hear Cirrus Visual is about to start a remodel at their new location on the NW corner of Stone and 5th St. Downtown is pushing north.

[Patrick S]

Originally Posted by crzyabe

I believe this is an old article from last year. They mention that the streetcar is not running yet. The Screeening Room did show some new-sih movies over the past year.

Yeah, the article says it is from June, 2014.

[farmerk]

Originally Posted by crzyabe

I believe this is an old article from last year. They mention that the streetcar is not running yet. The Screeening Room did show some new-sih movies over the past year.

You're right! I swear I saw it front page at Tucson.com last night. Need to check the dates next time. Thanks.


University of Arizona uses temporary housing to keep freshman on its campus

Sept 28th 2015.

Hopefully UofA builds more high rise dorms in the near future.

[Patrick S]

It's back:

http://www.tucsonmarketplaceatthebridges.com/