By Darren DaRonco | Arizona Daily Star
An 8.5-acre dirt lot near the Tucson Convention Center could finally see some life.
The Rio Nuevo Board unanimously approved a contract for Allan Norville, manager of Nor-Generations, to purchase and develop the parcel along Granada Avenue, east of Interstate 10 and north of Cushing Street.
The vote ended about five months of arduous negotiations and opened the possibility of private development on the dormant western edge of downtown.
But Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker said the board didn’t just turn over the land to Norville so he could keep it an empty lot.
“With Rio Neuvo’s legacy of incomplete projects, we didn’t feel we could do that,” McCusker said. “We wanted to assure the community, but moreover the state Legislature because this is tax money, that the property will be developed.”
