The Next Revitalized Neighborhoods In Tucson, Any Guesses? (Oro Valley, South Tucson: for sale, real estate)

[tijlover]

How many times have your heard it? "If I had only known this neighborhood was going to be revitalized/gentrified, within time, I would have bought a 2 houses there and just waited for the prices to rise and cashed out, or stayed there and enjoyed seeing the neighborhood reborn!"

I don't even think keen real estate agents really know what's going to be the next rediscovered area in any city.

My real estate friend in Austin, TX, cries everytime she overlooked the potential for the near east side of Austin, dubbed a slum area at one time, where she could have picked up houses in the teens, sat on them for awhile, and cashed out and retired early. Now selling for $100-200k?

Any guesses? The near west side? The near south side? Near north side?

[borregokid]

I think Menlo Park is way under valued. There are some real bargains to be had. I just saw a new listing in there for 65,000 on a fairly large lot. The real key though to building an area up though isn't through rentals though but its young people buying homes and living in them and raising families. Barrio Viejo and South Tucson might be other areas.

[Home_Kid]

next "revitalized" area? closest thing i see as of late is in Ajo, they just got a patch of new homes built for CBP, costing taxpayers ~$600k per home. a debate to say the least why each home really only cost abut $100k to build yet we taxpayers are hit with $600k/home bill.

revitalization definition you have is not what the word means. i think downtown Tucson is the only "revitalization" attempt that i know of.

[Jukesgrrl]

I'm dedicated in theory to urban renewal. I rehabbed two houses in another city's neighborhoods many of my co-workers would never set foot in. And I lived in them for more than 20 years. But I am positively stumped as to where it would be sensible to do that in Tucson.

Anywhere at all near the university, homes are over-priced and the neighborhoods are filled with rental properties. Then you have the fine city neighborhoods (Sam Hughes, Blenman-Elm, Armory Park, near northside, etc.) that are already very nice and expensive. But the up and coming? Certainly there are less expensive neighborhoods that are safe and many people have their houses fixed up nicely. I have an acquaintance who lives in a great place in Barrio Hollywood, for instance, and I would certainly consider that. It's the only neighborhood I've found to date where houses are priced to accommodate a rehab. But it's an historic neighborhood and I'm not sure anyone would be throwing a party to welcome an East Coast transplant when they would have liked their cousin to move into that house. All neighborhoods that COULD be rehabbed don't NEED to be rehabbed if they're functioning well. And Barrio Hollywood is. Most urban neighborhoods that SHOULD be rehabbed and where prices are low, I wouldn't feel sure anyone else would ever rehab. Whether or not they are statistically safe, they don't LOOK safe. House after house lacks ANY curb appeal. Urban Tucsonans, by and large, have a shocking lack of interest in how their homes appear to others.

Borregokid mentioned Menlo Park, so I looked it up. I could only find one house for sale there. At 2,200 sq. fit. and $175,000 asking price, I guess it's a bargain in terms of size. There weren't any interior photos online yet, but I looked at the address on Google Earth and Street View. On one side, the house has an empty lot (where it's obvious a house used to stand). On the other side, the house looks like hoarders live there. The houses all have chainlink fences and the house across the street has boarded up windows. Abandon shopping cart on the sidewalk, garbage cans on the front porches, peeling paint and crumbling adobe, complete the picture of the entire block. Mind you, I've lived in low-income neighborhoods. I try not to judge. But the first thing that popped into my head when I looked at that Google Earth photo was, "Did a meth lab blow up to make that empty lot?"

In the NW neighborhood I live in (an unhappy experiment in suburban living for me) $175,000 would get you a three-bedroom, two-bath home with a two-to-three car garage, a fenced-in yard and nice landscaping. Maybe even a pool. And the house would be less than 10 years old. Yes, it's boring here. Yes, the houses all look pretty much alike. But it beats wondering which one of your neighbors is cooking meth or needs a psych eval. Young and older Tucsons alike who need affordability will always go for the suburbs unless someone gives them incentive to stay in town.

Tucson could get people to improve crumbling neighborhoods just as cities like Austin do. But it takes some effort on the part of city leaders. Publicity, low-interest loans. tax abatement, public safety dedication. Maybe even some investment rehabbing. It's not complicated. But like a lot of other things, leaders seem to lack any desire to change Tucson, except perhaps to build more hospitals or throw money at developers who want to build more gated communities farther and farther way from El Centro.

[borregokid]

Heres the problem with urban revitalization in Tucson you need to really have a dynamic economy that producing jobs. Tucson just hasn't had the Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon for example that has turned Seattle upside down. The other word for revitalization is gentrification which means essentially young urban people with good incomes coming in buying properties and fixing them up. Not necessarily to flip but to live there. I ended up on the eastside after looking pretty hard at the west side. It actually ended up being more house, less money and a feeling I was living with people who were similar to me. I am talking education and income and not race.

So if the OP looks here again you might look at the east side of Tucson. There have been some bargains out there. Not as many. Some are a little further out around Wrightstown.

