Welcome back to our look at Tucson’s changing Urban landscape. This is number two in our series. If you watch that first set of the first video that we put out. We discussed a lot of the foundational pieces of this changing Urban landscape. We defined our boundaries as being from the West Side through downtown and the university area and we talked on the first series about a lot of the change makers things that have happened. Last five or six years that have really solidified Tucson as a place of growth. And today we’re going to start to look at some of the actual projects that are underway. If you had had a chance to watch series one of the video it would give you a little bit more foundation for the conversation here. So I recommend that you do kind of head back and take a look at that one.

We’re going to start at the Center of Tucson and we’re going to look at some of the projects that are underway and one here is very big project. It’s normally called A La Placita Village. It was those big colorful buildings downtown those have come down and this new project is going in here. It says the Flynn which is a going to be 243 Apartments. 4,500 square feet of retail and are going to put and there’s actually parking down below. This particular view is the perspective. If you were at the convention center, you just walked out of the the Music Hall.

This is what you would see this view is from Church Avenue. If you were just turning South on Church from Broadway, this is the Flynn this is an example of one of the remaining buildings that was part of that La Placita Village. You kind of get that that feel there. And this is the view of the project from Broadway. This is very interesting view. Did you get a sense of how large this project is, but then you see a couple of things soon as gazebo that’s been there since the 1860s that was preserved as part of the historic nature of the area as well as the Samaniego house and some some Stables that were there and then this building was also preserved. This is tucked away in here. This is a little bit of a an older building and this building is a Important because it housed the original El Charro Restaurant.

So I’ll Charo is the largest family-owned Mexican restaurant the longest-running single Liam’s Family Restaurant in the country very popular here in Tucson, and it started in this area in 1922. It was founded by a woman named Monica Flynn. She was a French descent actually which he spent some time in Mexico and she came back and started a very popular Mexican restaurant. Aunt and this building was owned by her family the Flynn building. So when they read designed this entire project the name that they chose was the Flynn. I think that’s an extremely important decision on the developers part to recognize the history and culture of the area in which this new projects.

Its if you were to head down there now, you can see it’s well under way. This is one of those things that’s well under way. And should be completed here towards the end of the year beginning of 2021 with the project being called the Flynn is important for a lot of reasons, but mostly in my opinion because of the connections to our past I think developers to they are really recognizing that economic development is if it’s done properly it’s built upon the history and tradition of the area. It doesn’t doesn’t destroy it amplifies it because this project replaced a lot pussy. To Village La Placita Village and the convention center were placed on an old neighborhood all yo that was somewhat impoverished part of Tucson and we took down that neighborhood to build the the La Placita Village in the convention center in late 60s. So that urban renewal wasn’t celebrating the history and culture that urban renewal was was really bearing that history and culture literally and figuratively and under you know concrete.

So now as we’re doing development, I think we’re being a little bit more aware and conscious of the impact of what we where we are in history that we are a product of our past and that our future is built upon that past not in spite of there still a lot of hard feelings in the area about Economic Development Urban revitalization. So we need to be aware that there are More positive ways of celebrating our history and culture this if you’ve been down near the convention center. This is on the promise the footprint of the new fire station was not new anymore. But the the most recent fire station one that was built down there near the convention center. It’s a beautiful facility with a park and a lot of history in it. But this was the statues that they put there and it’s a woman and then believer child and they’re pointing if you look at it from their perspective they’re pointing at The convention center and the reason they’re pointing is because that used to be their neighborhood.

And so this Plaza in which the statue stands is a testament to that neighborhood that talks was tells the story of the the people that were there of the businesses that were there and there, you know these this woman and her child are pointing the convention center because they’re sad and if you get close enough to her you can see that she actually has a tear coming down as she’s looking at where her home use Be so Economic Development urban renewal those types of things carry a very tough message to a lot of tucsonans that have been here for generations. And I think developers are trying in at least in my opinion. They’re trying and to do a very good job of recognizing that history and culture. So some of the projects happening in the urban core not sure if you recognize where this is.

