Eight building owners vie for city facade improvement program
Eight owners in downtown vie for matching funds
TEYA VITU
Published: 11.25.2008
Eight downtown building owners submitted applications Monday for the city's facade improvement program, which will supply matching funds to restore historic building fronts.
A nine-person committee headed by the Downtown Tucson Partnership in the next week or two will select four or five proposals to fund with $530,000 in leftover downtown revolving loan funds from 1982, said Glenn Lyons, the partnership's chief executive.
The committee meets Tuesday afternoon to sift through the applications, and Lyons expects a decision by Dec. 1 or Dec. 8. Lyons expects the City Council to consider the picks in early January.
Earlier in the year, 23 proposals were submitted involving 30 downtown structures. These were cut to eight property owners who were invited to submit proposals using architects funded with $7,500 from the city program fund for each proposal.
"We're really dealing in a world of intangibles," Lyons said. "There were 30 buildings that qualified and we have to pick four."
Lyons said the committee will consider factors such as the type of building, how the owner proposes to improve the facade, the visibility of the improvement and the value of proposals for the city money invested.
The selection committee consists of Lyons and Teresa Bommarito from the partnership; Fran La Sala and Nicole Ewing-Gavin from the city manager's office; Brooks Jeffery, associate dean of the architecture school at the University of Arizona; Demion Clinco of the Tucson-Pima County Historical Commission; developer Phil Lipman; Mary Lou Focht, owner of Old Town Artisans; and Jonathan Mabry, the city's historic preservation officer.
The property owner has to match the city investment, which will be as much as $125,000 for a corner property and $90,000 for a mid-block property.
The eight properties are:
• W.A. Julian Building (former Club Asylum), 111-121 E. Congress St.; built in 1905.
• 256-278 E. Congress St. (Tooley's on Congress); built from 1916-28.
• 64 E. Broadway (former Southern Arizona Legal Aid); built before 1919.
• Wig-O-Rama, Grill, Vaudeville Cabaret, 98-110 E. Congress St.; built in 1904.
• Rialto Block, 300-320 E. Congress St.; built 1919-21.
• Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.; built in 1921.
• The Screening Room, 127 E. Congress St.; built in 1912.
• ArtFare The Muse, 51 N. Sixth Ave. - the small building between Arizona Hotel and Sears Executive Center, all three leased by ArtFare: built in 1931.
