When Julia Keen Elementary closed in 2004, the neighborhood lost more than a school.
“When you take away schools like this, you take away the heart of a community,” said Jesus “Tito” Romero, who attended Keen as a child and hopes to build a farm on the property near South Alvernon Way and East 29th Street.
Before the school closed, residents went to Keen to vote, get vaccinated and attend Christmas parties, he said. Now, kids on the same street are bused to different schools and barely know one another.
Three competing proposals are attempting to transform the abandoned school, which was closed due to the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base’s flight path. The Tucson Unified School District is reviewing proposals from an art and sustainability collective, a coalition that includes the neighborhood association and a trucking company.
The groups are hoping to fill the vacancy left when the nonprofit humanitarian relief organization World Care occupied the school at 3538 E. Ellington Place from 2005 to 2013. The organization, which paid the district $1 per year and in-kind donations, left due to water pipe damage.
Romero and his colleagues at the Flowers and Bullets collective want to convert the grounds into a “midtown farm.” They envision growing vegetables, rooftop rain harvesting and starting a neighborhood farmers market, as well as creating spaces for art and education workshops.
The group is named for offsetting adversity in neighborhoods. Bullets represents the struggle, and flowers represents the beauty that can emerge, he said.
Food options sought
Neighborhoods south of 22nd Street need more access to healthy organic foods, Romero said. Options like Whole Foods, farmers markets and community gardens exist north of 22nd Street, while more smoke shops, liquor stores and dialysis centers exist south of 22nd Street, he said.
“Tucson is backwards right now with this whole green movement, with this whole organic movement,” he said. “It’s leaving poor people behind.”
The farm would help local residents, particularly young ones, learn to grow food and feel connected to their indigenous culture, Romero said.
“We come from hardship. We come from neighborhoods that sometimes are considered ugly, ghetto, rundown, underserved,” he said. “We’ll be able to balance that out a little bit, balance out how much negativity overshadows what’s really going on in the neighborhood.”
A similar proposal from the Julia Keen Neighborhood Association, which partnered with the Tucson Pima Arts Council, Peach Properties and the Warehouse Arts Management Organization, would convert part of the property into an urban farm or green space. The group plans to cover costs by offering affordable workspaces for artists, personal storage spaces and an industrial community kitchen, among other uses.
Penske Truck Leasing proposed purchasing four acres of the property for more parking for its nearby truck facility on 34th Street.
But Flowers and Bullets and the neighborhood association opposed the company’s plan at an October meeting with school district officials. The neighborhood association widely circulated a petition opposing any “industrial or heavy commercial uses” on the property.
“We already have the trains on one side of Aviation (Parkway). We already have the jets because of Davis-Monthan. And now we’re going to have semis coming in and out of the neighborhood?” said Romero, who is also a co-chair of the neighborhood association.
Funding uncertain
While Penske proposes buying the property outright, the other two groups haven’t figured out how to fund their proposals, said Bryant Nodine, TUSD’s director of planning services.
He evaluates proposals based on their benefits to TUSD interests, community compatibility and financial viability before giving recommendations to the superintendent, who brings it to the Governing Board for a vote.
The neighborhood association and its partners are offering $100 to purchase the Keen property, saying asbestos cleanup, zoning restrictions and necessary repairs lower the property’s value.
Flowers and Bullets hopes to negotiate a lease payment similar to past $1 agreements TUSD has made previously, collective member Jason Aragón said. Fundraising, grant writing and citywide vegetable sales would cover the cost of running the farm.
Initially, Flowers and Bullets and the neighborhood association teamed up to submit a draft letter of intent to lease the Keen property in October. Their partnership ended when members of Flowers and Bullets withdrew from a neighborhood association subcommittee dealing with the Keen property and the association later tried unsuccessfully to get them to rejoin, Mark Mayer, co-chair of the neighborhood association, said in an email.
Flowers and Bullets submitted its own proposal because its members better represent the ideas and demographics of the neighborhood, Romero wrote in an email. Collective members didn’t feel respected by the neighborhood association as community organizers or as young adults.
The two proposals could work together, Nodine said, noting that the neighborhood association group’s proposal is focused on the building, while Flowers and Bullets is focused on the surrounding land for farming.
“I think a compromise is a great idea,” TUSD Governing Board member Kristel Ann Foster said. “I would rather that work than neither of them.”