This is the new hotels under way on stone called Hampton Inn, and the H2 sweets its Hampton is a kind of your traditional overnight kind of hotel in the H2 sweets is the extended stay hotel at the top little pool and here there’s some parking built-in and this is on Stone and if you’re trying to kind of place it, this is a view of it from the other side. So this is a view if you’re on Stone. This is a view if Scott looking over and you can see where this is. It’s actually under way and this is the cathedral. So this building right here is these two hotels would be directly across from the saying send a customer Cathedral. This is a Scottish Rite Temple and talk to a few folks there. They’re excited to have a hotel where they can actually now be able to hold a national conference and the folks at Scottish Rite I think are kind of excited by that. Someone that I spoke to but across the street where the the cathedral is. Here’s the cathedral is this new facility. This is completed it was done in April of 2019. So it’s a little over a year old at this point.

And this is a community center Parish offices. Diocese offices all rolled into one. It’s a beautiful beautiful facility and it took the same footprint of where the old Parish Hall was for the cathedral and in creating this So the multi-million dollar project they made sure that this apathy of this metal structure with these very ornate metal flowers was a centerpiece of this new project because this Amphitheatre was the centerpiece of the old Parish Hall. So that’s an example of developers tying the past to our future. So this entire area was redone and consciously this Amphitheater was a big part of that redesign. This it does actually look like this. This is designed to be a pedestrian area the term you’re going to start to hear from people coming to Tucson. I think is Cathedral Square. This is this area here is a lot of presents from the Catholic church. So Cathedral Square is going to be a destination. It’s right across the street from the new hotels this street here. This is a true Street. And right over here is where the convention center is, so you’ve got the community center. Or Cathedral Square, you got the convention center.

You got to show us tree and then you’re going to have the the hotel right across the street from that. So it’s going to be another destination area if you were to go down a tro a street and you were to stand right about here, you’d be looking at the Marist College. This is what it looks like today. So this is the community center come on down and show Street and you’re seeing Marist College. This is senior housing. It’s got about eight apartments low income apartments for low-income seniors. The significance of this project is that it was the building was saved. This is Arizona’s tallest Adobe structure. And this is what it look like a few years ago. So was on the verge of collapse, it had to be propped up and there was talk of just taking it down but with investment dollars three anyway of those help they were able to create this renovation and that’s used for senior housing and the global community center on the bottom floor. So from a from excuse me for a Maps perspective. This is the parking lot that is gone. And we saw the H2 sweets the Hampton Inn going in here the Scottish Rite, this is Stone.

So here’s the cathedral this The the new community center, this is Marist College a chose Street and then over here is the convention center. So if we were to go north just a little bit to the corner here where the diocese office is used to be those offices were taken down and in place of that is the Marist Again part of this Cathedral Square concept that you’ve got there, but this is a housing again for low-income seniors or 75 Apartments. They put parking in here. This project is done. And I believe it’s full. So looking at that you’re here in the corner of Broadway and church. That’s the Marist and if we were to kind of go over here to this area you can see this. Would probably be with are defining as Cathedral Square will see how it actually shapes out that way but this structure here. This is the old Westerner hotel and the empty parking lot that used to be there is also been built on so you’ve got the old Westerner Hotel. This has been redesigned. This is actually what it looks like now.

This is a rendering but it looks much like this you plan to have office space up here in retail down here and I believe there’s any tenants in there, but the structure is done and then this is a new building this The West Point Apartments 50 apartments for low-income seniors. So in that general area, you’ve got Marist College the Mayo stand the West Point Apartments all of which are right along the streetcar route. So if you need medical facilities, if you’re a senior, you can just walk out your front door hop on the streetcar and you can be at Banner medical facilities without really much much effort on your part. Just getting out that front door. So the the project there is the Westerner hotel is here West Point Apartments. So we’re going to kind of go caddy corner to this empty slot here, which has been built on. This is a picture of what you can kind of get a sense of what this whole lot was supposed to look like we have the tallest building in Downtown One South Church.

