El Conquistador Hotel was demolished in 1968 to make way for El Con Mall, which will soon see one of its anchor buildings razed to make way for a Walmart. It's part of the evolution of a property with a storied past.
The hotel led a fitful life from its opening in the 1920s. Community leaders needed a hotel to attract winter visitors, but lacked a large outside investor for the project. So Tucsonans did it themselves.
"Individuals and local businesses purchased from $100 to $10,000 in hotel stock, raising about $300,000 to get the project under way," said a 1968 history in the Tucson Citizen.
But the project ran out of money and construction stopped until the United Hotel Co. jump-started it through a $325,000 bond issue. The hotel opened in 1928 with 70 guest rooms.
The hotel's opening nearly coincided with the start of the Great Depression. Revenues lagged and it was often closed during summer months. It went bankrupt in 1935.
It went through different owners and managers until it was demolished in 1968.
"The original El Conquistador Hotel, razed in 1968 to make way (unbelievably) for El Con shopping center, was one of old Tucson's glories," wrote Tucson Citizen architecture critic Lawrence W. Cheek in 1982. "For its time and place, it was irresistibly exotic."
It was replaced by Tucson's first covered shopping mall, which itself struggled in the 1990s. The shell of the indoor mall will be torn down as El Con reinvents itself with big-box stores, a movie theater complex, restaurants and small strip malls.
Timeline
• 1928: El Conquistador Hotel opens for business.
• 1935: Hotel goes bankrupt.
• 1957: Hotel sold to Magna Corp. of Salt Lake City.
• 1959-1960: El Con Mall is built next to the hotel on East Broadway. Initially, developers said the hotel would be integrated into the shopping center.
• 1964-1968: The hotel is closed and demolished.
• 1972: Open-air mall is enclosed and air-conditioned.
• 1975: Park Mall opens three miles to the east. The builder is Joseph Kivel, one of the partners in El Con Mall.
• 1995: Joseph Kivel dies, leaving commercial property, including his El Con Mall stake and Park Mall, to heirs.
• 1996: Chicago-based General Growth Properties buys Park Mall from the Kivel family and later pours millions into a massive renovation.
• 1999: Century Theatres opens on the El Con property. Later the mall builds a neighboring food court.
• 2001-2004: Home Depot and Target open on the eastern side of the mall property.
• 2003: Krispy Kreme opens in a separate building along Broadway.
• 2006: Krispy Kreme closes.
• 2005-2008: Restaurants Claim Jumper, Rubio's, Starbucks and In-N-Out Burger open in buildings outside the mall. Radio Shack moves from the mall's interior to an exterior building. Office Depot opens in a separate building south of the mall and and discount clothing store Ross Dress For Less opens in a separate building tucked into the mall.
• 2010: Walmart announces a store on the footprint of the former Levy's/Macy's building. Burlington Coat Factory opens.
• April 2011: Mall owners announce plans to demolish the shell of the enclosed mall.
• May 2011: Benches, planters, decorations from the enclosed mall auctioned off.
SOURCES: Star archives, El Con Mall spokeswoman Susan Allen.
