They’ve been pursuing this dream for more than a decade, so it’s no wonder they’re attached to it.
The idea: a Latin American-style plaza across from St. Augustine Cathedral on South Stone Avenue downtown.
Singer Linda Ronstadt and architect Bob Vint made a plea for this Cathedral Plaza in last Sunday’s paper, a plea that may have been most people’s introduction to the idea. I know I’d forgotten about it.
Years ago, Vint was hired to make a preliminary design for the site as part of the broader effort pursued by a group called Plaza San Agustin LLC. While the idea still has appeal, further examination reveals it also has flaws that may even be fatal.
First, the basic idea, as Ronstadt and Vint put it last week: “Any city worthy of its name has a beautiful plaza at its heart, oriented toward a distinguished historic building such as a town hall, a courthouse or, in the Hispanic tradition, a cathedral.”
Their argument is that old Tucson had such a heart, the plaza that is now Veinte de Agosto Park. But after a new cathedral was built three blocks away on South Stone Avenue and after urban renewal, that space has become a mere “grassy traffic median.” Since such plazas are usually in front of cathedrals in the Hispanic world, we should put ours there as well, they argue. It would be surrounded by shops at the ground floor and residences on the two or three floors above, with parking below ground.
One problem with the idea is that the cathedral, where it is located now, is not in the heart of downtown Tucson. No amount of cultural re-creation across the street is likely to move the heart of downtown from Congress Street, three blocks north, to South Stone. To try to create a new, culturally authentic heart of downtown away from what is the real, beating heart of downtown would be, in my view, inauthentic.
Another problem with their idea is that Tucson already has a plaza that fits some of Ronstadt and Vint’s description: Presidio Plaza is oriented between City Hall and a beautiful historic courthouse. The plaza itself is not beautiful now. But coincidentally, a team was just selected to redesign the plaza and make a new Jan. 8 memorial there. This is an opportunity to re-create Tucson’s central plaza closer to the existing heart of downtown.
Jacome Plaza, in front of the main library, also exists already and is closer to the center of downtown than the cathedral. Armory Park exists, too, just two blocks east of the proposed plaza.
Last week I exchanged emails with Vint and raised these and other counterarguments. His response to the Presidio Plaza idea:
“El Presidio is a park, not a plaza — a very different type of open space (a park of course is more open, has more planting, is less well-defined than a plaza — less formal and less intimate).”
He went on, “A plaza is a more formally enclosed, defined urban space, in the Latin tradition (Mexico and Latin American, Spain and Italy) and activated by ground-level shops or cafes that bring life to the street.”
I take his point that Presidio Plaza isn’t lined by stores or homes and isn’t usually active in the evening hours. But it’s not really a park either, and potentially the redesign could help inject some new street-level life into it.
Ronstadt and Vint also made passing reference to the fact that “the land fronting St. Augustine’s is under new ownership with the intent to build.” They added, “We hope the new owners will embrace the vision we and other members of the plaza group have shared with them, to strengthen Tucson’s unique sense of place, shaping the future while respecting the past.”
This roundabout reference explains the reassertion of this proposal now. The longtime owner of the parking lot, De La Warr Investment Corp., is under contract to sell the property to real-estate developer Holualoa Cos. The real point here, as I see it, is lobbying Holualoa to include the plaza in the designs they’re considering as they decide whether to follow through on the purchase.
Mike Kasser, the president of Holualoa, is keenly aware of the group’s wishes for the property as his company tries out different designs for it, to see what will work. A meeting is scheduled Wednesday involving Vint, Mayor Jonathan Rothschild, Councilman Steve Kozachik and Kasser to see if the plaza can fit in Holualoa’s plans.
“Everyone wants to convince us to do it, but if it doesn’t make economic sense, we won’t do it,” Kasser told me.
Holualoa plans to put market-rate apartments on the site, probably four stories high, he said. Whether there’s enough room on a less-than-1-acre property for an urban plaza that actually needs to provide a return on investment is questionable to say the least.
Holualoa has already bought the surface parking lots one block south on Stone, across the street from the Carrillo mortuary. They plan to put around 25 three-story row houses on that property. Preliminary responses from neighbors and others have been enthusiastic.
Assuming Holualoa follows through on the purchase, I’d like to see what design the company settles on before trying to shoehorn a quasi-historical plaza onto the property. After all, despite how long Vint and friends have been lobbying for the cathedral plaza, it’s Holualoa that is actually planning to put up the money.
