The latest multi-million dollar idea to speed up development in the downtown area was scrapped due to disagreements over the Rialto Theatre, which is credited with bringing thousands of people to the downtown area. Tony Paniagua speaks to the president of the Rialto Theater Foundation, as well as one of the two developers who says he grew tired of dealing with the city after a six-month time line wasn't met.

Tucsonans have been hearing about downtown redevelopment efforts for decades but supporters believe it’s really going to be evident in the next four years. They point to the street car system that’s under construction, the 4th Avenue Underpass that will be finished this year and other examples such as crane’s constructing homes and retail space.

Things are happening and I tell people to be patient. I know everybody’s been very patient but in the next couple of years you’re going to see a lot happening down here.

And we need people living here so that at 5:00 the place doesn’t go quiet, right? And you need good restaurants and entertainment so people want to come in from out of town. And at the end of the day when you have retail then it’s really cool.

But when it came to the latest multi-million dollar idea for improving this area, fans of downtown were categorically divided over one issue, the Rialto Theater and surrounding properties.

I don’t know what their end game plan is but they must have one.

There were huge questions about who is signing this deal, who is obligating and who’s going to be responsible for making sure it gets performed.

Michael Crawford is the President of the Rialto Theater Foundation. The group generally supported a multi-million dollar proposal with two developers but the Foundation drew the line when it came to the Rialto Theater. Under the concept the city would give more than $4 million worth of property to the developers and in return they promised millions of dollars more on investments and more than a million and a half for non-profits. But the Rialto Foundation wanted something else, some of the property owned by the developers like this building on Broadway south of the Rialto and other spaces adjacent to the theater.

We as a board made a simple resolution and said if you’re going to give the developer $4.3 million of city property you need to require them to transfer 4,000 square feet to the city and we’ll lease it from you but you need to get the property. It’s critical for what we do, it’s essential to the operation of the theater and it’s really a no-brainer. It needs to be part of the deal and the city council said, yeah, we agree.

But developer Don Martin and his business partner disagreed.

I’m not going to let the theater hold my, this was in the paper, I said I’m not going to let the theater hold my development agreement hostage til they get what they want.

The theater owns the lobby here, all the theater here, about that much of the parking lot, this is the green room, this is parking through here. They own about two-thirds of it here and they own two-thirds of this bay right here.

Among other ideas they say they were willing to provide this building to the Foundation for no rent for five years and then Rialto would have to pay market value to lease the property. So the developers have called off discussions with the mayor and council.

The development agreement is done. The deadline is over and we’re done with the development agreement, period.

A very strange process, outcome, negotiations. I just don’t get it. I mean, what were they thinking, what are they thinking? I hope they have some big game plan that they’re going to roll out and we’re all going to say, oh, okay, now we got it because now we move to a commercially viable relationship.

So at least for now yet another plan of action to improve downtown has been derailed or delayed although both sides say they love this area and they’d like to see it shine and succeed. They hope it achieves a transformation that many have been dreaming and talking about for years.