Email this page  Print this page  del.icio.us  digg

Thinking big

Arizona Historical Society giddy about Rio Nuevo plans

For a historian who is about to embark on an expansion project, it’s akin to hitting the lottery.

Bill Ponder, director of the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, can recite off the cuff what he and his staff are expecting over the next few years:

• A new, bigger building, part of the Tucson Origins Heritage Park, considered to be a top attraction in the vast Rio Nuevo downtown redevelopment

• The fascinating personal collection of works and artifacts from the late Lalo Guerrero, father of Chicano music and Tucson native

• More visitors, including those from beyond the state’s southern border.

"Our major facility in Tucson is an 80,000-square-foot facility," Ponder says. "There’ll be at least a 50 percent increase in space. We’re talking about new ways of looking at things and using more voices to tell stories."

The new building will offer 130,000 square feet of exhibit and office space, which will translate to three major galleries and several smaller supporting galleries, Ponder says.

A PLACE FOR LALO

For Hispanic visitors, the most culturally relevant gallery will showcase Guerrero.

"We view the Guerrero family materials to be a major gallery because not only will it specifically speak to Lalo Guerrero and his history, music and accomplishments, but also it becomes a foundation to talk about a lot of other relevant associated and tangential issues," he says.

The society will use the Guerrero collection as a "jumping off" point to develop more exhibits.

"One: it allows us to talk about a course of time. As you know, he was active in his music for eight decades. But also because his music and his life were so diverse in terms of what he was impacted by and what he impacted. That allows us to use his materials to touch on all those types of subjects as well," Ponder explains. "You’re dealing with the issue of music, different musical genres, dealing with time, place, culture, social economics, ethnicities, labor, all these types of things. Each one becomes a viable area to tell different stories with. That’s a pretty broad spectrum."

Guerrero’s heirs agreed to provide the materials for the new gallery. Once that deal was made, Ponder says it occurred to the society that something else also was vital.

"We’re going to have a significant amount of space devoted to the performance aspect, both interior and exterior spaces," Ponder says, adding that performances will include music, dance and arts. Artists and performers from Mexico also will be booked.

"I think that’s a wonderful opportunity for us, to do something like that."

INNOVATIVE FUNDING

It’s taken seven years to reach this point of excitement, but city of Tucson planning director Albert Elias is confident the sprawling redevelopment will be built.

Unlike a special bond election (like Phoenix used to finance it’s redevelopment project), the voters of Tucson approved the redevelopment area as a tax increment financing district. These TIF dollars continue to flow into the project yearly, infusing the redevelopment with a steady stream of money.

Elias explained how TIF dollars are generated:

The Arizona Department of Revenue tracks the current state’s share of sales taxes collected within a specified geographic area (in this case, Rio Nuevo), comparing that figure to the base year (1999). The state refunds the difference between the base year and the current year. Tucson gets to use the difference to fund downtown revitalization, Elias says, specifically as infrastructure type of investment.

"Here’s the beauty of it: it doesn’t really tax anybody," Elias enthuses. "It operates on the existing state sales tax revenue stream. Instead of that stream going to the state general fund, that increment goes to the city of Tucson. Nobody’s tax goes up."

Original plans called for the TIF funding to be available over the course of 10 years; a bill in the legislature calls for an additional 30 years, potentially resulting in a revenue stream of $1.2 billion. The Senate has yet to approve the extension.

Elias added that TIF is commonly used in other states as a revitalization financing mechanism, but for some reason makes the state nervous.

"It’s just that Arizona doesn’t like to do this," he says.

This month, Ponder expects drawings will give shape to the building he is so happy to talk about. He plans to spread word about the new facility across the border, to potential Mexican visitors. He cites an oft-quoted fact that 30 percent of Tucson’s economy comes from Mexico.

"One of the things that also is key in our planning is just to make a greater use of the proximity to Mexico," Ponder says. "There are tons of Mexican consumers who are here on a regular basis and I think this type of venues would speak to them in a special way."