Tucson News NowTucson city manager defends firehouse deal

Tucson city manager defends firehouse deal

By Christopher Francis - email

TUCSON (KOLD) - Tucson's city manager is defending a decision to let the older downtown fire station become an art museum, amid accusations that the city passed up better deals in letting an art museum take over the space.

Members of Tucson's TEA party organized a rally outside Station One Monday afternoon, which will soon be the home of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA).

The president of the Tucson Police Officers Association, Larry Lopez, says Tucson Police offered to take over the building, but was turned down three different times -- in 2006, 2008 and this year -- although he adds the request was not made through formal methods.

Lopez also claims the station was never part of a bid process, but Tucson City Manager Mike Letcher says the process was competitive.

However, a major point of debate is MOCA's low-cost lease with the city. "No offense to MOCA, but they're going to give it to them for $1 a year," says Lopez. "That's a big problem."

Letcher says economic realities are keeping other tenants out: "What's the rental vacancy rate in town? Let's get real. We have problems renting facilities right now at market rent and everybody else does, too."

The city manager says MOCA will be taking on the huge costs of bringing the building up to code, instead of the city. Lopez says those costs would have been "minimal" if Tucson Police had moved into the old station.

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