Midtown

Complex near UA eagerly awaited

Everybody is looking forward to completion of Sam Hughes Place at the Corner, the mix of shops and condos rising on a full city block on the southeast corner of North Campbell Avenue and East Sixth Street. Owners of the condominium apartments nearing completion (related story, this page) can't wait to get into their new digs, and the project's neighbors simply want an end to the beeping trucks, idling equipment and workers' shouts that have greeted them at 6 each morning during construction. Neighbors interviewed for this story seem reconciled to their sacrificial role in the accelerating transformation of Midtown Tucson's major streets from suburban to urban densities. Their future happiness seems to rest now on quick completion of the project and the quality of the restaurants that will fill the ground floor of its three-story corner building. Mike Coretz, who lives just east of the block under development and owns an 11-unit apartment complex on Norris Avenue, had been rooting for his favorite pizza place, Sauce, to locate there and was disappointed when its owners picked a location farther north on Campbell. Still, he's happy with the look of the new building and willing to try a different pie. "Construction has been a little annoying, but it will be a nice asset to the community when it's done," Coretz said. Coretz will get pizza, said Jim Horvath, president of Town West Design and Development, which built and owns Sam Hughes Place. Horvath said an "upscale, New-York-style pizza restaurant" will inhabit the ground floor of the building, along with the Sam Hughes Championship Restaurant and Sports Bar, an Asian-themed juice and tea bar, a coffeehouse, a hair salon and a casual-shoe store. All of the 16,700 square feet of commercial space is taken, Horvath said, and all 55 condominium units are sold. He deems his $21 million project a success and credits the negotiations he had with the Sam Hughes Neighborhood Association for helping to shape the right mix. Neighbors opposed Town West's initial plans for the corner, which it bought for $2.25 million in April 2001. It planned a four-story building with 44 units of housing that would each accommodate multiple students. "The neighborhood wanted to see that it wouldn't be all students," Horvath said. He describes the folks who eventually bought there as "a good eclectic mix," ranging from students to an elderly woman who negotiated a more convenient parking spot before buying. The neighborhood association proposed a mix of retail space and condos that would attract a spectrum of owners. Horvath said he's pleased with the compromise and thinks it could become a model for infill projects at the edge of residential areas. Susan Banner, who runs Sam Hughes Bed and Breakfast on Norris Avenue, said she agrees. "Honestly, I think it's going to be wonderful if it fills with the kinds of things we find acceptable in a neighborhood where everyone likes to walk around, accessible little businesses that promote people to walk to them," she said. Banner said she was initially annoyed by the "giant piles of dirt and wind blowing and workers parking," but those things abated, especially after the neighborhood petitioned for permit parking. She is also startled by the size of the buildings. "It looks bigger than it did on paper," she said. "I don't think we took into account, visually, that there was a slope there." But the size also has an advantage, she said. It buffers noise from traffic and restricts her view to the northwest. "For me, the best part is I can walk out in the front yard and I can't see that ugly stadium." Horvath had originally predicted an Aug. 15 finish, but he said continuing negotiations with the city contributed to delays. He said five of the project's six buildings, including the three-story corner building, should be 100 percent complete by January. Some businesses should be able to open by March or April, he said, with all of them open by September.