Signs are pointing in that direction. Fueled by the Rio Nuevo Project, an artsy atmosphere and good old American capitalism, several projects are creating a synergy that even the Old Pueblo's legendary lethargy may not be able to stifle.

In the heart of downtown, the so-called Thrifty Block (26-72 E. Congress St.) has been demolished, to be replaced by 19,000 square feet of stores at ground level and 61 loft-style apartments above.

The new will abut the old. Anchoring the block is Tucson's first skyscraper, the 10-story Bank One Building, which opened in 1929.

The block is a key piece in a perennial puzzle: How to revive an ailing city core when market forces seem hell-bent on flinging us ever further from our geographical ground zero of Congress and Stone.

The answer all along may have lain in one word.

Wait.

While bureaucrats and politicians debated the chicken-and-egg conundrum - which comes first, the shoppers or the stores? - people started finding downtown's forgotten spaces.

For years, no one wanted this real estate. The Thrifty Block is a good example. Eager to spur downtown development, the city sold it to Bourn Properties for a token $100. That may not seem like much, but in fact the city made $99 on the deal.

That's because in 2003, the federal government unloaded it for $1.

Uncle Sam held title to the property for 11 years, thinking it might eventually be used for expansion of the old federal courthouse.

Instead, the feds erected new digs at Congress and Interstate 10.

That's still downtown, it's becoming clear. Stop slicing the city's center into wedges defined by roads, river and railroad tracks, and the boundaries blur. It really is only an eight-minute car ride from the new Marriott Starr Pass resort to those tall buildings in the 0-100 block.

From the University of Arizona flows the Fourth Avenue shopping district, which links via underpass to a lively club scene. Not even the concrete clear-cut of urban renewal can completely obscure our origins, which lie just to the west, across that big ditch: the Santa Cruz River, the "rio" of Rio Nuevo. Indians settled there 4,000 years ago to farm; Father Eusebio Kino performed the first Catholic Mass there in 1695, and the base of "A" Mountain is often considered the birthplace of Tucson.

Move back toward the center, to the northeast, to a strip of warehouses along Toole Avenue between Stone and Sixth. Those big boxes tell another story of downtown redevelopment.

The once forgotten buildings that line the Union Pacific Railroad tracks now form the official Historic Warehouse District. But that city-bestowed designation evolved not from an earnest plan, but from an accident.

In the early '80s, many of those buildings were vacant or occupied by squatters. The state bought the 17 buildings, intending to demolish them for the Barraza-Aviation Parkway.

While Tucsonans feuded over the road, the state rented the properties to artists as inexpensive studio space. The artists, unlike state and city officials, recognized the historic value of the buildings. They organized and won historic designation for the properties in 1997.

Because of this, and because of Rio Nuevo-generated pressure from the city, the parkway, if ever completed, now will follow a route north of the railroad right of way.

The city intends to integrate the Warehouse District into the "history" flavor of downtown, and plans to close the northernmost lane of Toole Avenue for a tree-lined "artwalk."

Farther afield, but not by much, is the Ice House Lofts project of a partnership calling itself Deep Freeze Development. The developers are "reincarnating" the 1920s-vintage Arizona Ice and Cold Storage Co. building at 1000 E. 17th St. into 51 loft apartments, with prices ranging from the low $100,000s to more than $450,000.

The brick structures, which have a "footprint" of about 37,000 square feet, will create a two-story apartment living space of more than 70,000 square feet.

The cold storage company, which operated into the 1980s, is just south of the railroad tracks. Warren Michaels, one of the developing partners, said prospective residents have told him they find the sound of the rail traffic "quaint," rather than irritating.

Small, enclosed courtyards will extend toward the tracks from the apartments, while upper floors will have balconies that afford unobstructed views of the Tucson skyline.

The loft apartments are expected to be completed by Christmas.

In a related project, Deep Freeze Development has bought property between 17th and 18th streets, east of Fremont Avenue, and is completing nine houses dubbed "Barrio Metalico."

Those loft-style units adjoin a century-old adobe rowhouse structure in the middle of the block and are skirted by older, free-standing adobe homes across the street.

The developers have made use of naturally "aged" items, such as rusted galvanized metal roofing material for fencing, to correlate the adobe motif with the new units' ultramodern design.

Still farther afield from downtown, but only about eight driving minutes to the west, is a much more ambitious development, the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa.

Though not scheduled for completion until mid-December, the resort and meeting center already has more than 100 conferences scheduled during its first full year of operation - something expected to bring about $197 million into the local economy.

The resort, which carries a price tag of nearly $200 million, will include 575 rooms and employ a staff of about 750.

Mike Kass, director of sales and marketing, said in a Citizen interview in June that 70 percent of the conferences booked thus far involve groups that have never met in Tucson.

The new Marriott will be the largest resort in southern Arizona, with three of the largest ballrooms in the Tucson area. The grand ballroom encompasses 20,100 square feet and the "junior" ballroom has 15,000 square feet - larger than all other Tucson ballrooms except the 17,469-square-foot Arizona Ballroom at The Westin La Paloma Resort & Spa.

Starr Pass could accommodate "walk-in" conferences with as many as 20,000 attendees.

Back in Tucson's official downtown, Marty McCune, the city's historic preservation officer, said Phase I of the Tucson Origins Heritage Park west of the Santa Cruz River and south of Congress Street, including replanting of the historic Mission Gardens area at the base of "A" Mountain, is expected to be completed by 2006.

The east portion of the park, a recreation of a portion of the 1770s-era Spanish colonial military presidio at the southwest corner of West Washington Street and North Court Avenue, is due for completion at the same time.

Both historic attractions are expected to generate traffic.

Gene Caywood, board chairman of Old Pueblo Trolley, said tentative plans call for extending the trolley tracks from the University of Arizona area to the Tucson Convention Center, west along the old Clark Street alignment under I-10, across a new rail bridge over the Santa Cruz River, and ending at the cultural park.

Recalling failed s attempts to rejuvenate the central city, Jonathan Walker, president and chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau, said this time "we are standing on the brink of some really wonderful things ... this (effort) has money behind it and some real hard effort by the City Manager's Office."