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By Jane Erikson 
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
July 25, 2003  

1880s landmark space for rent

Photos by James S. Wood / Staff
The Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation occupies the first floor, but the 1,800-square-foot, renovated second floor, pictured here, is available.

2nd-floor update of Star building blends old, new

A 120-year-old building that signaled a new era of Tucson architecture has been renovated and is looking for an occupant.

The fired-brick building - one of the first of its kind in Tucson - was built in 1883 by a leading San Francisco architect, to house a fledgling newspaper called the Arizona Weekly Star. Two years later, the paper became the Arizona Daily Star.

Today the Star building at 30 N. Church Ave. houses the Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation, which owns the building and is in the midst of renovating the old movie theater around the corner on Congress Street .

The foundation moved into the first floor of the Star building about three weeks ago and is ready to lease the 1,800-square-foot second floor, which has its own address of 32 N. Church Ave.

The Star building is a good example of Downtown revitalization, said Buzz Isaacson, a commercial real-estate broker who is handling the lease.

Standing across the street from the county courts complex, the Star building is a historic gem that has been highly visible in its prior run-down state to lawyers going to and from court, Isaacson said. "Now it's been renovated, and it's still very historic but very up-to-date," Isaacson said. "It's a space we can offer to someone who wants something traditional. There's a lot of generic office space Downtown and around Tucson ."

Architect Bill Mackey, a member of the Tucson-Pima Historical Commission, called the structure "a great building." The second floor is a wonderful open space, he said, with nine 8-foot-tall windows that fill the room with natural light. The building was a step up for the Arizona Weekly Star, which moved from its building at Convent Avenue and Congress Street - in the midst of the Old Pueblo's thriving red light district - to take over the stylish new red-brick building on Church Avenue . The weekly paper went daily in 1885 but stayed on North Church until 1917, when it moved again to Congress Street .

The Star building is the only remaining commercial building designed and built by architect A.P. Petit, whose major works included the San Francisco Opera House and other public buildings in the Northern California cities of Mendocino and Sacramento , including the first lumber mill and brick kiln in Sacramento .

In Phoenix , Petit built a house for then-Mayor Roland Rosson, which remains the only Petit residential building in Arizona , said architect Bob Frankeberger of the State Historic Preservation Office.

Petit arrived in Arizona not long after the railroad, which came to Tucson in 1880 and forever changed the look of Tucson , said historian John Bret-Harte. "Trains brought lumber, tin, fired bricks - all these new architectural materials to a town whose buildings up until then were all made of adobe," Bret-Harte said. "Petit came to Tucson when Tucson was mud," Frankeberger said more bluntly.

Petit brought with him many of the elements of San Francisco 's Late Victorian "Italianate" architectural style, Frankeberger said: cast-iron columns and pre-hung doors, window frames and cornices made of California redwood - a building material many Tucsonans had never laid eyes on.

The Fox foundation's renovators strove to maintain as much of the building's original features as possible, or to duplicate them when not. For example, the first floor ceiling is covered with decorative tin squares that resemble the original ceiling decor. The second floor's original wood floor remains, but it is covered by a second wood floor installed probably about 50 years ago.

A winding staircase connects the two floors; the building does not have an elevator. The second-floor room contains its original open-trussed ceiling. Totally new are two bathrooms - to accommodate tenants and their clients.

The beautiful redwood-framed windows still contain most of their original, wavy glass. Dave Burns, design principal with Burns and Wald-Hopkins Architects, said the Star building's office space likely will appeal to a niche market. "To me, it offers a rare style of office space," Burns said. "I find it very appealing."

"It wouldn't surprise us at all if someone wanted to just move in here," Isaacson said. "This type of space is in big demand. People want to live in it and work in it. If everything we expect to happen Downtown does happen, it's the kind of space that's going to be in great demand."

* For information about leasing the Star building, call Buzz Isaacson Realty at 623-5133.

* Contact reporter Jane Erikson at 573-4118 or at jerikson@azstarnet.com

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