Saturday, October 16, 2004

The beginnings of a DYNAMIC relationship

TEYA VITU

Tucson Citizen

The JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort & Spa looks to become a downtown player when it opens at year's end.

The $200 million, 575-room resort isn't in downtown proper, tucked away as it is in crannies of the Tucson Mountains. But that doesn't stop Mike Kass from claiming close kinship with downtown, a 14-minute, 5 1/2-mile drive away from the resort at 3800 W. Starr Pass Blvd.

"Downtown's success is our success and vice versa," said Kass, Marriott Starr Pass director of sales and marketing.

The hotel will boast 88,000 square feet of meeting space, making it southern Arizona's largest convention venue. It is targeting large groups that have never met here because no facility was large enough.

Just how dynamic the relationship between Tucson's largest resort and downtown will be is yet to be seen.

"From everything I've heard, the impact could be incredible and people are unaware of how big it could be," said Doug Biggers, a managing member of Congress Street Investors LLC.

Biggers' group owns most of the two blocks on the south side of Congress Street from the Rialto Theater to Arizona Avenue. His group is overseeing renovation of the theater, 318 E. Congress St., which could reopen by early spring.

"Once the Fox (Theatre, downtown) is up and running and the Rialto is up and running, I would think they would tie directly to Starr Pass," Biggers said. "Convention goers may want to have a break and come downtown for the cultural offerings."

Mary Lou Focht, owner of Old Town Artisans Galleries and La Cocina Restaurant, believes Starr Pass guests will flood her seven shops at 201 N. Court Ave.

"To have that resort close to downtown is going to be good for us," she said. "They can have a day of shopping and lunch, especially the wives or spouses of whoever's attending meetings. Usually, when you travel, you want to bring home some gifts so we're a perfect location."

The link to downtown gives the resort a unique marketing angle.

"You can't go anywhere else in the world and find Old Town Artisans," Kass said. "You can't compare anywhere else with Suzana (Davila), who owns Cafe Poca Cosa, runs it and asks you how the food is. It's not a chain."

Marriott Starr Pass is not within the downtown Rio Nuevo revitalization district, but Sherry Stepleton, director of marketing at the Tucson Museum of Art, 140 N. Main Ave., links the two.

"It's one of the first indications of life for Rio Nuevo," Stepleton said. "It's up to us downtown to be able to realize the potential the Marriott brings."

Greg Shelko, director of the Rio Nuevo effort, calls Starr Pass "a catalyst for downtown development.

"By its mere existence, hundreds of thousands of people will look for other things to do. The top things for tourists to do is eat and shop. Tourists will come down here to find shopping and restaurants."

Ted Parks, owner of Barrio Food & Drink, 135 S. Sixth Ave., would like to see the Marriott's opening hasten changes such as making Broadway and Congress Street two-way routes through downtown and extending the Fourth Avenue trolley's southern reach.

"It think it will spur the city to do some real changes," Parks said. "It may spur things to happen quicker."