Site History

This vacant property on the northwest corner of N. 11th Avenue and W. 1st Street in the Dunbar Spring neighborhood is the former site of the Salvation Army Hospitality House, now located adjacent to the west. In 2004, the Salvation Army went through a Special Exception Land Use Request process to redevelop and move their Hospitality House from 11th Avenue at 1st Street to the corner of Main Avenue and 1st Street, which was then owned by the City of Tucson. The Salvation Army and the City of Tucson entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a land swap, resulting in the City of Tucson owning the 11th Avenue lot. The MOU included a condition that the City of Tucson work with the Dunbar Spring neighborhood to develop affordable and/or market rate housing on the site. A neighborhood association subcommittee focused exclusively on developing design guidelines to help guide the development of the site.

In February 2022, Housing & Community Development (HCD) issued a Request for Qualifications to identify a developer to build affordable housing on this site—along with the Westmoreland site—and a development team was selected in May 2022. The team began environmental and site due diligence work and held a neighborhood meeting in March 2023 to review design options, but withdrew from the project in August 2023 due to staffing constraints.

Current Project

HCD has since brought on Tynan Group as owner's representative to help advance the project and published a Design-Build Request for Qualifications in April 2026 to identify a design-build team to partner with HCD's nonprofit housing organization, El Pueblo Housing Development (EPHD), in developing the site.