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Urban Renewal

The Pueblo Center Redevelopment Project

For close to a century, la calle was the Mexican-American heart of downtown Tucson, an 80-acre district of homes, shops, and plazas. In 1966 Tucson voters approved the Pueblo Center Redevelopment Project, the state's first major urban renewal, and the city condemned the barrio as a slum and cleared it. Some 263 buildings across 29 blocks were demolished and the community scattered, replaced by a civic superblock and an office complex that was so poorly planned it underperformed for decades and was itself torn down in 2018.

Failed strategy Failed initiative Moderate
Started
1966
Ended
2018
Barrio buildings demolished
263
Collapse speed
Gradual
Preventability
Medium
Lesson transfer
Universal
Last reviewed
2026-07-26

Narrative

The story

The ambition

For close to a hundred years, an 80-acre stretch of downtown Tucson was the center of Mexican-American life in the city. Its residents, the tucsonenses, called it simply la calle, the street. It was a dense, century-old barrio of adobe homes, small shops, restaurants, plazas, and entertainment venues, where a community shut out of much of the city lived and celebrated its culture openly. It was also home to Chinese- American and African-American Tucsonans. To the city's postwar leaders, though, this was not a neighborhood. It was blight, a slum standing in the way of a modern downtown built for a tourism economy.

The rise

On March 1, 1966, Tucson voters approved the Pueblo Center Redevelopment Project, Arizona's first major urban renewal effort, aimed at the densest 80 acres in the state. In a pattern that would draw later criticism, only the bond to acquire the land, not the full plan for what would replace the barrio, was actually on the ballot. Demolition began the next year. Over the following years the city cleared some 263 buildings across 29 blocks, and the redevelopment took shape mostly between 1970 and 1974.

The cracks

What was cleared was a functioning community, and the people who lived there knew it even as the city called it a slum. A resident named Alva Torres organized a committee to try to save la calle, approaching officials and preservation groups, most of them white Tucsonans unfamiliar with the barrio. She described watching the demolition as being "like watching somebody kill your children." The committee managed to preserve only a fragment: the old plaza gazebo and the El Charro building, later folded into the new development. The rest of the barrio and its community were scattered.

The collapse

In place of la calle rose a civic superblock: the Tucson Convention Center, with its music hall and arena, and the La Placita Village office complex, completed in 1973. The Convention Center endures. La Placita did not. By the account of people involved in the planning, the office complex was not properly planned and was a problem from day one, underperforming for decades with offices sitting empty. A later coat of bright paint turned it into a curiosity but never fixed the economics. In 2018, La Placita Village, built on the ruins of the barrio, was itself demolished to make way for apartments.

The aftermath

What remained of la calle was a gazebo, a restaurant, and memory. The community that had been scattered never reassembled, and the cleared land had sat empty longer than necessary before the delayed redevelopment. In the decades since, oral-history and cultural projects, including the scholarship behind Lydia Otero's account of la calle and the Barrio Stories Project, have worked to recover what was lost, a sign that the neighborhood's destruction is now widely understood as a wound rather than progress.

The lessons

Tucson's Pueblo Center is the clearance mistake with an extra turn of the screw. The city destroyed a living, century-old community by calling it a slum, and then discovered that even the modern development it built in place of the barrio did not work: the office complex was poorly planned, underperformed for a generation, and was demolished within fifty years. The transferable lesson is that clearance is a bet in which the loss is certain and the gain is not. The barrio was irreplaceable, and it was destroyed for a plan whose particulars voters had not even approved and whose centerpiece failed. When a project is sure of what it wants to remove but vague about what will replace it, the removal happens and the replacement disappoints.

Causal timeline

Failure Anatomy

  1. 1960

    La calle, the heart of Mexican-American Tucson

    For close to a century an 80-acre downtown barrio is the cultural center of Tucson's Mexican-American community, and home to Chinese-American and African-American residents too. [1]

  2. 1966

    Voters approve the Pueblo Center

    On March 1, 1966, Tucson approves Arizona's first major urban renewal project, though only the bond to acquire the land, not the development plan, is on the ballot. [2]

    Incentive failure
  3. 1967

    The barrio is cleared

    Demolition begins in 1967, and some 263 buildings across 29 blocks are torn down, scattering the community, with redevelopment running mainly from 1970 to 1974. [3] [4]

