A 5-square-mile area straddling Interstate 10 could soon be designated as Marana's official downtown, based on a plan in the works by town officials.
Marana planning director Kevin Kish gave a presentation to the Marana Town Council March 25 on the prospect of creating what is being called the Single Central Business District. The district would be an expansion of the town's Main Street concept that would take in both existing business areas and land the town would like to see be centered on commerce, Kish said.
"It should be where people work, live, shop and play," Kish said.
The area being considered stretches from north of West Marana Road down to south of West Tangerine Road, extending both east and west of I-10 to take in the Marana Municipal Complex, the soon-to-be relocated Marana Health Center and other areas that are planned for commercial or professional use.
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The proposed area also includes the north end of North Sandario Road, which is considered Marana's unofficial business district.
"I like the look," Marana Councilman Jon Post said. "It's great if people can drive to one location and then just meander around and do a bunch of shopping. It's nice to have a concept to say what we'd ultimately like it to look like."
No timetable has been set on establishing the district, or what specifically would go into planning for it once it would be approved, though town planner Paul Popelka believes a tentative plan could be presented to the council for a vote within the next month.
"We're now beginning to make this happen," he said.
The Single Central Business District could include a variety of land uses, all of which would lend themselves to the kind of smart growth mandated by Gov. Janet Napolitano in her Growing Smarter initiatives, Kish said. "We have a very eclectic area here," he said. "Establishing this should help us with creating the downtown Main Street area."
Much of the land within the proposed district has already been entitled for specific uses, ranging from high-density residential to commercial.
Kish said nothing about whether the district being formed would get in the way of those entitlements, but Post wonders if developers who own the entitled land will feel they're being encouraged to build things a certain way.
"It's hard to tell landowners exactly what is supposed to be there and what it's going to look like," Post said. "It's really hard to say, 'Hey, this is what you're going to build.' "
Post believes one of the first pieces of any new business district should be improving the existing business area along Sandario Road, which in the 1970s was considered Marana's main drag.
"One of the first things we need to do is spruce up Sandario," Post said. "A lot of those businesses have been there many, many years, and I'm sure they were hoping to take advantage of Marana's growth. But the town's growing around them."
The Sandario business owners have been fighting the town for more than a year to keep their strip of commerce alive. The two sides worked many hours last summer and fall on a plan that would keep Sandario from being cut off from traffic flow due to the planned realignment and widening of Marana Road to accommodate future residential neighborhoods slated to go in along Marana Road.
"It's better for everyone if we have that district," said Kent Crotts, owner of a Napa Auto Parts store that has been on Sandario Road for more than 30 years.
"Sandario looks like a 1970s-type street, and it needs to look like the 2000s the way the city is growing."
