Submitted by Teya Vitu, Downtown Tucson Partnership writer

Monday, April 30th, 2012, 10:53am

Shopping is as easy as ever on 4th Avenue – and now you can check it out for yourself with a new 4 for 4th shopping card that will add up to a $4 discount.

The idea is to spend at least $4 at four shops, collect a sticker at each shop, and then turn in the card with four stickers at a participant and get a gift or $4 discount on your next purchase. Then you can start your next shopping card.

35 businesses are participating so far but more are expected to join in.

Kurt Tallis hears the rumblings from the metroplex about streetcar construction and road closures Downtown and on 4th Avenue. From where he sits at his 4th Avenue Merchants Association office, he wonders what all the fuss is about.

“You can drive on the Avenue from the underpass to 6th Street,” said Tallis, FAMA’s marketing/events director. “The only thing you can’t do is drive or park on the Avenue between 6th Street and University Boulevard.”

About the stretch between 6th and University: 4th Avenue is a pedestrian street, always has been, always will be, Tallis chants, and for now it’s exclusively pedestrian. No big deal, he insists.

Since April 20, a pedestrian crossover has been in place so people can cross the construction zone from Sky Bar to Martin’s Comida. A second pedestrian crossover is planned for the 6th-to-University stretch.

Tallis knows mere words can land on deaf ears. So he dreamed up the 4 for 4th shopping as an incentive for Tucsonans to venture down to 4rh Avenue and shop and dine away.

“Simply go into a participating merchant, spend a minimum of $4 and you get a shopping card,” Tallis said. “Once you’ve spent at least $4 at four different locations, take that card to a participating merchant and yet get either a gift or a $4 discount,” Tallis said. “And you will be eligible for a monthly $40 shopping spree.”

This is the first time FAMA has offered a shopping card.

“It’s rewarding our customers for rewarding us with their business. Hang with us during construction,” Tallis said.

If going to a store and getting a shopping card sounds too 20th century quaint, you can also download and print a shopping card here and FAMA will even give you the first sticker if you download a card.

Tallis also wants to tap the wallets of the captive audience: the 300 streetcar construction workers and the 150 construction workers on The District student housing complex. The Construction Worker card so far has 14 participating merchants, most of them offering a 10 percent discount.

“What a great source,” Tallis said. “They are right in our backyard. These people are here every day.”

The Association is working with ParkWise to encourage 4th Avenue visitors to park in the year-old Centro Garage east of the Rialto Theatre and right at the 4th Avenue Underpass.

ParkWise has proposed reducting Centro’s  flat-rate to $3 all day and all night Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and during the daylight hours on Thursday and Friday to 5 p.m. From 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the flat rate goes up o $5. Centro parking is free from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’ve been working with ParkWise for this pricing,” Tallis said. “We can train people to park there. The fallacy is there is no place to park. The fact is there are over 15,000 places to park Downtown and on 4th Avenue. The easiest place to park is the Centro Garage and numerous private parking lots available on the Avenue.”

The Centurions will once again fill the entire east end of Downtown with their trademark annual party to end all parties in the name of charity.

In fact, the “end all” wording is even in the event’s title: “The Great Masquerade Escapade, the Ball to End All.” Indeed, it’s a play on some interpretations of the Mayan Calendar indicating December 21, 2012 will be the end of the world.

Before then, however, some 6,000 people are expected for The Great Masquerade Escapade on May 19 from 6 p.m. to midnight.

This is the Centurions’ second year in a row to stage their big fundraiser Downtown.

“The renaissance is on Downtown. It really is growing up. That’s what drew us down there,” said Bill Hussey, event chairman for the Centurions.

Many of last year’s concepts are back (yes, the casino; yes, the band The Trip; yes, the VIP area), but don’t expect the same setup as last year.

The big new addition for 2012 is the Rialto Theatre.

The Rialto will stage three burlesque shows at 7:30, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., and whenever the burlesque acts leave the stage, The Trip concert outside will we projected on the Rialto screen. The Rialto will also have (temporary) tattoo booths and tarot card readers.

Since Mars and Beyond is filling the Rialto Exhibition Center, the casino this year moves outdoors to a large tent in the empty lot next to the Rialto Theatre (former Greyhound lot). Sixty dealers will be stationed at blackjack, craps and roulette tables. Winnings will be raffle tickets and t-shirts.

Raffle prizes include one-week stays at condos in San Carlos and Lake Tahoe, a 52-inch television, a six-ton air conditioning system (someone’s gonna have a cool summer), and loads of other stuff worth a total of $60,000.

The courtyard behind the Rialto Exhibition Center will have bars around the edges and seating in the middle. Tables and chairs will also be set up on Congress Street in front of Hotel Congress and in the parking lot behind HUB and Playground.

Tickets are $85 per person or $135 for a VIP ticket. Participants must be 21 or older. Tickets are available from a Centurion member or here.

The VIP area has been upgraded quite a bit since last year, when it was simply a rooftop venue. Since then, Playground Lounge has opened beneath the roof. This time, the VIP area includes Playground, the roof once again, and the Cinema Bar out back.

“The VIP area will have a higher level of wine, beer and liquor,” Hussey said. “We sold out the VIP area last year. We needed more space.”

Food will be by El Charro, served in the alley known as Arizona Avenue.

Fifth Avenue will be closed to traffic between Congress and Broadway, and the stage for The Trip concert will be at Fifth and Broadway.

The Centurions rented out the entire Hotel Congress for staging purposes and for Centurions to stay for the four-day span it will take to set up and take down the event.

“I’ll be there Thursday already,” Hussey said.

The Centurions were founded in 1969 and have an active membership of 100 prominent business and civic leaders. The group’s name honors the 100 years of service given Southern Arizona by Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital and refers to the Roman Centurion (a leader of 100 soldiers). Since its formation, The Centurions have raised close to $4 million dollars for St. Mary’s Hospital.