    Information failurePoor execution
  4. 1973

    A civic superblock rises

    The Tucson Convention Center and the La Placita Village office complex replace the barrio, completed in 1973. [5]

  5. 2018

    Even the replacement fails

    The poorly planned La Placita Village, which underperformed for decades, is demolished in 2018 to make way for apartments. [6]

    Poor execution

Structured analysis

What Went Wrong

Root causes

A living barrio condemned as a slum. The city declared the century-old Mexican-American heart of downtown a slum to be cleared, discounting the functioning community that lived and did business there. [1] [4]

Cleared for a replacement that also failed. The barrio was demolished for a civic superblock and the La Placita office complex, which was poorly planned, underperformed for decades, and was itself demolished in 2018. [3] [5] [6]

Contributing factors

The state's first federally funded urban renewal. The Pueblo Center was Arizona's first major urban renewal project, and federal housing money and a downtown remade for tourism created the incentive to clear the barrio at scale. [2]

Immediate trigger

The barrio is cleared. After the 1966 bond vote, demolition of la calle began in 1967, clearing some 263 buildings across 29 blocks and scattering the community before the replacement was even settled. [2] [3]

Visible symptoms

A failed office complex where a neighborhood had been. The barrio was replaced by a civic superblock and an office complex that underperformed from the start, sat partly empty, and was demolished in 2018. [5] [6]

Warning signs

The community fought to save it. Residents led by Alva Torres organized to save la calle, a sign that a functioning community, not a slum, was being destroyed. [7]

The cleared land sat empty. After demolition the land sat vacant longer than necessary before the delayed redevelopment took shape, an early sign the plan for what would replace the barrio was unsettled. [3]

Affected groups

CitizensCommunitiesTaxpayers

Contested

Disputed points

Interpretations where credible accounts genuinely differ, presented as disputes, not settled facts.

Whether anything offsets the loss is contested. The Tucson Convention Center endures as a working civic venue, which some count as a lasting public benefit. But the destruction of la calle, a century-old Mexican-American community, and the underperformance and eventual 2018 demolition of the La Placita complex built in its place, mean the project is widely judged to have cost far more than it created. [4] [5] [6]

Mixed

Evidence

Claims & sources

Every numbered marker in the analysis links to the claim it rests on, and each claim to its sources.

  1. [1]

    For close to a century, la calle was the predominantly Mexican-American heart of downtown Tucson, a roughly 80-acre barrio of homes, shops, restaurants, and plazas that had stood for over 100 years and was also home to Chinese-American and African-American residents.

    High Fact Visualizing Urban Renewal La Placita Village, Tucson Saving La Placita
  2. [2]

    On March 1, 1966, Tucson voters approved the Pueblo Center Redevelopment Project, Arizona's first major urban renewal project targeting the densest 80 acres in the state, though only the bond to acquire the land, not the full development plan, was on the ballot.

    High Fact Visualizing Urban Renewal The 1960s: Urban Renewal and Barrio Destruction
  3. [3]

    Demolition of the barrio began in 1967, and some 263 buildings across 29 blocks were torn down, with redevelopment running mainly from 1970 to 1974 and the cleared land sitting empty longer than necessary.

    High Fact La Placita Village, Tucson Visualizing Urban Renewal
  4. [4]

    The clearance displaced the barrio's Mexican-American families and businesses, scattering a community that had lived and celebrated its culture there for generations.

    High Fact Saving La Placita Visualizing Urban Renewal
  5. [5]

    In place of the barrio the city built a civic superblock, the Tucson Convention Center (groundbreaking 1969) and the La Placita Village office complex, completed in 1973.

    High Fact Visualizing Urban Renewal La Placita Village, Tucson La Placita Village demolition to begin Monday
  6. [6]

    The La Placita Village office complex was poorly planned and underperformed for decades, with offices sitting empty, and in 2018 it was demolished for apartments.

    Moderate Fact La Placita Village demolition to begin Monday La Placita Village, Tucson
  7. [7]

    A community effort led by Alva Torres saved only a fragment of la calle, the plaza gazebo and the El Charro building, but could not stop the clearance.

    Moderate Fact Saving La Placita La Placita Village, Tucson

Sources

Saving La Placita

Archive Tucson (Arizona Public Media / Arizona Board of Regents) · 2019-09-23

Credible reporting Cited by [1][4][7]