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 Armory Park Residents Continue To Fight A Proposed Warehouse Subsidized With Your Tax Dollars. By Jim Nintzel
JUST ABOUT EVERYBODY you ask about the Arizona Department
of Economic The Armory Park Neighborhood Association hates the plan. The Tucson City Council has voted unanimously to oppose it. Downtown's fledgling Business Improvement District has written a letter deploring it. Even the Governor's Office isn't too crazy about the idea and had planned a meeting this week with the neighborhood and DES staff. But all that opposition has yet to sway the powers-that-be at DES, who are moving full speed ahead on plans to move the state agency's Tucson office to a parcel just north of the Armory Park neighborhood.
Anne Lawrence, the feisty president of the Armory Park Neighborhood Association, is worried the planned warehouse, besides being an eyesore, will lead to increased traffic in the neighborhood. She thinks DES staffers should have made an effort to meet with the neighborhood association before making plans to move. Vince Wood, assistant director of the DES Division of Benefits and Medical Eligibility, says the state agency's policy normally calls for DES to meet with potential neighbors before selecting a location, but that wasn't necessary in this case. "Normally, if we're going to open a facility, we do meet with local people," Woods says. "But we've been in this area for quite some time. We're half a mile away." But that half-mile takes the agency to the edge of Armory Park--which, City Council members agree, is already burdened with enough stress from social service agencies, homeless feeding centers and a plasma center. As far as Councilman Steve Leal is concerned, that's enough for one neighborhood to contend with. Councilman Fred Ronstadt is equally critical of the proposal. He's been working with the Governor's Office to find an alternative site for the agency. Wood gripes that these complaints are all coming at the last minute. He says it was the city's responsibility to warn Armory Park residents about the state agency's plans, although he's quick to add that he's sensitive to the residents' concerns. "We're always concerned about the residents of any city, you know, but it's hard for me to imagine that any residents of any city wouldn't want to do what's right for the vulnerable population of the city," Wood says. Lawrence counters that its Woods and his staff who aren't doing what's right for the "vulnerable population," by moving the agency's headquarters from its current location across the street from the Ronstadt Transit Center to the proposed location, which will mean bus riders on assistance--who are sometimes single moms--will have to walk a stretch of 12th Street that's home to an ever-changing collection of plasma-dealing transients. "You're asking these clients to walk past the street we call the gauntlet," Lawrence says. Although the plan is bad for the neighborhood, it's very good for developer Alan Levin, who has been eager to break ground on the warehouse project for more than a year. Levin has a lucrative lease with the state agency, which will pay him $26,250 a month, or $15.75 per square foot for warehouse space. Buzz Issacson, a broker who handles downtown real estate, says prime office space in the area runs $14 to $15 per square foot in Pioneer Plaza, La Placita and the TransAmerica Building. "But they don't include parking," Issacson adds. "If you add parking, that could be another dollar or two per square foot. The state agency is eager to move in. Under the terms of the lease, if the DES staff can't move into the warehouse by August 1, Levin will begin incurring penalties of $1,200 a day. Before he can start building the warehouse, however, Levin needs permits from the city planning department--which might prove difficult, because the development plan for the property calls for the parcel to "have a positive effect on preserving the Armory Park Residential Historic District." Lawrence contends that Levin is obligated to build smaller buildings with open space, rather than the proposed 40,000-plus-square-foot warehouse. Earlier this week, the Council voted to direct the planning department to force Levin to adhere to strict development guidelines, which could make it impossible to build the facilities he's promised to have for DES by August 1. Leal, who made the motion to support the neighborhood, says the battle is critical to the future of a revitalized downtown.
"The way property is developed is pivotal--not just to the
neighborhood, but to the downtown," Leal says. "It's
the gateway into downtown. The city cannot be passive here and
simply adapt in the wake other people's decision-making."
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It's the latest fight for the plucky Armory Park residents, who
first banded together to stop a freeway plan which would have
demolished the neighborhood in the 1970s. In the ensuring two
decades, the residents have restored many of the homes. They've
sponsored bake sales and home tours to raise dollars for sidewalks
and speedbumps. They've planted trees and installed streetlights.
They've invested time and money in the neighborhood, and they've
seen a return on that investment with a rise in property values.