This pad was developed to create the Twin Tower, but current codes. Parking requirements would make this too heavy to be on this pad because this pad sits on top of the parking garage. So they have cut this back and said when your twin tower they put in a project called the Rendezvous which is Apartments. So these are really high end Apartment 204 of them one and two bedroom apartments are going to range from 700 to 1,300 square feet and I believe the last pricing I saw was that the top end was a little over $3,000 for 1,300 square feet. This project is mostly complete. You can if you were downtown you would see it. It’s pretty iconic it as these triangular ends that kind of dropped right out. This is a Congress and stone this view of the as if you were looking straight at it from the Fox Theater. They did keep these some of these murals if you remember that area they had for Ben’s Bells murals. They did keep some of those as part of this project and then they relocated the others that they did not use.

So again, Respect to what? Was there prior to if you head over to rendevouz website, they’ve got a really nice virtual video of what this project will look like when it’s all complete and they have a model open so they should be they might they’re probably already taking reservations for four Apartments there. So back to our map. This is the Rendezvous apartments and we’re going to take a little bit of a turn here going to go down Congress or the wrong way on Congress here. We’re going to go to this building. This is a place called. City Park So you park isn’t it was an empty lot for years. You probably heard the story weird on boring got this I think for a dollar but the right before the recession hit and just there was no money or desire to build anything there. And then as this economic Revival is happening in Tucson, they build this beautiful facility called city park.

There are a few different plans for but what’s really going to end up happening is all of this now is going to be Class A office space Class A being the top of the line office space and then the bottom is still Slated to be a food Hall very upscale kind of food court environment where you can get a higher quality meals, but you have the opportunity to work with many different restaurants in there. It’s a great spot. If you look at it these across the country. They’re great spots for restaurants to try out new new Concepts. They might be an established restaurant trying to dabble in something new. It’s also a place for a new restaurant or to start so they don’t have the full brick and mortar overhead. But they can get their name out. So excited to see what’s going to happen here. The old Trading Post is being redeveloped as well. And this is all part of city park this particular building.

This is a this is now housed two hexagons mining hexagon is a global Corporation. They’ve got their interest in all kinds of different types of Technologies and one of their Specialties is in mining. And they had a presence in Tucson for a while and they were going to relocate to Denver partly because the one of their biggest clients is Caterpillar and caterpillars will endeavor. They were going to go to Denver well in caterpillar chose to stay I think it helped them make the decision that maybe Tucson was the place to stay so they not only stay but they took their small presence and they took over all of this class Ace office space and they turn it into their their mining headquarters the world mining headquarters if you go into If you get an attempt to get a chance to tour of this is top floor here is a virtual reality Paradise. You can see how a lot of their Equipment Works. You can actually put yourself inside of your own mind. They will map it out for you these fancy cameras and you can see yourself Inside the Mind how all of our their equipment works and they do a lot to keep things functional efficient and safe.

So a lot of trucks moving back and forth and hexagon. Coordinates a lot of that through their software Technologies they do they do much more than that. They got this really cool rooftop deck so City Park looking forward to when we can hopefully get into some of these restaurants inside of the food Hall. So this is a hexagon mining the city park building and we’re going to jump over here to this empty lot. This is a parking lot that has been torn up and is now they did the archaeological research here. And this is the address of this is 75 Broadway. And that happens to be the name of the project that is slated for their 75 Broadway. This is a massive massive undertaking here mostly with local developers. Now that Rob is adapted. Its of taking up the lead on this. This is going to be a 19-story project. You’ve got parking here in the middle floors choose two levels of retail, you’ve got office space and apartments and then I’ll kind of a roof. Top opportunity for dining and overlooking the city then choosing. Peace about it.

