The owners of one of Tucsonโs biggest mineral shows have purchased a plot of land near downtown from the city, with plans to build a $12 million cooperative exhibit hall.
The 22nd Street Co-Op is a planned 150,000-square foot, three-story building with selling rooms that dealers will own.
The proposed permanent home for the 22nd Street Mineral, Fossil and Gem Show is near 22nd Street and Interstate 10.
The owners of one of Tucsonโs biggest mineral shows has purchased a plot of land near downtown from the city, with plans to build a $12 million cooperative exhibit hall.
Eons Expos LLLP paid the city $1.6 million for the 6.5-acre parcel just east of Interstate 10 and north of West 22nd Street, where it has run the 22nd Street Mineral & Fossil Show under tents since 2011, Eons co-owner Lowell Carhart said.
A company formed by Eons principals and investors plans to build the 22nd Street Co-Op, a planned 150,000-square foot, three-story building adjacent to Eonsโ tent site, starting in early 2016.
The venue will feature 86 selling rooms, each measuring 20 by 40 feet, on the first two floors that dealers will own outright as โbusiness condos.โ The third floor will be a year-round event space.
During the annual Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase, the top floor will host a high-end annex of the 22nd Street Mineral & Fossil Show, which will continue in its existing 100- by 600-foot tent.
The co-op building, which at full buildout will have space for 500 dealers, is being deigned by local architect Rob Paulus.
Carhart said his companyโs development proposal beat two other plans in a bidding process for the space.
โThis is a brand new concept for this industry,โ said Carhart, who started out in the business specializing in fossils and co-owns Eons with his sister, Christine Perner, and brother Russell Carhart.
Lowell Carhart said the company plans to open a sales office at the Tucson gem show in January, and hopes to pre-sell 50 of the condo spaces at $150,000 each.
He said he believes the business-condo concept, which offers space at about $170 a square foot, will be compelling to vendors used to paying upwards of $70 a square foot to rent temporary tent space.
After raising some $8 million from presales, the company plans to get a loan to bridge the rest of the construction costs, Carhart said.
Eons opened its first show in Denver, where it has put on the Denver Coliseum Mineral, Fossil, and Gem Show since 2009. The company is formally based in New Jersey, where Russell Carhart lives and the company recently started a show, said Lowell Carhart, who lives in Virginia.
Carhart said the 22nd Street show is among the five largest at the Tucson Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase in terms of selling space and probably in the top 10 for the number of dealers it hosts.
