Zoning OK’d for downtown condo, hotel towers
by Teya Vitu on Nov. 28, 2007, under Edge, Local, SpecialNimbus brewpub part of proposed project known as El Mirador
Within four years, El Mirador could give the north edge of downtown three towers consisting of 150 condominiums and 220 hotel rooms.
The El Mirador condo-hotel-brewpub project for the north edge of downtown cleared the zoning hurdle Tuesday, a major step to construction possibly starting within two years.
The Tucson City Council unanimously approved rezoning the land bounded by Franklin Street, Church Avenue, Sixth Street and Stone Avenue from commercial and industrial to high-density mixed-use plus a small patch of industrial zoning specifically for the brewpub property.
This will allow Town West Design Development to build three joined towers rising seven, 11 and 15 stories between Ninth Avenue and Stone, and a separate building west of Ninth that steps up from two to three to five stories. The project proposes about 220 hotel rooms, 150 condos and a brewpub operated by Nimbus Brewing Co.
“It’s a major step,” said Raul Reyes, Town West’s project architect. “We’ve been working for the last year and a half to get ready for rezoning.”
Reyes said groundbreaking should follow “in no more than 21 months” with construction potentially done about two years after that. Reyes said financing for the estimated $100 million project is still in the works.
Councilwoman Nina Trasoff pressed Town West to increase its contribution to the city’s affordable housing trust fund from $2,000 to $3,000 per condo unit, a total of $450,000. Town West agreed to do so, making up for El Mirador offering no affordable housing units.
El Mirador would be built on what was the site of Tucson’s main railroad freight and shipping terminal from 1901 to 1983. Since then, no development interest was shown for the property until Nimbus Brewery managing director Jim Counts proposed moving Nimbus to that site.
Counts ran afoul of the council by not securing financing in time. He brought in Town West, which transformed a microbrewery into a towering condo-office-brewpub project. El Mirador has taken on several guises in the two years that it has passed through city and neighborhood scrutiny.
The plan calls for turning Ninth Avenue through the project into a pedestrian and bicycle path linking the Dunbar/Spring and El Presidio neighborhoods.
The smaller, fourth building across Ninth Street may be designated for artists to appease the Warehouse Arts Management Organization, which considers that land the heart of the Warehouse District.
At a zoning hearing in October, there were eight protests, six from property owners within 150 feet of the site, citing traffic, noise and building heights.
