Living

A Garden Bears Fruit In The Wreckage of Rio Nuevo

The fledgling trees at Mission Garden bore fruit in early December just as they did 220 years ago in the same spot in shadow of A Mountain and is the only project of the scrapped Tucson Origins Heritage Park to bear any fruit at all through the planning, spading, grading, planting, and grassroots push by The Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace.

Figs, quince, apricots, sweet lime and plums are also growing on the acre that the founding members of The Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace Roger Pfeuffer, Raul Ramirez and Bill DuPont and dozens of other volunteers have tended this year. It’s the first phase to recreate the full 4 acres of the San Agustín Mission Garden from the 1780s and subsequent decades.

“This is all heritage fruit,” said Roger Pfeuffer, chair of The Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace, the non-profit that is building and operating Mission Garden. “This is from cuttings from trees that trace their lineage from trees 150 years ago.”

“These are European fruits brought into the area by Father Kino,” added Ramirez, secretary of The Friends and historian on Father Eusebio Kino.

The Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace started in 2009 as a loose group of west side supporters including Pfeuffer, DuPont, Ramirez, Diana Hadley, Gayle Hartmann and Cele Peterson. They saw an adobe compound enclosing nothing. Tucson Origins Heritage Park was touted as Rio Nuevo’s signature piece until the city pulled the plug in 2008. No construction ever got started on recreating Mission San Agustín and its Convento or the new children’s, University of Arizona and Arizona Historical Society museums. This also included the Mission Garden.

The Friends held a press conference on the site in 2009, uncertain just who would show up to support the creating of the garden. It was encouraging enough that The Friends then put on a forum attended by about 150 people in the historical preservation community.

“We saw there was an interest in this,” DuPont said. “People were willing to donate money and time.” DuPont is the founding chair of The Friends of Tucson’s Birthplace and direct descendent of Jose Ignacio Moraga, who was commander of the Tucson presidio in 1791.

“The person who really wanted to do this was Cele Peterson. She saw the wall. We assured her it was going to get done”, said DuPont.

The Friends formalized themselves by incorporating as a 501(c)3 with the Arizona Corporation Commission in 2010 and gaining the non-profit status in fall 2011. In the meantime, that led to clearing up just who had what claim on the Mission Garden grounds.

The Friends had been working with the Tucson Parks and Recreation Department, while the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District laid claim to all land associated with Tucson Origins. Mission Garden is Pima County Parks land and the City owns the wall.

The Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance, The Tucson Botanical Gardens and the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the Arizona State Museum, the Arizona Humanities Council and the Audubon Society have all endorsed Mission Garden.

The Friends entered into five-year intergovernmental development and operating agreement in November 2011 with the City and the County. Since then, Rio Nuevo gave up all claims on Mission Garden.

“We didn’t do anything inside the walls until we got that agreement,” Pfeuffer said. “We’re obligated to raise $350,000 in those five years. Neither the City or County are under any financial obligation to support the garden.”

The Friends received a $15,000 grant from the City’s Historic Preservation Office that required a $15,000 match. That was the seed funding to plan the orchard. The Friends raised another $60,000 and received $35,000 from the Southwestern Foundation for Education and Preservation. An Americans with Disabilities Act grant added $38,000, and recently the Tohono O’odham Nation donated $39,600 for the garden’s Phase 2 work.

They have has raised $160,000 of the necessary $350,000 so far.

“This resonates with people on a number of levels,” Pfeuffer said. “Part of it is ‘Yeah, we’re going to do something people didn’t think could be done.’ Part of it is the heritage trees got a lot of interest.”  The orchard now has 119 trees and people have sponsored 42 trees for $1,000 a piece.

Tucson once had many orchards and gardens before Davis-Monthan Air Force Base changed the dynamics of Tucson in the 1940s. “It just brought back a lot of memories,” DuPont said. “My great grandfather had some of those orchards in his backyard. This is what we knew Tucson as.”

One of four acres is planted. The Friends started Phase 1 work on the site in January 2012 to install solar-powered irrigation, ADA trails, build a ramada and storage building and, in March, started planting the mission orchard. About 50 volunteers were involved in planting trees and building the ramada, and 20 volunteers are active on an extended basis.

The second phase should be planted in spring. That will include desert plants and also a timeline garden both along the western wall. The timeline garden will trace the progress of agriculture from the earliest settlers to the Hohokam, the O’odham, the Mexican era, the Territorial era and cotton representing the statehood era.

“What we want to show people is how native people gather food from desert plants,” Pfeuffer said.

The southern 2 acres have not been fully planned yet but will likely involve mission crops such as Sonoran wheat, Pima white wheat and cilantro. “We might put in an olive grove or maybe more fruit trees,” Pfeuffer said

But for Pfeuffer, the Mission Garden isn’t just a bunch of crops and orchards.

“I think of one word: Legacy,” he said.

The garden is open to the public every Saturday from noon to 4 pm through May and 8 am to noon in the summer.

This article appears courtesy of DowntownTucson.org

The Cadence: Bridging 4th Avenue and Downtown?

While construction swiftly proceeds for The Cadence student housing project, a leasing office, located at 218 N. 4th Ave., has already been open since the end of September signing University of Arizona students up at the 456-bed complex for the Fall 2013 semester, including 99 apartments with 167 beds on the Centro Garage.

