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Successful Downtown
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Definition: Includes the cultural and commercial aspects of the city center
What the community said:
- "Sustainable communities have strong and vibrant city centers."
- "Create a dynamic downtown with innovative architecture, commercial and retail space."
- "Revitalize our downtown area to create a cultural center in Tucson."
- "Establish a city "heart" and a better sense of place for Tucsonans."
- "Develop a prosperous, attractive, and interesting downtown, well connected to its surrounding areas."
- "Downtown should be revitalized - with restaurants, movies, lighting, patrol, and parking. An abundance of condos, townhomes, and historic neighborhoods surrounding downtown should be improved upon."
City Department/Office Support for this Goal:
- Historic Preservation – assisting downtown historic business property owners in obtaining funding for improvements, collaborating with departments that have projects downtown, and working on increasing the supply of housing downtown
- Human Resources – participating on the Downtown Director Team, which works to ensure downtown projects reflect Tucson's history and culture
- Operations – developing a program to provide heating and cooling to governmental and privately owned facilities downtown using a single physical plant, which will reduce energy costs and serve as an economic incentive for future investment and development
- Police – providing foot and bike patrols in order to create a safe environment for citizens and visitors
- Development Services – participating on the Downtown Director Team and providing project management assistance to facilitate expeditious review of plans
- Community Services – leveraging public and private funds to repair, restore, and develop residential homes in gateway neighborhoods surrounding downtown
- Tucson Convention Center – holding events that attract over one million people to downtown annually
- Transportation – implementing plans for improved traffic flow and pedestrian circulation, routing bus lines through downtown, reinvesting parking program revenues downtown, and maintaining downtown roadways and sidewalks
Key Indicators of Progress:
- Number of residents who come downtown for entertainment If downtown Tucson is truly successful we would expect to see more people downtown enjoying themselves - dining, shopping, and participating in arts and cultural activities. As a way to measure this, we can ask people on a survey how often they come downtown for these purposes.
Staff is researching the best way to collect and report the data for this Indicator.
The Tucson Museum of Art will implement a trial project to identify those visitors that are local residents using the facility and its programs.
Source: Physical count and sample of Museum visitors and patrons.
Counts of local patrons visiting Children's Museum are being developed.
Source: Physical count and breakdown of Museum visitors.
Count of attendees at Downtown Saturday Night and demographics of participation are forthcoming.
Source: Arts District Partnership records.
- Number of downtown residents As downtown improves and has more to offer, we would expect that more people will find it an attractive place to live. Other cities have found that downtowns must offer a good range of services and activities before they can attract significant numbers of new residents. Thus, growth of residents would reflect the presence of a broad range of supporting services. While the Census counts residents, it only does so every ten years, so a survey or other assessment would have to be developed.
Source: Staff is researching the best way to collect and report the data for this Indicator.
- Sales taxes from downtown businesses compared to City-wide sales taxes Sales tax receipts indicate the level of business activity and the health of businesses. Comparing downtown sales tax receipts to total City receipts will indicate how well downtown businesses are doing compared to businesses city-wide. This data is available from the City Finance Department.
The downtown business compared to citywide sales tax for fiscal year 1997-1998 was 13%. Total sales tax for the City of Tucson for fiscal year 1997-1998 was $126,800,000. Total sales tax from downtown businesses for fiscal year 1997-1998 was $16,419,230. However, this figure includes fees collected by Tucson Electric Power city-wide, but reported as downtown activity since the headquarters is located there. Therefore, further analysis is needed.
The number of business licenses and amount of sales tax for selected categories of businesses in the Art District which closely overlays the downtown is another indicator of downtown success.
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Retail Sales
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1993-94
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1994-95
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1995-96
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1996-97
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1997-98
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# Licenses
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232
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252
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240
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245
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239
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Sales Tax
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$1.642M
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$1.823M
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$1.886M
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$2.008M
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$2.058M
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Restaurant Sales
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1993-94
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1994-95
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1995-96
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1996-97
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1997-98
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#Licenses
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53
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65
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57
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59
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62
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Sales Tax
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$345,157
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$369,633
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$391,941
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$361,429
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$392,634
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Source: City of Tucson Revenue Division records.
- Dollars invested in downtown restoration and new development projects Investments made in downtown buildings indicate that downtown is improving. As downtown becomes increasingly successful, we would expect that public and private dollars invested in renovating and preserving downtown buildings and infrastructure would increase. These data can be collected from Development Services.
Data for this indicator are currently under development.
Source: Permit Computer System, Development Service Department.
What YOU Can Do
- Attend cultural events located in the downtown area
- Shop downtown
- Visit downtown museums, galleries and special events
- Attend Tucson Convention Center activities
- Be entertained at the "Downtown Saturday Night" (held the first and third Saturday of every month)
Featured Project for this goal indicator.