[Prodigal Native]

Originally Posted by borregokid

Heres the problem with urban revitalization in Tucson you need to really have a dynamic economy that producing jobs. Tucson just hasn't had the Microsoft, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon for example that has turned Seattle upside down. The other word for revitalization is gentrification which means essentially young urban people with good incomes coming in buying properties and fixing them up. Not necessarily to flip but to live there.

This is the point I was about to make and it is, I think, at the core of a lot of the issues in Tucson. The nation as a whole does not have a dynamic economy right now; Tucson is much less dynamic than the rest of the country, we simply are not leaders here.

[Home_Kid]

Originally Posted by Jukesgrrl

Tucson could get people to improve crumbling neighborhoods just as cities like Austin do. But it takes some effort on the part of city leaders. Publicity, low-interest loans. tax abatement, public safety dedication. Maybe even some investment rehabbing. It's not complicated. But like a lot of other things, leaders seem to lack any desire to change Tucson, except perhaps to build more hospitals or throw money at developers who want to build more gated communities farther and farther way from El Centro.

the effort they put in these days is saying the word "no" (see Tucson turns away Christian university, keeps money-pit public golf course)

the effort they put in is, mis-guided & mis-managed projects (see Streetcar delivery at least 3 months late). not sure what this streetcar really serves, and to boot it will take 9 months to test it before public can use it.

i think this area needs new leaders, ones that can grasp the global picture both present and future.

[ronagra]

Well - Oro Valley can have Grand Canyon University ... money aside, that's not a positive development for any city.

Meanwhile, the major problem with revitalization of Tucson neighborhoods is that most of them aren't really "neighborhoods" in the way that aids an area in revitalizing. They are just spaces defined by the city. Once you leave downtown, 4th Avenue and the Barrio areas, you simply don't have the community, neighborhood identity and sense of location that defines great neighborhoods and which is needed to spark neighborhood revitalization.

I've been out East for the last decade after more than two decades in Tucson and when I first moved out here my mind was blown ... neighborhood business districts, active and positive neighborhood associations, community gatherings and events, etc.. It's fantastic, but I don't remember any of this from Tucson and from what I know from visiting there and talking to many friends and family who still live there, it hasn't exactly started to form. I'm watching positive revitalization happen here in Pittsburgh and it is happening because of community, because each neighborhood is a destination unto itself and there is pride and action happening which fosters that revitalization. It is done despite the city's inept leadership (c'mon - we've got Boy Mayor out here - and Tucson has never seen political corruptness like this old steel town!)

A perfect example of what I mean is this: when you go out in Tucson do you say you are going to a place, like a business, or that you are going to a neighborhood. I'd bet that aside from downtown and 4th Avenue, for the most part you say you are headed to "restaurant x" or "bar y" or "club z." Because you don't connect with the neighborhoods that these businesses are located in, you just connect with the business. And there's nothing particularly wrong with that, but the difference is that in cities which can and do experience neighborhood revitalization, those neighborhoods are the destination - here in Pittsburgh you would say you're going down to "South Side" or "Lawrenceville" or "Bloomfield," etc. - and probably you are going to eat, then have a drink or some coffee and maybe go out afterwards. And when that happens people start to look towards moving out of the suburbs and back into the city so they can live within those neighborhoods, and then - voila - revitalization.

Most Tucsonans couldn't even tell you the name of the neighborhood they live in. You think any of the UA students renting on 7th, 8th and 9th know they live in Pie Allen? They certainly don't. Furthermore, many of the well defined neighborhoods in Tucson are strictly residential. Could you live in Sam Hughes without leaving? I suppose ... if you were a shut-in or a masochist you could make it work. But let's be honest - that's not what people are looking for. They don't want to buy a nice house so they can setup for a long daily commute and have to leave anytime they want to to go out on the town a bit. This is, again, true of most Tucson neighborhoods outside of downtown, 4th avenue and the barrios.

Now I'm likely moving back to Tucson, and while there are a lot of positives tied up in that I know that I am likely leaving the notion of "neighborhoods" behind and moving back into the endless sprawl of my desert home. That's fine with me, neighborhoods just aren't a part of the overall Tucson experience. I'll ride my bike all over town and do what the Oro Valley kids do - call everything South of River "downtown" and enjoy my 'hood!

[azdr0710]

good points, ronagra....

much of the lack of 'hood ID out here comes from a lack of old history and a highly transient population....also hurting a local ID is low density, resulting from an abundance of land to build OUT on rather than UP....cities built upon the use of cars never develop a lot of local neighborhoods....only when density increases will some classic "neighborhoods" emerge....

[Prodigal Native]

Originally Posted by azdr0710

much of the lack of 'hood ID out here comes from a lack of old history and a highly transient population....

This makes me think of one of the few bright spots in the Daily Star - it is doing a very good job educating the public about the history of this town through the weekly column that talks about street names and who they are named for.

I have been in Tucson almost 20 years and I have learned more about the history of this town from these columns than from any other source.

I think they could do a similar thing with neighborhoods; I certainly would read it.