“This is a party people look forward to every year,” Hussey said. “People like the fact they are supporting a local organization, yet they let their hair down.”

The Centurions are the male auxiliary for St. Mary’s Hospital. The goal with “The Burlesque Escapade” is to raise $400,000 for extensive façade renovation at St. Mary’s.

This is the final year of a five-year, $2 million pledge the Centurions made for the St. Mary’s façade.

Today I asked a friend who owns a wonderful business on 4th Avenue how things were going since construction began last week for the modern streetcar project.

This project is going to impede easy access to and close much of the street and parts of downtown through January 2013. My friend shared her frustration, and a little of what she had heard from other shops in the area about how significantly the construction had affected their business so quickly.

This news was extremely disheartening to me, especially knowing that most of those businesses have been dealing with construction since last fall with a project to improve drainage in this popular shopping/restaurant/bar district.

Disheartening, also, because I love many of these businesses and know the owners and employees. Disheartening because I know that they have had to brave so many hard years before this with the closure of the 4th Avenue underpass and an economy barely hanging onto life support. Disheartening because I have just lost a business that was like my daughter to said economy.

I understand the value of community support – large and small – more than ever.

So, if you love Tucson and all the unique businesses that make us so darn special, it is more important than ever to support our mom-and-pop places on 4th Avenue and in Tucson’s downtown proper.

While these projects provide benefits in the future, they are really putting a strain on these establishments. These local businesses will be feeling the sting for quite some time, especially with the slow summer months right around the corner…a double blow. Businesses need our support to thrive … period.

It doesn’t matter how cool or delicious your offerings are, if people are not coming in and spending money the business will not survive. Please, please, please, do your very best to make it to the wonderful places in the areas of construction. Yes, it is a little more difficult to find parking and get around, but the impact it will have can change everything for these folks right now.

Make sure to go have a drink at Che’s or The District … eat at Martin’s or Delectables … shop at Zoe or PopCycle or Antigone … have coffee at Epic or Sparkroot (these are just a few suggestions, as the area is absolutely overflowing with super places to nosh, sip, shop, and smile).

Take the time to support Tucson and tell your friends to do the same. It will feel real good when your favorite spots downtown are still open next year when the dust settles.

I implore you to find the parking garages in downtown or the parking spots in the neighborhoods that don’t require permits and walk the extra couple of minutes to get to your favorite downtown spots.

Yes, it might be a hassle to navigate through the fenced areas of rubble and yellow dirt-movers, but make it an adventure. You might find a new street you didn’t know about, or admire a beautiful historic home. Your 10-minute hassle could mean an hour or two of pay for an employee, a night of decent sleep to a business owner, or a few more dollars towards rent for a hard working server.

Think of the impact just 20 people could make spending a few bucks at a local business every day. A little can go a long way when we all join forces.

From what I can tell, the city hasn’t ponied up for a promotional plan to help these businesses, so let’s get all grassroots and do it ourselves and tell our friends – every day – to do the same. Or, perhaps, contact our elected officials and encourage them to assist these tax-paying businesses with such a campaign to help Tucsonans and visitors easily patronize these places during this construction (for example, television ads and billboards pushing the area and outlining parking options).

If we don’t, we might just see overlay happen and the chains move into one of the areas that has managed to stay almost completely filled with the flavor of independent, local business for as long as I can remember.

This flavor is what makes Congress Street and 4th Avenue so special. This flavor is what keeps people loving this small desert city. This flavor is what separates us from the concrete jungle to the north. This flavor is Tucson.

If the powers that be and the planners that make change happen cannot see this and we don’t do our part to open their eyes, then we might need to prepare ourselves for the whole area to look like Cookie-Cutter Corporate-ville, USA, when all is said and done.

Tana Kelch is the former owner of the downtown artisans emporium Bohemia, which closed earlier this year

For More Information Visit:  http://clubcrawl.ning.com/

By Teya Vitu

A vision is taking shape for the next chapter of the 105-year old Steinfeld Warehouse, 101 West 6^th Street, which is now owned by the Warehouse Arts Management Organization.
A corridor may lead from the left door to the Steinfeld Warehouse’s courtyard in back.
Imagine as soon as the next couple years seeing artists living in the portion of Steinfeld along 6^th Street and commercial arts enterprises and public art studios along the 9^th Avenue section.
WAMO members and the Poster Frost Mirto architecture and urban planning firm have been collaborating over the past month or so to come up with a conceptual plan for the Steinfeld, which has sat empty since 2007.
Artists came to a basic consensus on January 26 after picking and choosing elements from three different conceptual plans presented by Post Frost Mirto.
The idea is to create a live-work environment where artists can live at the Steinfeld and have a dedicated studio space right in their apartments. WAMO also has the ambition for this to be affordable housing for artists.
The artists agreed they liked a row of nine apartments, each measuring 16 feet wide and 54 feet long.
The Poster Frost Mirto team had also drawn up two-level apartments with studios in the basement and apartments aligned with 6^th Street and wrapping around the courtyard. These two concepts each had 12 apartments and apartments on both sides of a corridor, but the artists favored the shoebox alignment.
The artists preferred the hardscape courtyard from the three concepts the architects proposed for the outdoor courtyard, which fills the Steinfeld’s southwest quadrant. Another courtyard design called for a residential garden and a third for a descending amphitheater.
But the artists felt the hardscape better allowed for public access and a greater variety of public events.
Poster Frost Mirto partners Corky Poster and John Mirto will present a further evolved conceptual plan at a public meeting at 10 a.m. February 11 at the Roy Place Building, 44 North Stone Avenue.
“We will have a hybrid design that can be evaluated and changed,” Poster said.