Tucson Opinion: Uncovering Midtown Tucson's midcentury treasures

Tucson’s midtown neighborhoods are treasures finally being uncovered by the shifting sands of time. Now, much more than “time” has led to the rising popularity of these homes, and “sand” is definitely not the only thing shifting in Tucson’s favor. The homebuyer is changing and it won’t be long before some of our midtown neighborhoods become real estate darlings akin to Phoenix’s so-called “Arcadia-Lite” or Denver’s Arapahoe Acres.

While you might have grown up shoved in the back of the Oldsmobile with your four siblings, millennials grew up with an entire row of seats dedicated to each kid in the SUV. Now in their adulthood, they crave efficiency over capacity, and studies show millennials aren’t buying the sprawling homes previous generations demanded from builders.

Smaller homes mean less dead space, clutter, furniture and cooling costs. Given that many of the architects in the 1950s and ’60s were actually building homes designed with desert efficiency in mind, most of these brick homes are only a few upgrades away from being extremely energy-efficient. Not to mention those flat roof lines are just begging for solar panels.

Functionality is not the only reason why midtown is set to take off. If you haven’t noticed, midcentury architecture and design are back. While the sprawling haciendas of Tucson’s foothills may be our market’s ace-in-the-hole, it’s the midcentury ranch style home that we have in spades. It doesn’t take much to doll up these homes, thanks to their innate minimalist midcentury aesthetic. With some landscaping love and a fresh coat of trim paint, these gems really shine.

Inside, your redesign budget goes further thanks to the smaller square footage. When done right, these homes ooze with individuality and character, and lovers of the midcentury look won’t have to change much since they’re buying the original thing.

It wasn’t that long ago that midtown was Tucson’s hustling, bustling suburb. A quick glance back at original marketing materials for midtown’s neighborhoods reveal many were advertised as either the new luxurious place to live or the perfect place for a growing family. As the demographic of the homebuyer shifts more toward millennials — who are starting or establishing young families — these neighborhoods are a perfect fit because they were designed with families in mind; several even have small parks either within them or adjacent to them.

Living in midtown also affords you the entire city. You’re no more than 15 minutes away from downtown, or the countless fantastic local shops, restaurants, coffee roasters, breweries or bars scattered across the city. That may not mean much to you, but it does to the next generation of homebuyer, giving all new meaning to “location, location, location.” This inward migration will give some of our forgotten retail and restaurant corridors new life, further strengthening the draw to midtown.

Fearing Tucson would lose its quiet, scenic and culturally rich heartbeat, folks held our local economy back from becoming a booming job market for decades. Ironically, now in the era of remote jobs, it will be those very efforts that will make Tucson attractive to people who can now bring their own jobs with them. For some, that means they can finally move back home to Tucson. For others, it means a whole new adventure in the Southwest. Either way, there is a vibrancy in midtown, an energy this city has been missing for a while, and it’s about to be uncovered.