Benjie Sanders / Arizona Daily Star

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Racing against a ticking clock, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson is again trying to give the crumbling adobe Marist College building to the city, in hopes it will save the 93-year-old Downtown building from collapse.

The diocese and the city have for years had informal negotiations over the three-story building on the northwest corner of the St. Augustine Cathedral square, but neither party wants to pay the $1 million minimum cost to stabilize the building.

Now the diocese has offered to raise about $250,000 toward making the building structurally sound, although the city still hasn't jumped on the deal because of the price tag and the uncertainty of what the building would be used for once it is stabilized.

The diocese is also offering to include a portion of the St. Augustine parking lot across from the Tucson Convention Center, according to an e-mail from City Historic Preservation Officer Jonathan Mabry

John Shaheen, diocese property and insurance director, said the church does not have the money to stabilize the Marist building, which housed a Catholic school from 1915 to 1968.

The building is the only three-story adobe in Southern Arizona, and maybe in Arizona, Shaheen said.

Mabry said that if the building is going to be saved, the long-term stabilization work needs to be done soon because "the building's situation is clearly urgent."

The adobe walls are beginning to crumble, and the western corners of the building, one of which fell off during the 2005 monsoon, remain covered with tarps to keep out moisture from the summer rains.

The $1 million would make the building whole by repairing the holes, building a steel skeleton inside for stabilization and removing the current outer shell and replacing it with a more compatible plaster that would better repel water, according to a "Final Historic Structure Report" by the city.

Renovating the interior to make it usable would be another $1 million to $2 million. Shaheen said it could be offices, a charter school, a visitor center or even a Latino cultural center.

But the city has no idea what the use of the building would be if it took it over, creating a barrier toward spending the money to save it, said Albert Elias, the city's director of urban planning and design.

Mayor Bob Walkup said everyone wants to save the building, including him, but these are difficult times for governments to find extra money, and the city needs to focus on Rio Nuevo before taking on more tasks.

"We must honor our current commitments before we agree to take on new ones," he said.

Elias said the two parties have talked for years, but serious negotiations on who would pay what to fix the building have never come about.

"We've never gotten past preliminary discussions," Elias said. "What would it be used for? I don't thinking any of those questions have been answered."

If the city owned the building, it might have to bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, potentially compromising some of the building's historical character, Elias said.

Elias said he believes Marist College is a significant building, both because it's on the National Register of Historic Places and because the entire St. Augustine block is fully intact, adding to the area's historic character.

The building may not last as long as the negotiations, however. Elias said the building is clearly in tenuous condition, having been covered with tarps for several years. Minimal stabilization work done few years back along with the tarps has potentially given it a couple more years, he said.

"We (hope to) get a few more years," Elias said. "You can see it's clearly a building in danger. Hopefully, the situation can be resolved."

City Councilwoman Regina Romero said the city and Pima County need to determine how they can help save the building.

It's possible a Pima County bond package in the coming years could include money for Marist, Romero said.

"I don't want to see that building crumbling down," Romero said. "If there's any way Pima County or the city can help, we need to look into that. It is an asset to the community."