Residents committed to fitness and health - and businesses that serve them - are injecting new life into downtown Tucson.
The trend began with Meet Me at Maynards, a regular Monday night walk/run that routinely attracts more than 200 people.
Adding to downtown's wellness appeal are three businesses that opened there in the past year:
• In October Tucson-based Xoom opened its third smoothie shop, moving into the One North Fifth building at 245 E. Congress St., around the corner from Maynards Market and Kitchen in the renovated historic train depot at 400 N. Toole Ave.
• Three months later, Yoga Oasis opened its third location, a few doors down from the downtown Xoom.
• And on Dec. 1, Tucsonan Susan Frank opened 02 Modern Fitness, a fitness studio that focuses on spinning - indoor cycling classes on stationary bicycles. The studio is at 186 E. Broadway.
People are also reading…
"A little health-and-wellness vortex has started here, and it has cropped up in a true organic way," said Xoom owner Ari Shapiro, whose business has a smoothie named for 02 Modern Fitness: the X02M.
"I've watched downtown go through a lot of iterations, a lot of false starts. This is real," Shapiro said. "A bunch of smaller dominoes have started to fall, and that will lead to the revitalization everyone has wanted."
Meet Me at Maynards
"I don't live downtown but I do get tired of reading all these negative things about it, that nobody wants to go there," said event organizer and founder Jannie Cox, the former chief executive officer of the Carondelet Foundation.
"There are neat residential areas, history and architecture, really beautiful things that people ought to see," Cox said. "It's more than a social run - it's something to show people there really are things to do downtown other than go to traffic court."
The event, which will celebrate its first anniversary April 12, begins and ends at Maynards Market and Kitchen, a store and restaurant in the renovated train depot at 400 N. Toole Ave. Participants may choose between two-, three- and four-mile routes that wind through downtown streets and across the Snake Bridge.
"The best way to see your city is from the comfort of your own shoes," said 59-year-old Julie Kluge, who has walked in every Meet Me at Maynards event and now helps Cox with organizing. "There's history downtown and the route is perfect for seeing it - galleries, the art museum, it's all the best Tucson has to offer."
Contractor Ron Grillo has lived in Tucson since 1992 but his home is on the east side and he rarely used to go downtown. But he found out about Meet Me at Maynards through a Meetup.com group and has since been sampling different downtown-area restaurants after each event.
Grillo, 46, also found romance - he's now dating fellow walker Lori Shoulders, 44, a construction estimator.
"I appreciate the downtown neighborhoods we get to see -Â I like that area with all the colorful houses," said runner Jessica Mandig, a 23-year-old University of Arizona senior and Tucson native who recently ran the three-mile event with her mom, sisters and dog.
"Downtown is a lot nicer than it used to be. There's a different vibe with businesses, like the spinning place."
02 Modern Fitness
Susan Frank had so much faith in downtown Tucson that, in the throes of a national and local recession, she decided to open a spin studio at South Fifth Avenue and East Broadway.
"I believe Tucson is becoming a vibrant urban center," said Frank, who also lives downtown.
02 Modern Fitness continues to add new classes and offers its own version of a health-oriented night life - evening classes when the lights are set to nightclub dark and participants pay $5 to spin to dance-club tunes under the rotating sparkle of a disco ball.
Spinning - exercising on a stationary bicycle - is the hallmark of the new fitness venue. But Frank also offers a boot camp and classes in Pilates, and yoga, including a yoga/spin combination class. She's paired her studio with a bike-fitting business - Fitworks Cycling Support, owned by her partner, Kurt Rosenquist.
Frank moved back to Tucson from Los Angeles seven years ago. The University of Arizona graduate had previously worked in interiors and product design. She sees downtown businesses as building community together rather than competing. She also teaches yoga at the Downtown Yoga Oasis, for example.
Yoga Oasis
Yoga Oasis owner Darren Rhodes has lived in Tucson since 1995 and it wasn't until the last year that he felt a palpable change in downtown.
"When I saw the space in the One North Fifth building and then saw what the city did with the Fourth Avenue underpass, it was, wow, there is real magic to this," he said. "I just felt that it could happen and that it would be a great thing - how cool to see people walking down Congress with yoga mats and doing yoga in the center of the city next to the bus station."
In August the city reopened the North Fourth Avenue underpass after two years of construction. Rhodes has also been buoyed by the city's recent announcement of plans for a four-mile streetcar route running from University Medical Center through the University of Arizona, down Fourth Avenue, through downtown and on to the west side of Interstate 10.
Yoga Oasis has two other locations, 2631 N. Campbell Ave. and 7858 E. Wrightstown Road.
"For many years we've been interested in a downtown studio but it wasn't until we saw the space and just felt a synergy that something happened," Rhodes said.
Xoom
Xoom owner Ari Shapiro moved to Tucson from San Francisco in 2000 and opened his first smoothie shop in midtown, on East Speedway near North Country Club Road. The shop specializes in pure fruit smoothies with no added sugar.
He said he strategized how to expand his business by listening to his customers. Shapiro likes to keep "an ear tuned to the roar" - "That's a Bruce Springsteen quotation. I was staying in tune to changes afoot," he said.
Shapiro's other location is at 6222 E. Speedway. He closed a location on North Campbell Avenue near Glenn Street to make the move downtown.
"There were a lot of requests for Rita Ranch, Oro Valley, but downtown is the one that really spoke to me," he said. "A lot of people thought it was an incredible risk, with all the negative attention on Rio Nuevo (the city's downtown-revitalization project). But this is about small businesses taking small incremental steps in the right direction."
More examples of downtown Tucson's commitment to wellness, Page D6
IF YOU GO
• What: The "Rock and Stroll" Meet Me at Maynards first anniversary celebration.
• When: Monday, April 12.
• Time: The first wave of walkers will leave at 5:30 pm. from the front of Maynards, 400 N. Toole Ave. Check-in is 4:30 p.m. The Mountain 92.9 will do a live remote from 4 to 6 p.m.
• Activities: Fifteen bands will perform along the route. An after-party and barbecue will be held on the Maynards patio. There will also be a vendor fair.
• Details: Parking is recommended in the garage at Pennington Street and Sixth Avenue. There is a flat rate of $2 after 4:30 p.m. Street parking is free after 5 p.m. The first 300 Meet Me at Maynards returnees and the first 200 new participants will get vouchers to use to tip bands and make purchases at several downtown businesses.
Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at 573-4134 or sinnes@azstarnet.com
