Downtown Tucsonan - February 2008 - (Page 5)

f r om th e e dito r Setting Reasonable E x p e c tat i o n s his month we greet our new colleague Glenn Lyons, who will begin a one-year appointment as our cEo with responsibilities for specific downtown development projects and opportunity sites. Glenn comes to us from calgary, alberta, and he is very well-qualified in the area of real estate development. He’ll start work on February 19. I hesitated to write about Glenn’s arrival for the simple reason that I didn’t want to contribute to unduly burdening him with unrealistically high expectations. we seem to have a tendency in our society to look for saviors and then to tear them down when they don’t deliver on expectations that were unreasonable to begin with. we build them up, and then knock them down. But, I decided to go ahead and write on this topic and use the opportunity to urge against putting the weight of the world on Glenn’s shoulders. Glenn will be under the microscope enough as it is, what with being brought in from not only out-of-town, but from out of the country, to help expedite what has been so slow in coming in downtown tucson. Glenn should not have to shoulder the entire burden of “downtown Revitalization”. that is an enormous task that could only be reasonably assigned to someone with a huge support staff, which he won’t have. From the Downtown Lowdown article on page 6 and from my own conversations with Glenn, it is apparent that Glenn understands that what he needs to bring is the ability to get some small projects done, so that we can build momentum from those successes. He certainly is aware that there are major public projects afoot—arena, streetcar, convention hotel, science center, etc.—but those won’t be his projects to shepherd. Instead, he will be assigned some opportunities in the downtown core, including some small empty buildings, empty lots, properties that the city and county have available for disposal for residential or commercial development. Glenn will bring a market-based approach, which means he won’t be talking pie-in-the-sky about things that can’t be achieved through prevailing economic forces. From having been involved with Rio nuevo from the beginning, as a well-informed observer with no actual responsi- T bility for anything development-related, it’s been my perception that one of the major problems has been too much hype about large-scale projects that will take years to come to fruition, and not enough of a strategy for creating small successes that build confidence and momentum. downtown redevelopment is inherently a slow process, and we’ve set ourselves up for dissatisfaction by over-promising what is possible to achieve in a few years. I’ve written here before that this tendency to favor the long-term without much commitment to incremental improvement has been changing for the better, towards a more balanced approach. certainly the closure of I-10’s main line to local traffic has highlighted the challenge of keeping downtown’s existing businesses going while the construction work continues with I-10, 4th avenue, and soon, the arena and major Rio nuevo developments. when those projects are done, we want to have businesses open that can enjoy the benefits of those improvements. there must be a balance between shortterm, medium-term, and long-term strategies for revitalization. I will always be a booster of the big projects, but I am just as enthusiastic about the opening of new interesting businesses and enterprises downtown. Recently we’ve celebrated the addition of the drawing studio to 6th avenue, as well as the start of the First Fridays events and the commencement of construction on one north Fifth. the next few months will bring the opening of the sushi restaurant at 63 E. congress, and the re-opening of the former Heart Five bar next door. Glenn Lyons will work directly on shortto medium-term projects that can keep the overall revitalization effort moving forward while the long-term projects move along and in some cases, get underway. I’ll let him speak for himself on what he thinks are reasonable expectations for seeing progress on the projects to which he will be assigned, but I wanted to go on the record here that we will not only support him in his endeavors, but will actively discourage others from over-hyping his efforts and creating unreasonable expectations. donovan durband Executive Director, Downtown Tucson Partnership february.08. downtown tucsonan 5 http://www.tucsonsymphony.org http://www.tucsonsymphony.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Downtown Tucsonan - February 2008

Downtown Tucsonan - February 2008 Contents From the Editor Downtown Lowdown Vital Signs Downtown Restaurants & Cafes Downtown Live Arts Galleries Performances Film Events Museums Historic Downtown Downtown Travelogue Billboard Classifieds

Downtown Tucsonan - February 2008

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