TUSD agrees to sell headquarters, buy and move to U of A building

Tucson Unified School District is selling its headquarters at 1010 E. 10th St. to a company intending to build a mixed-use development including multi-family housing.

The TUSD Governing Board voted 4-1 Tuesday night, with Sadie Shaw dissenting, to sell the property to MDL Development, LLC of Delaware for $17.5 million.

Shaw expressed concern the buyers would not work in concert with the neighborhood, in the city’s Sunshine Mile Overlay District, which is undergoing transformations.

The sum is about $1 million less than the board had been told in November another company, Up Campus Properties, LLC, a Chicago-based developer of Hub high-rise apartment complexes, had offered. District officials did not say why that tentative plan changed.

TUSD also moved a step closer to buying the University of Arizona Service Annex and moving its headquarters there.

In another 4-1 vote Tuesday night, with Shaw dissenting, the Governing Board set into motion the $11.6 million purchase from UA. The property at 220 W. Sixth St. was formerly a Tucson Electric Power facility.

The deal will go before the Arizona Board of Regents for consideration in February.

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TUSD will come out of the combined sale/purchase plans more than $1.3 million in the black.

Additionally, the district will avoid $7.4 million in repairs and improvements to the current administration building, known as “1010”.

The district’s $480 million bond issue, approved by voters in November, included money to renovate 1010, which houses the Morrow Education Center. Now, 1010’s share will be redistributed to other projects, district leasing manager Bryant Nodine told the board.

Once the regents give the green light, TUSD will move quickly into the annex on Sixth Street, Nodine said. Some furnishings are included in the purchase.

“The idea is closing as quickly as possible to allow us to get into the building and start renovations that … need to be done,” Nodine said.

Staff from Morrow, along with those who work at TUSD’s Lee Instructional Resource Center at 2025 E. Winsett St., will relocate to the newly acquired property.