This is a view of it if you’re coming down sixth. So this would be Broadway near on six. Will you be right here be Johnny Gibson’s this is the Old Chicago store and you notice that this high-rise is complimenting. It’s actually creating a sort of walking a lie between this new retail opportunity in this old retail opportunity between the two which on Congress and Broadway and what’s coming you’ve got like 60,000 square feet of retail that can really go on this Hub here Broadway and Congress. It’s interesting design is again, you have historic and new working together. And these are the most recent rendering. So I this is most up-to-date is with their plans over. This is kind of what it looks like from the top the 19th Floor have this beautiful restaurant overlooking the city and very interesting to see how that plays out with our post pandemic. Economy nearby is the Julian Drew lost. This is 44 apartments with the some retail on the bottom. And if you’re having trouble placing it, this is the carriage house.

This is Charo Del Ray Charles steak. This is kind of what it looks like today Carriage House Charlie Charles take up the immoral here. So this parking lot will become the Julian Drew loss right there. So from a mass perspective, we’ve got the Julie Andrews loss. And if we were to kind of go down Broadway and take a right on 5th this here this building he was most recently Planned Parenthood, but this building has been taken down and this is now an empty lot and they’re doing some some foundational work for the Julian Drew Apartments. The Julian Drew apartments are going to be eight stories 96 Apartments is going ground for parking and again quite Quite a quite a bit of a housing for the down town area. Now before we wrap up the downtown and talk about another proposed project something that’s been in the works for some time and is gaining some traction.

Now, I understand that these renderings are not the most recent but I haven’t received the most recent ones from the developer. But it this is this concept of it. So if you’re trying to figure out what you’re looking at you’re at the corner of 6th and Congress, but now you’re looking to the north and to the to the east here, so this is on the Looking at it. This is what it would look like from pergamum pretty much the same spot today. This is the old Ronstadt Center built in the 90s Transportation Hub lot of buses come through here. And the idea is to keep it as a Transportation Hub, but to build up and to use it for housing and Retail. So this is 6, this is tool and this is the idea of what it would look like you get this pedestrian bridge now that is going to extend over tools. So it’s going to connect with on the other. Side potentially they could even take it over the tracks maybe and connect it to the warehouses on the north side of the tracks there. We’ll see how that all comes together but it will remain a Transportation Hub.

You’ll have your hub for the for the bus station, but it will be housing and Retail added into it. So that’s what’s happening the central part of Tucson. If you stay with us for the next series of videos will look at some of the outlying areas with happening at the University main gate and what’s going on sunshine Mario Mikado and then one of my favorite places Five Points, those are an upcoming video series. If you want to stay in the know, these are some websites. I recommend you check out the downtown Tucson Partnerships Economic Development blog is fantastic. They do a great job of staying up to date with what’s Being in the general area not just downtown Rio Nuevo dot-org has phenomenal information regarding the the use of their funds and what their what they are planning and what they have accomplished. They are very transparent about where all their money has come from great place to check it out.

One of my favorite sites in Tucson the Tucson Improvement and beautification org AZT bow AZ dot Biz gentleman that runs this he scours County records permits all kinds. Of stuff and comes up with really first-rate information about what’s coming not just to the urban core but all around the metropolitan area the website. I’m very proud of Life along the streetcar. This is the collection of the the shows that I’ve been doing since 20 these 2017 at this point, right? Yeah. So I’ve been doing this show for some time in a hundred thirty plus episodes recorded with the decision makers the change makers the people that are involved with so many of these efforts. And if you’re looking for history of of Tucson was far as cultural social and economic impact.

This is a great place to get some of those informational pieces. And then the last one is my business page. I’m a I’m a mortgage lender by trade and I do a lot with helping real estate agents develop their marketing brand to of videos like this that we can custom for your audience. But if you have interest in working with us or learning more about the things that we offer check out Tom’s tools for agents.com. Mom, I thank you, please you know, keep in mind lifelong A Streetcar Tucson Trolley Tours and the heath team at Nova Home Loans.