Mostly UA dorm students have been the first to lease rooms that will become available in August 2013 at the eastern edge of Downtown. They will experience an upgrade from tight dorm room bunks to having their own bedroom and bathroom at The Cadence. The dorm prison ambiance gives way to a near resort setting at The Cadence, which has one six-story L-shaped structure next to Rialto Theatre and another three-story structure atop the Centro Garage across the street. “A lot of people renting with us are from the dorms,” Amy Kirby, The Cadence’s marketing and leasing director. “They go ‘Wow’ when they see the mock-up (apartment at the leasing office) and the plans. They are coming from an environment where they are packed like sardines.”

The swimming pool is the center piece at The Cadence. “I think the pool area is going to be where everybody wants to be,” said Stephany Gamboa, a Cadence marketing assistant and UA junior. “The fire pits are awesome.” The L-shaped building will run along the Rialto Theatre and Broadway with a one-story commercial section extending along Toole Avenue to create a tenant-only courtyard with the pool.

“The pool has an outdoor kitchen, Las Vegas-style cabana and you have a movie screen right over the pool,” Kirby said. The pool area also has a large fire pit. A second fire pit will be in the more intimate courtyard on the rooftop on the Centro Garage housing that will feature landscaping, seating and a barbeque. “That will be more of a chill space,” said Chad Izmirian, a Capstone Development senior vice president based in the Encinitas, CA, office near San Diego. Capstone is the developer of The Cadence. The fire pits delineate the basic Capstone vision that the apartment on the garage may be more desirable to older students and the Rialto side for younger students. The Cadence is not targeting freshmen.

The Cadence offers a broad array of options, including studios, one, two, three, four and five bedrooms. “From our perspective, it’s more about designing units for a variety of demographics,” Izmirian said. “An older student – seniors or graduate students – would be inclined to rent a unit with a lesser number of roommates. A sophomore or junior is probably more inclined to want more roommates.” The five-bedroom units – there are five of them – were almost an afterthought, not the size Capstone usually builds. But they have proven surprisingly popular in the early months of leasing. “What we’re seeing in leasing is the 4’s and 5’s are going the quickest. The 5’s are almost sold out,” Izmirian commented.

The Cadence will home 97 apartments with 289 beds next to the Rialto – land that used to hold the Greyhound bus station and the Centro Garage will  boast 99 apartments with 167 beds. In both buildings combined, there are 14 studios, 29 one-bedroom apartments, 71 two-bedroom, 62 three-bedroom, 14 four-bedroom and five five-bedroom apartments. No four- or five-bedroom units are on the garage.

Izmirian describes The Cadence as high-end urban student housing. The more traditional barren dorm room is becoming something of the past. “Students these days come in with higher expectations. Most students had their own bedroom and bathroom growing up. Technology is a huge thing. What you’re seeing is a bigger push for privacy”, Izmirian says.

Students are also gravitating  to more urban environments. “I think they like the location Downtown,” said Ashley Farmer, another Cadence marketing assistant and a UA sophomore. “It’s close to campus but still Downtown.”

The Cadence sits right at the junction of Downtown and 4^thAvenue. Right now, zero people live within a couple hundred yards of where Toole, Congress, 4^th Avenue and Broadway converge. In one year, some 450 college students will occupy the space, and the streetcar should be rolling by in both directions.

“It will be good for Downtown. I do believe this will bridge 4^th Avenue and Downtown finally,” Kirby said.

Construction started in July – and the Centro Garage has already largely disappeared behind and underneath the framing for three stories of Cadence apartments on top and another two stories on the face. There is a ledge off the third level of the four-level garage upon which a dozen apartments are being built. Izmirian calls this the building’s “eye brow.”

“We’re further along on the garage,” Izmirian said. “We essentially are done with framing. The roof will be complete soon. We will start adding windows and the exterior sheathing of the building. We will wrap the building with moisture protection. After that you will see the start of stucco right after Christmas.“  Within the framed structure, all the internal mechanical, electrical and plumbing is now getting installed.

On the Greyhound/Rialto side, the concrete podium that will serve as the ground floor is complete as is the wood framing of the first two levels of student apartments. Three more levels of apartments have yet to be framed and should be in place by the start of February.

The ground floor, with an 18-foot ceiling, will offer indoor amenities such as a fitness room, an event room, a media room, a great room – “a big living room,” Izmirian said, a multi-sport simulator, a business center, a tanning center and a sauna.

The Cadence’s urban character will come with a built-in commercial level. The garage side will have 10,000 square feet of retail on street level, and the Rialto side will add another 9,500 square feet along Toole Avenue. This commercial space could be filled with restaurants, brew pub, a coffee shop, “some sort of market,” maybe some other types of shops.

“We’ve had lots of interest,” Izmirian said. “We are negotiating our first letter of interest. Within the last 30 days, we started marketing in earnest.”

The Cadence offers three studio options with 435 to 472 square feet rent for $975 to $990 per month. The three one-bedroom options measure 531 to 672 square feet with rents of $1,060 to $1,120. The three two-bedrooms options have 748 to 879 square feet and rent for $799 to $825 per bedroom. The four-bedroom option is 1,347 square feet and rent is $678 per bedroom. The five-bedroom apartments cost $708 per month per bedroom, measure 2,162 square feet and a 55-inch television is included in the living area.  Rent includes a room furnished with a bed, chair, desk and dresser. Each room also has a bathroom, a washer and dryer, and cable, Internet, water, sewer, pest control and trash are included. Students are responsible for phone and electricity.

For more information visit thecadencetucson.com.

This article originally appeared on DowntownTucson.org