Development company sees Tucson's south side as 'diamond in rough'

A Tucson development group plans to invest $20 million into rehabbing distressed commercial buildings on the south and southwest sides and converting them into stores and restaurants.

The Common Group’s 10-year plan also includes building more small businesses in a side of town it believes has been overlooked.

Founders Jesus Bonillas Jr. and Guillermo Gallegos and their partners, Chris Itule and Ruben Cazares — all residents of the south side — are off to a fast start. Since forming in 2014 they have completed four projects, including a 10,000-square-foot retail complex in the former Edmund Marquez Suzuki dealership at 702 W. Irvington Road. The project involved building a 7,000-square-foot addition to the showroom, which closed in late 2008 after less than two years in business.

Dubbed Shoppes at Irvington, the center is big enough for 10 businesses and all but two are leased, Bonillas said. Tenants include a barbershop, a cellphone store and a cellphone repair shop. A pizza restaurant has expressed interest in one of the two vacant spaces, Bonillas said.

The Common Group’s goal is to provide space to small businesses, like Cafe Santa Rosa and Mikey G’s, tenants of one of the group’s early projects: Plaza Prieta Linda at 3301 S. 12th Ave.

Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said The Common Group’s perspective as south-side natives could have far-reaching economic benefits. The principals “have grown up in the neighborhood and know the needs of the neighborhood and can reach into the community to make the area where they grew up a more prosperous place,” he said.

“To have young men who went to high school in the area, who grew up playing sports and going to the city parks in the area, coming in and seeing the opportunity and then being able to capitalize is going to be something good for our city as a whole,” Rothschild added.

Bonillas, 34, and Gallegos, 35, formed Common Group after spending several years flipping houses separately and as a team on the south side. Gallegos said the pair switched their emphasis from residential after seeing a need to restore commercial buildings that stood vacant and neglected after the economic downturn over the past decade.

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“We all see the need as well as the potential,” added Bonillas, who graduated from Cholla High. “We saw a huge opportunity, essentially a diamond in the rough, on the south side. If you do demographic studies on the south side, you will find there is no money, so retailers are reluctant to move there. It’s our job to show the true economic opportunities as well as how dedicated the consumers are to supporting (stores) in their neighborhood.”

Bonillas points to recent studies that paint a robust economic picture of the south side, much of it driven by the Spectrum Mall on West Irvington Road and Interstate 19. More than 30 national retailers, including J.C. Penney and Pizza Hut, report their highest sales in the state come from stores on Tucson’s south side.

“Over and over again, people come in who have these national brands and they tell me they want to put more stores in that part of town because that’s where they are seeing their highest-selling store,” Rothschild said.

The Common Group’s newest project is the extensive renovation of a former Long John Silver’s restaurant at 3700 S. Sixth Ave., which opened Friday as an outpost of the Mexican fast-food restaurant Pollo Feliz. It will be the fourth Pollo Feliz in Tucson.

“This thing is absolutely gorgeous,” said Bonillas. “We feel that given the right recipe, which we did on this store, this is going to be the No. 1 (Pollo Feliz) store in the nation.”

He said the project, which took five months, cost $750,000. He estimated that he and Gallegos, a Sunnyside High School graduate, have invested $3 million over the six years they have spent restoring distressed south-side residential and commercial properties. In addition to investors, the group relies on income from its retail properties to fund other projects.

Also in their portfolio is their flagship project — the small Ajo Plaza at 151 W. Ajo Way, where The Common Group is headquartered — and land holdings near Desert Diamond Casino off West Valencia Road.