PCC to demolish 3 historic, rundown Tucson motels

Three historic Tucson motels on Drachman Street are set to be razed, now that the Pima Community College board has ended a years-long debate over their future by voting against restoring them at a cost of up to $35.7 million.

However, the board promised to make “every effort to preserve” the neon signs in front of the Tucson Inn, Frontier Motel and Copper Cactus, 1940s-’50s-era motels north of downtown that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In meetings on Nov. 18 and Nov. 20, the PCC governing board voted to discontinue a process, recommended by an advisory committee, to identify qualified developers for a potential mixed-use project for the properties.

“After careful consideration and engagement with external and internal stakeholders, community groups and solicitation for development proposals, the Pima Community College Board voted unanimously to demolish the abandoned motel properties it owns along Drachman,” the college said in a statement to the Arizona Daily Star.

In addition to the financial burden, the college said, “the abandoned properties” posed “significant safety risks” including “ongoing incidents of break-ins, thefts, a fire, graffiti and illegal squatting.”

“Removing these structures will address these hazards while enabling the College to consider future uses for the site,” the statement said.

Former PCC board member Demion Clinco called the decision “shameful.”

“These properties are quintessentially Tucson. Their neon signs, particularly the Tucson Inn’s, have been featured on the cover of the travel section of the New York Times,” said Clinco, a historic preservation advocate who was on the college board when the properties were bought.

“They are iconic architectural examples of the 20th Century, and their loss not only diminishes and hurts the National Register district, but it damages the architectural history of Tucson,” Clinco told the Star on Tuesday. “It’s great to preserve a neon sign, but historic fabric is more than just a sign.”

‘Sort of out of the blue’

The college purchased the three motels in 2018 and 2019, spending more than $1 million for the Tucson Inn and obtaining the Frontier Motel and Copper Cactus for roughly $1.3 million.

A fourth hotel purchased by PCC in 2019, for $1.7 million, the Fortuna Inn, was previously demolished by PCC and is now part of the land used by the Automotive Technology and Innovation Center. Fortuna was the only one of the four properties not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Current board members Wade McLean, Theresa Riel, Maria D. Garcia, Greg Taylor and Luis Gonzales voted this month against spending the money to restore the other three. They did not respond individually to the Star’s requests for comments. Riel, the board chair, forwarded the requests to a PCC spokesman, who issued the college’s written statement.

Clinco said the properties were purchased with the express intent to reuse them for college mission purposes, as part of Tucson’s “Thrive in the 05” and other regional redevelopment initiatives of the Old Miracle Mile Historic District.

Possible uses for the spaces discussed over the years included a culinary and hospitality program; a diversity, equity and inclusion center; a teaching and learning center; an innovation center; or an education technology lab, with cost estimates ranging up to $35.7 million.

The college estimates the demolition costs to be $500,000. Previously, one option considered was creating parking lots for temporary use, but at present, there is no plan to install parking lots there, a college spokesman said.

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The two governing board meetings this month were held without notifying the advisory committee, said advisory committee member and historic preservation advocate Ken Scoville. The committee was created in September 2023 to provide options for development of the three hotel properties as well as to identify non-college funding sources.

Scoville said it was surprising — “sort of out of the blue” — that the board took a vote now, when “the new board was going to get established in January.” Board members Gonzales and Garcia lost their election bids on Nov. 5 and will be replaced by Karla Morales and Kristen Randall in January.

“They had the prerogative obviously to do it, but we all thought we’d at least get another meeting,” said Scoville. “And I think — and this is my assumption, I can’t say for certain — that because they were so anti-preservation, they thought, ‘Well, the new board’s coming in, we lost our seats, so we’re gonna go ahead now because we’re still in power and we’re gonna vote for demolition.’”

In response to this, PCC’s statement, sent by Vice Chancellor for External Relations Phil Burdick, said the board had been exploring options for developing the properties since 2021.

Photos: Iconic, mid-century Tucson Inn through the years

PCC said it had to decide now on whether to move forward with a request for proposals from private developers before a developer “expended significant resources,” and while the vacant buildings kept draining college resources and posing safety concerns.

The Nov. 18 and Nov. 20 meetings were “publicly noticed,” the college added.

Dispute over costs

Once the properties were purchased for a total of approximately $5.4 million, the board considered different development options and then, in June 2021, approved proceeding with planning for a potential project within the range of $8.3 and $14.5 million, according to board agenda materials.

Two years later, in 2023, the cost was determined to exceed $35 million to restore Frontier Motel, Copper Cactus and the north portion of the Tucson Inn. That’s when the board asked the college to create an advisory committee that could also identify non-college funding sources.

In early 2024, the board accepted the advisory committee’s recommendation to identify qualified private sector developers for mixed-use development, but changed course this month.

“It’s extraordinarily disturbing that this current board has turned away from that, claiming absolutely absurd costs for restoration ... enormous costs that are not based in any sort of reality,” said Clinco. “They’re just these massive numbers that would cost more than building a hospital. It’s absurd. And so, there’s been a whole sequence of excuses of why these projects couldn’t proceed.”

According to Clinco, if the board had voted against demolition, “the properties could have been restored with no cost to the college.”

PCC denied the accuracy of Clinco’s statements on the numbers, saying in order for the properties to qualify for tax credits and other financing, the private developer’s proposal would have caused the property to be dedicated to affordable housing for 75 years, not be limited to housing for students, and could have generated a maximum of $24,000 per year ground lease payment to PCC.

“Based on information from architectural studies and estimates developed by the College Facilities Department based on other construction projects, the College determined that repurposing the front buildings of the Tucson Inn, the Copper Cactus, and the Frontier Inn would cost in excess of $35 million. This estimate was shared at a Board meeting in April 2023,” said PCC in a statement.

The board’s initial 2021 vote to move forward with restoring the Frontier Motel, Copper Cactus and Tucson Inn’s diner took place with the support of only three of its then five members.

None of the three initial supporters, including Clinco, are on the board today. Current board members Garcia and Gonzales, the only ones who were present during the initial discussion, refrained from voting in the initial 2021 motion.