By
Cory Spiller
The Tucson Transportation Department has big plans for the warehouse district in downtown Tucson -plans that began over a decade ago and won't be completed for 25 years, if they are ever completed at all.
According to the Tucson Weekly, the grand plan is to extend the aviation parkway one mile through downtown Tucson across Fourth Avenue along the North side of the Southern Pacific train tracks, and eventually intersect with the freeway. The plan would involve demolishing scores of historic buildings, clogging the downtown area with construction and spending over 120 million of taxpayers' dollars.
The concept of the roadway was approved in 1982. However, seven years later, inflation and rising costs for construction forced the Transportation Department to postpone their plans. Since then they haven't touched the road. But that hasn't stopped them from spending $5 million on planning, and suspending the warehouse district in a state of dilapidation and economic depression.
But the worst part? Tucson doesn't even need the road.
Have you ever driven the Aviation Parkway? Have you ever heard of the Aviation Parkway? I hadn't, and the fact is, few people drive it. Some 11,500 people use it a day, which is comparable to roads such as Glenn and Ft. Lowell.
The project seems to have become more of an obsession than a necessity. City engineers and individuals in the Transportation Department are trying their best to shove this project down Tucson's throat. And they may have come up with a way to force the completion of the entire project.
The new parkway would require a very expensive drainage system. Last year the city spent over half a million dollars to re-evaluate the drainage options. And the cost could exceed $100 million, but the trick is where construction will begin. Instead of building the drainage system as they go, from east to west, Armando Monteverde, project manager for the city's Department of Transportation believes they must start building from west to east.
This would require the completion of a seven phase project that would take 20 some years and still have five stoplights. In the meantime, a historic section of Tucson crumbles.
When the Tucson city council decided more than 15 years ago to extend the parkway, the state purchased 40 some buildings that were fated for the wrecking ball. For 15 years the state has waited for the city to start construction. Since then, the warehouse district has become an important part of downtown culture.
The warehouses have been rented for artist studios, Internet startups, art galleries, and various other small businesses. The artists and businessmen rent the warehouses from the state at bargain prices -but there's a catch. They do so under the threat that the city, after nearly 20 years of planning, will actually begin construction. In their contract with the state, it is stated that they can be kicked out within 30 days.
No wonder our downtown area looks like hell.
The people that rent the warehouses love them. Many would like to buy the places and fix them up, but they can't.
The state won't sell because of the aviation parkway project. The state doesn't want the area anymore. They want the city to buy the land and deal with it, but in the tradition of our city government, they are sitting on their hands.
Tucson's downtown is dying. But the situation can be fixed. All the plans for the Aviation parkway should be scrapped. The people that have been in charge of this project for the last 20 years should be dismissed, and the state needs to sell the buildings to individuals who want them.
If this happened, we would witness a cultural and economic boom in downtown Tucson. The warehouses that are now falling apart would be rebuilt with private dollars. Artists would flock to the area, and businesses would again use the warehouse district as an economic center. The Old Pueblo could regain its former vitality.
As long as the Transportation Department gives up its obsession to build a $120 million dollar, 1-mile stretch of unneeded pavement.
