Major development project could give Marana a true downtown

For decades, Town of Marana leaders have dreamed of creating a true downtown for the traditionally ranching and farming community northwest of Tucson.

The closest they’ve come is the 28-acre Main Street project, a smattering of chain restaurants and drive-thru coffee shops at the Marana Road exit on Interstate 10 that opened in 2014.

But that’s about to change.

The town last week released conceptual drawings of Downtown Marana, a 20-acre walkable entertainment and retail district on North Marana Main Street and West Civic Center Drive inspired by Mule Alley at Fort Worth Stockyards in Texas.

Town officials hope to finalize a lease agreement in the next couple of weeks with the project’s developers, Marana Urban LLC, the team of Scott Stiteler and Rudy Dabdoub, whose downtown Tucson portfolio includes AC Hotel Tucson, The Hub, Playground Bar & Lounge and the pickleball-themed restaurant and beer garden Corbett’s in the historic Corbett Building on North Sixth Avenue.

Regan Jasper, a partner in Corbett’s, also is a part of Downtown Marana, Stiteler said.

“We’re really excited about this partnership,” said Marana Mayor Jon Post. “We were very impressed with his (Stiteler) track record, his vision. We’re really excited about the things that he has proposed and the things we worked together to come up with, and we feel like he is the person that can make that vision a reality for us.”

Stiteler’s group will be responsible for developing the project and bringing in tenants while the town’s role will include building infrastructure, including electric and sewer, parking lots and the brick walkways and archways framing the district.

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Town Manager Terry Rozema said it could take a year or more to complete design work before construction could begin. He estimated the project won’t break ground until summer or fall 2026, with the first businesses possibly opening in spring 2027.

Post, who was sworn in in early January after the unexpected death of longtime Mayor Ed Honea last November, said the town has no estimate of how much its role in the project will cost. The town has at least $6 million from revenues generated by its bed tax and Downtown Marana Reinvestment Fund, which reallocates a portion of the town taxes paid from new projects and business in the Main Street project district.

Stiteler and town officials hope to capture Marana’s “heart and soul” and history in Downtown Marana, which Rozema said could include several restaurants, a brewery, coffee shops, retail shops, a hotel and a rodeo arena and dance barn.

“There’s so much that we can do there to honor the history of Marana, and it’s more than cowboys and bricks,” Stiteler said. “It’s an untold story, 100 years of history, that we get to tell on that street.”

Stitler has been developing in the Tucson area since the early 2000s, when he and his partners at the time built 25 to 30 adobe homes in Sky Ranch, a development in Dove Mountain that preserved 80% of its total acreage for open space. He also developed a residential project in Oro Valley before turning his attention to downtown Tucson.

Around 2002 or ’03, he bought 40 acres of vacant land in Marana across the road from the town’s 20 acres. Stiteler said he plans to develop residential and retail there to complement Downtown Marana.

“At this stage of my career, this one is like pinch me,” he said of the project. “I mean, it’s a 60-acre ground up downtown. … To have a chance to do this, I mean, it’s a dream come true.”

“People are going to be excited about this and rightfully so,” said Rozema. “We really haven’t had a sense of place of downtown Marana. Now we’re going to be able to say it’s at Marana Main and Civic Center Drive.”