After a fire took out power at a South Tucson apartment complex last week, tenants in one of the buildings say their living situation has become unbearable.
The Spanish Trail Suites building caught fire on Friday. It took until Wednesday for owners to bring in a generator, said organizers with the Tucson Tenants Union. After days without power, during which they say people lost their medicine and food went rotten, the situation for tenants reached a crisis point.
“People are still completely stuck without food,” organizer Nick Bruno said. Tucson Tenants Union, with the support of the Casa Maria Soup Kitchen, organized a dinner for residents Wednesday.
The suites property, along with the adjacent Spanish Trail Motel, is owned by real estate agent Brian Bowers. The motel has seen three fires since February 2024.
“We want slumlords out of South Tucson,” Bruno told Arizona Luminaria. In the long term, organizers want to keep Bowers from owning other properties in the community.
The set of properties has been the focus of an ongoing discussion in the city of South Tucson over how to minimize police calls and provide quality housing in the area. South Tucson has turned to its Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance to tackle issues with the properties and owners. South Tucson has filed two lawsuits tied to Bowers’ property: once in 2024 for what they said was crime around the complex and a second time in 2025. The 2024 case was resolved in a settlement agreement.
“Just think if you had to live at the Spanish Trail or the South Sixth Avenue or on the streets, we need to do something about it and it needs to happen now,” South Tucson council member Brian Flagg said at a recent meeting.
“The basics of the story are this is an arson,” Bowers said in a phone call with Arizona Luminaria Wednesday. He said he offered refunds and temporary housing to tenants but no one took him up on it.
Bowers argued that the tenants union advocating against him being the landlord was the latest in an ongoing series of negative interactions with the group. “This is an attack on my character. There is no basis for it,” he said.
In a March statement to KGUN9 on the fires, Bowers said: “I don’t know the specifics on how the fire happened. Someone trespassed on the property and broke into the building which is secured, fenced, and posted no trespassing. I hope the investigation finds the person who started the fire. The entire property is checked several times a day. We are installing additional fencing, repairing any areas that were damaged, and security will continue to patrol the property.”
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