Tucson's first shopping center, Broadway Village, is on the verge of big changes that could potentially feature a gourmet grocer, farmers market and several new shops and boutiques.
The popular Midtown center, at East Broadway and Country Club Road, is well known for its red-brick Spanish Colonial Revival-style design.
Broadway Village has been a stable retail hub for 70 years. But the center recently lost two longtime tenants as Table Talk closed down its location there after 32 years, and the bookstore Clues Unlimited moved to a new site at the beginning of the month.
Craig Finfrock, one of Broadway Village's owners, said the turnover is unfortunate, but it also opens the door for reinventing Broadway Village as a destination that caters to high-end shopping.
Finfrock said plans call for a second restaurant to complement Elle Wine Country Restaurant; a gourmet grocer; coffee shop; jewelry store; and possibly several new boutiques or a yoga studio.
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He expects the changes to take one to three years.
"The reason it could take longer is that we have to move some tenants (to different space within the center), and that takes time," he said. "Obviously we would have liked to not be in this recession; it's set everything back, but the coming out of this recession will help determine how quickly we are able to make this happen."
Finfrock's group, Commercial Retail Investors, and 4-D Properties bought Broadway Village in January 2008 for about $5 million from its original owners, the Murphey family.
Catalina Foothills developers John and Helen Murphey built Broadway Village, and renowned Swiss-born architect Josias Joesler designed it.
Talks are also in the works for a farmers market at Broadway Village as a way to increase foot traffic, particularly from nearby neighborhoods.
"The people that live around there really have given us a strong thumbs-up on that concept," Finfrock said.
And to celebrate Broadway Village's history, he said there will be a 70th-anniversary party sometime this summer.
While these events may bring more foot traffic, they come at a time when Broadway Village has lost several key tenants.
In an interview in February, Table Talk's owner, Robert Mayerfeld, said he was closing his location there because he felt retail sales in general along that Midtown section of Broadway, particularly around the El Con Mall area, had declined.
"We have other tenants that are doing fabulous," Finfrock said. "We knew that there were retailers who were not doing so well before we even bought the shopping center, and then the recession exacerbated their problems and really kind of put them over the edge."
The planned changes appear to be attracting new tenants.
Alexis DeMaio, owner of Avenue Boutique, a high-end women's fashion store on the East Side, recently signed a five-year lease at Broadway Village.
"I love that center. I love the charm, and it just has a great Tucson vibe about it," she said. "The plans that they have for it sound great, and the street visibility and the space that I am taking is great."
DeMaio hopes to be moved into her new location by July or August, and said she hopes that Tucson responds to the idea of local shops and local owners.
Robert Stowe, owner of the Spanish Colonial furniture store Zócalo in Broadway Village, said he also has high hopes for the planned changes.
"I think that would be nice, trying to do a little more neighborhood atmosphere," he said.
To make the space available for a gourmet grocer, Stowe would probably have to move his shop to a different location at the center, something he is not particularly keen about.
"I like my space better for sure," he said, adding that he has three years left on his lease.
But he thinks Broadway Village could once again be a shopping destination in Tucson.
"They are going to make it a more lively place with more traffic," he said.