Tucson Is Changing And I Don't Know If I Like It

I have lived in Tucson my whole life, and I have loved every moment of it. There is so much culture and love in this community and I would hate to see all of that disappear because of all of the construction happening to change Fourth Avenue. There is so much history in this little town and I don't want that to change with the upgrades that are happening. There are so many students moving to Tucson because they picked the University of Arizona to go to college. Because the University of Arizona has more students every year moving to Tucson they need more places for students to stay off campus.

This is resulting in many highrises to be built, like The Mark and Aspire apartments. However, in a million years I would never think of Tucson to shut down local businesses on Fourth Avenue, like The Wreck, The Warehouse, Maloney's and The Flycatcher, for a new apartment complex. I don't want the memories that I have created all of these years to just be torn away with one swoop of a demolition ball; all of the fun times that I had with my friends at Maloney's would be swooped away.

People want Fourth Avenue to look more like a small New York City street, with a bunch of lights, fancy stores, and restaurants, overpriced bars. But it shouldn't come to that. Tucson is an amazing city with multiple dive bars, speakeasies and underrated restaurants that no one knows about. I don't want that history, of the town I have grown up in, to leave. I want these memories to stay; in my thoughts but also physically. Not only does the physical building being put up really tick me off, but the height of the building is absurd. They plan on building an apartment complex on the corner of Sixth Street and Fourth Avenue, which is where The Flycatcher was located, and making it SEVEN STORIES!

I understand the need to build more places to house students but we don't want this apartment complex to be the highlight of the avenue, especially since it has no historic value to bring to the table. This will also bring out many concerns with the amount of noise the students will make because let's be real we make a lot of noise.

Also, the amount of parking on Fourth Avenue, which is already limited, will be MORE restricted because of how much space they will be using for parking spots within the apartment complex. This project will take a long time, around two years, but it will come up faster than it seems. This place is my home and I feel like the historic values of what Tucson is all about will be ruined as time goes on. Whether it begins to look like a New York City street or Mill Avenue in Tempe it will become less of what I think of as being my home.