Downtown Tucson

Greetings Earthlings!  The sun was out today, it warmed up some, and we were all happy about that.  After the obligatory trip to Home Depot (where I bought yet another plant that will require digging a hole) there was lunch at Baggins and then a trip down to the area of the Mercado St. Augustin.

In late November 2016 I did a post about a new neighborhood downtown.  In that post I said the following.

Anyway, this neighborhood is really cool, with the following caveats.  An apartment building will be going up right next door to it.  If it's occupied by UofA students that will be bad.  The U makes no effort to mitigate students' bad behavior and its effects on the neighborhoods they infest.  It's also pretty close to a very low income part of town.  I don't know if I would feel safe using the modern street car after dark.  So, despite its high coolness factor, I doubt we'll move on it.

Today we wanted to see how things were going in the area.  I’m going to have to go with not so good.  Construction on the new apartments has begun.  So far they’ve dug a giant large hole in the ground, and wiped out a considerable amount of street parking.

This is the neighborhood we were so taken with.  They have lost their primary access in to where they live.  A construction fence has taken away their access.

Look how close the edge of the construction pit is to those houses.  This will probably go on for a couple of very unpleasant years for these people.  I feel bad for them.  Hopefully the new apartments will not be full solely U of A students and the residents will be good neighbors

Last year I did another post about new retail going in to the same area; in which I wrote the following.

Also under construction, or assembly, are these.  They appear to be rusting shipping containers.  Windows as well as electrical and plumbing have been installed, so they’re permanent.  I am really curious to see what these become.

They have become a very interesting shopping and dining area.  This is the pickup area for the burger restaurant.

The seating area for the burger restaurant.  Note the cheerful orange chairs.

Continuing to walk away, up the sidewalk.

There is a bar on site.  They have many things on tap.

This was in the window of a home decorating/skin care store.  I have no idea what “boy smells” are.  Note the container of “Stalker.”

This is the new Caterpillar regional headquarters.  It’s not a bad looking building.  We still can not believe they’re not installing solar panels.  The wires overhead are for the modern streetcar.

So, that was today, and it was a good day.