The governing board of Pima Community College voted this week to demolish a row of 1950s motels in a historic district along the northern edge of its downtown campus, saying they have exhausted other options for the properties.
But they will “make every effort” to preserve the neon signs in front of the motels, board member Greg Taylor said in the motion.
The question of demolishing the buildings, which are contributors to the Miracle Mile Historic District, sparked public outcry last year when Arizona Luminaria reported the college planned to take down the buildings and install a parking lot. The community flooded a May 2023 meeting with concerns and emotional appeals to save the structures, and an advisory board was formed in response.
The board met twice this week about the motels without notifying the advisory committee, which had met for six months about the properties.
The board ultimately voted unanimously for demolition.
“We’ve given an honest effort as an institution over these many months to figure out: is there something we can do that wouldn’t involve demolishing these properties? And I think we’re at a place where that’s really the only option left,” Taylor said during the Nov. 20 meeting, which took less than an hour.
The college expects the demolition to cost $2 million. It was unclear on Friday what the timeline for demolition would be.
The board left it up to college administrators what to do next with the soon-to-be dirt lots, including whether to add landscaping.
Nina Corson, the downtown campus vice president, told the board future plans for the four acres could include an $11 million executive administration suite or a $16.2 million police headquarters. Neither of those projects were part of previous proposals.
Advisory committee member and historic preservation advocate Ken Scoville told Arizona Luminaria on Friday that the advisory committee was not notified that the board would be voting on the issue they spent six months discussing.
College officials also seemed surprised by the short notice. Corson opened her comments at the Nov. 20 meeting saying she and her team scrambled to pull together resources when the special meeting was called two days earlier.
The college had previously planned to be part of the revitalization movement in the Miracle Mile historic district, which includes city efforts and private efforts to repurpose other historic motel buildings into housing. But those plans were supported by a previous board. Some of the current board members said it was a mistake for the college to have spent money to buy the motels five years ago.
Board member Maria Garcia questioned whether it is appropriate for the college to spend money to maintain the old neon signs, a project that was supported by the previous board and previous chancellor.
“That is not benefitting the college. It doesn’t benefit the students,” she said. “It looks like a circus.”
This week’s board meetings were among the first for the college’s new chancellor, who did not speak on this topic at the meetings. Chancellor Jeffrey Nasse started work in August.
And the meeting was among the last for three of the five board members.
Community members in District 3 and District 5 elected new board members this month, replacing incumbents Maria De La Luz Garcia and Luis Lopez Gonzales with newcomers Kristen Randall and Karla Morales. They will serve six-year terms. Additionally, Nicole Barraza will replace Wade McLean for a two-year term as the District 1 board member. She was appointed to the position after she was the only candidate who filed to run for the office.
The three new board members take office in January. It wasn’t clear Friday how the incoming board members would have voted if the vote had come later.
Garcia, who is one of the board members who did not win reelection, said at the Nov. 20 meeting that the new board members should have been given the option to decide on this issue; however, she did vote along with the rest of the board.
Project costs soared
Pima Community College bought the Tucson Inn, the Copper Cactus Inn, the Frontier Motel and the Fortuna in 2018-2019 for $5.4 million total and has been holding the properties vacant.
The buildings are contributors to the Miracle Mile Historic District — once a hip tourism gateway glowing with neon on its mid-century motels and now a key redevelopment zone for the city.
In the following years the college evaluated redevelopment options, hired experts, and planned to spend up to $10 million turning the hotels into facilities for an innovation center, faculty affairs, diversity program, and education tech services offices.
But the cost of restoring the buildings soared to a current estimate of $40 million due to the deteriorating condition of the old buildings and to rising construction costs.
“In 2021 we were just coming out of Covid and the pandemic and costs for construction certainly escalated more than anyone could have predicted. All of our projects at the college cost more than we ever thought just five years ago,” Corson told the board at the Nov. 20 meeting.
The advisory committee formed in September 2023 after pushback from the community. The group met regularly from December through March. Some of its meeting materials are posted online.
Then in April the board accepted the committee’s recommendation to develop the land using a land-lease option and issued a request for qualifications (RFQ) to identify a developer for the project.
Development proposal rejected
Only one developer applied and that group included, Poster Mirto McDonald, the architects who have been involved in other projects in the historic district, including the conversion of the No-Tel Motel property to affordable housing. The development team was led by Newport SW and also included Tofel-Dent Construction. The group submitted a proposal in September.
At a governing board meeting on Nov. 18 the board heard a presentation about the proposal and voted unanimously with only two minutes of board discussion to discontinue the planning process for the motel properties. Because the meeting was a study session, there was no call to the audience, a time in which members of the public can address the board. It’s uncommon for votes to take place at study sessions.
The new proposal was to renovate the properties for use as affordable housing, a “food hub” intended to improve food security for lower-income people, new parking and potentially a health clinic and to build some new affordable housing, for a total of 80 units. The idea would have generated about $24,000 a year in lease revenue for the college.
Scoville said the advisory committee was thrilled with the proposal. The plan to use the property for new affordable housing was a good fit with other projects in the area and a viable adaptive re-use that serves the needs of the community, he said.
The board took issue with the low revenue, the idea that the college may never recoup its investment in the project, and also with the developer’s resistance to including a college police station in the development.
“The College received only one proposal related to housing which was not economically feasible for the College and did not align with the College’s needs or student-focused mission,” Phil Burdick, Vice Chancellor for External Relations, said in an emailed statement.
At the special board meeting on Nov. 20 the board voted unanimously to demolish the buildings along Drachman Street and “make every effort” to preserve the neon signs, which are separate from the buildings and in front of the hotels.
Drachman Street has become a corridor for big, bold signs from other old motels, creating a neon art walk along the northern boundary of the college campus.
“The College remains committed to working closely with the city, “Thrive in the 05”, community members and others to develop this land to serve the best interest of our students and taxpayers,” Burdick said in the statement.
About the motel properties
The once-lovely Tucson Inn designed by Anne Rysdale — the only registered female architect in Arizona in the ‘50s — has precast concrete details, mixes modern motifs with midcentury design and was one of the larger motels in the district. But it was condemned by the city in 2017 and boarded up following a spike in crime. The huge, iconic neon sign was recently renovated.
Around the same time the Tucson Inn was condemned, city inspectors found major electrical problems at the 1948 Copper Cactus Inn and the roof blew off the 1958 Frontier Motel during a storm. The college previously proposed keeping those two Spanish Revival style motel buildings as offices and renovating them so the exteriors would look like new.
The motel buildings have been affected by an increase in crime at the downtown campus, Corson said. In 2023 there were 53 arrests on campus — “almost none of them had to do with students” — and this year to date there have been 54 arrests on campus, she said at the Nov. 20 meeting.
“The crime on our campus is indeed exasperated by having boarded-up, fenced-up buildings on our properties,” she said.
Recently there have been break-ins, squatters, metal thefts, graffiti, and a small grass fire at the motel properties, Corson said. Each time police respond to the properties, the college incurs costs in the time it takes for police to investigate and facilities workers to secure fencing and boards.
Corrections and clarifications: The headline on this article was updated to clarify the number of motels to be demolished.
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