photos by greg bryan / arizona daily star

More Photos (2):

Related articles:

Lessons can be learned from AlbuquerqueTucson could turn tables with hotel, arena

Other articles by Rob O'dell:

New exec: Smaller steps key to Downtown2 Rio Nuevo design firms ranked tops in profitabilityCity to close for 5 added days to save some moneyCouncil: 'Safety initiative' means huge tax hikeDevelopers want Rialto's back rentSpring training evidently near endFinal cost to city for short film: $820,000City delay may doom Downtown dealDowntown deal revamped, drops housing, arts space Electric shocks could be problem at 3 parks

Construction
West-Press
Printing Finance and Accounting
Charles E. Gillman Company
Accounting Specialist Health Care
Dependable Health Services
Physical Therapists Trades/Construction
RANCHO RESORT
MAINTANANCE POSITION Administrative & Professional
Jorgensen Brooks Group
Counselor Sales and Marketing
Everready Glass
Sales Reps Mechanical
Komatsu Equipment Co
Resident Field Mechanic

In many ways, the tale of the two downtowns is the same.

Both were hubs of commerce and the center city life in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s.

Urban renewal leveled parts of their central cores in the early 1970s, and streets grew deserted as retailers moved out to the malls.

As they fell into disrepair, one downtown revitalization plan followed another as governments tried to turn the tide.

Albuquerque and Tucson — their stories are interchangeable, with one big difference.

Since both redoubled their downtown efforts in 1999, Albuquerque has pulled ahead of Tucson in terms of activities and amenities, nightlife and first-class lodging — despite Tucson's having more than $100 million in state money, a pot that overflowed to $600 million in 2005.

Albuquerque had no similar large pool to draw from carte blanche. Instead, it had to go to voters each time to approve funding for specific projects, like an increase in the gross-receipts tax to pay for an aquarium and several small bond issues to expand museums.

Instead of cash, Albuquerque accomplished much of its renaissance by offering developers tax breaks and low-cost loans, as well as with private investments and fundraising.

"The two cities are mirror images of each other in many ways," said Charlie Gray, executive director of the Greater Albuquerque Innkeepers Association, and former manager of what is now the Hotel Arizona.

The cities have grown the same way, Gray said, with downtowns ringed by historic neighborhoods, a midtown university, a south-side Air Force Base, and populations continuing to sprawl outward until hitting nearby mountains and crawling up the foothills.

The two cities' ideas about how to fix downtown similarly mirror each other, including a convention-center hotel, an aquarium, a civic plaza, a museum district, condo projects to draw downtown residents, the revitalization of a historic theater and the construction of a new arena.

However, in Albuquerque all but one of those ideas was turned into reality — a downtown arena being the exception. In Tucson, only one major project, the Fox Theatre, has come to fruition.

"I think they've done a great job with what they have had," said Jaret Barr, project manager for Tucson's Convention Center hotel search. "They had a real advantage. They truly had a commitment on the corporate, business and government sides. We didn't have that type of commitment."

Just like Tucson, Albuquerque went through a parade of downtown revitalization plans before the rebirth struck gold in in 1999 — with plan number 32.

Through the 1990s, Albuquerque constructed some of the building blocks of its current downtown push — using federal financing to build a nearly-400-room Hyatt Regency convention-center hotel along with constructing the Downtown Aquarium, the Botanical Gardens and several museums, creating a museum district downtown similar to what Tucson hopes to create on its West Side.

Pat Bryan, a now-retired lawyer who led the latest Albuquerque effort, said previous plans were focused mainly on large public-sector projects — a civic plaza and convention center and redoing the Central Avenue streetscape. "The 31 plans were basically public initiatives; we needed to try a private initiative," Bryan said.

To do so, Albuquerque's top business leaders were crammed into a room at a members-only restaurant, said former Mayor Jim Baca, and told they couldn't leave until they agreed to make a contribution to downtown revitalization.

Baca recalls the group collecting $250,000 that night, which it used to create the Downtown Action Team, a non-profit business improvement district funded through a tax on downtown property and business owners that promotes downtown and also cleans up the area and provides security there.

"When the private sector does that, they have the ownership to see it through," said Brian Morris, executive director of the Downtown Action Team.

Baca said private-sector buy-in was key, adding, "The city tried several things but it never worked because the business community never bought in."

To be successful, you must have the political leadership, Baca said. "Someone has got to make a priority and fight for it. If you don't, there are a million ways to stop it," including bureaucracy and complaining.

The group then created the 2010 Plan for where Albuquerque wanted to go and how to get there — specifying the type of projects downtown needed and a time frame for securing them: housing and nightlife first, then retail, with large public projects such as an arena included as well.

Part of the 2010 Plan involved waiving the city's zoning downtown — going to a code that regulates how buildings are constructed instead of the zoning and usage. It also dropped parking requirements and height restrictions.

"It's taken off the handcuffs," said Albuquerque infill builder Christopher Calott, creating a zoning system of "whatever you can make work."

It is the smaller builders, like Calott's Infill Solutions, whose condominium and restaurant projects have been keys to making downtown successful, Bryan said.

"The government always aims at big projects, but I think the successes come from the small projects," he said. "There's no single project that's going to turn things around."

If there were one project that could be singled out, many said it would be the Century Theatres block, built in 2001, with a 14-screen movie theater, shops, offices and restaurants, including Tucanos Brazilian Grill, where meat is brought out to tables on 2-foot skewers.

"The movie theater really was big," said 32-year-old Albuquerque resident Carl Christensen. "It's a reason to come downtown."

Tucson City Manager Mike Hein said Albuquerque had private sector and political leadership "coalesce" far earlier than Tucson.

Barr, the TCC hotel search project manager, added that Tucson is still trying to get to where Albuquerque was in 1999.

It's clear Albuquerque moved forward quicker on the condominium projects both cities see as a key and on bringing in restaurants and retail.

Tucson's Downtown missed the biggest housing boom in the city's history, in part because "the city wasn't ready to be a good partner at the height of the real estate market," Barr said, noting now developers are in a much tougher place.

Tucson City Manager Hein also cited the practice of giving sweetheart, often no-bid, deals to developers with little or no competition — projects that stalled once the deal with the city was locked into place — as a reason for the lack of progress.

With so much Rio Nuevo money to be had, an attitude developed that city subsidies were entitlements, needed to get anything done.

"It makes everyone lazy," Barr said. "People have forgotten how they build things in other places."

Christopher Leinberger, one of Albuquerque's first downtown developers, who is now at the Brookings Institution, said tax increment financing can be "corrosive because it takes the market discipline out of the system," benefiting big developers who have the ties at City Hall to tap into that money.

Although Albuquerque has pulled ahead of Tucson, the story still lacks a perfect ending.

The hard-drinking bar scene jumps on Friday and Saturday nights, but other nights downtown Albuquerque can be as dead as Downtown Tucson, frequented by much the same crowd of Gothic-looking youths and panhandlers found on Congress Street.

Conversely, weekend days can be slow, prompting Ohh! Ahh! Jewelry owner Mary Vigil to limit her store hours.

Developer Rob Dickson, who did a massive and successful conversion of once-closed Albuquerque High School into lofts near downtown, said not all developers have pulled their weight — and instead have sat on their land as the value rises.

While the city has come a long way, Albuquerque still needs some of the same amenities Tucson is seeking — a new arena, more retail stores and an anchor retail tenant, Vigil said.

And some in Albuquerque, like Calott, believe the revitalization push has stalled, waiting to see if people are going to come and live downtown.

"We're over the honeymoon phase," Calott said.