‘The Arizona’ Sells for $1.35 Million

‘The Arizona’ at 31-47 N 6th Avenue in Tucson sold for $1.35 million ($75 PSF). The 17,927 sq. ft. two-story building (built 1917) is on the National Historic Registry for buildings. The buyer was Dabdoub Investments (Marcel Dabdoub) of Nogales, AZ and the seller, Mary Williamson of Sunnyvale, CA who had owned the property since 2005.

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[mepr-show rules=”58038″]The Arizona Hotel is an end-row, two-story building with a basement, retail space on the ground floor and a former hotel, now art gallery, on the second floor. The slightly trapezoid property, the basement occupies the entire footprint of the building with four rooms. The ground floor is divided in to four retail spaces that have been leased to dozens of tenants since 1917, the most notable being the Wells Fargo Company and the most recent Monkey Burger that has moved out since selling.

In addition to the retail spaces, the ground floor has a stairway entrance to the second floor. Currently, the former hotel is composed of a lobby that was at one time an atrium that has been roofed over, 23 rooms and 10 bathrooms; the original hotel contained 36 rooms and six bathrooms. The original hotel also had a screened sleeping porch protruding almost 12 feet on the west facade of the second floor that was removed in 1990.

Although the architect is unknown, Henry O. Jaastad is credited as the architect for having done remodeling work to the facade of the building. It is clearly designed by someone versed in the Neoclassical Revival style, as shown in the division of the overall symmetrical façade into individual symmetrical bays, the triangular pediment, window ensembles with molded surrounds and decorative pilasters. The style and architectural integrity has been maintained throughout the years, with the ground floor used as retail space. Various tenant improvements, including minor modifications to the facade have taken place over the years, but nothing that violated the fundamental integrity of the building’s stylistic characteristics.

The history of the building is obscure. A bargain and sale deed, dated 1914, granted the land it was built on to Luke G. Radulovich who is referred to in the city directories of the time as a “capitalist”. Radulovich is renowned for the Radulovich Block (now demolished), a prominent, two-part commercial block at the northeast corner of Stone and Congress where he had a thriving business, “L.G. Radulovich & Co. Sanitary Plumbing, Crockery and Glassware”. Newspaper accounts indicate that in 1890, W.A. Julian, a competitor in Tucson’s plumbing business, bought out Radulovich for $25,000, and his newly merged business, W.A. Julian Company, dominated 85% of all plumbing, heating and roofing business in Tucson. By 1906, Radulovich and family had moved to Austria “after having made a small fortune here”, but returned in 1908 to invest as a partner in , and later president of, the Tucson Owl Drug Company, which eventually became one of Tucson’s prominent drugstores. By 1917, he is listed as “retired” and beginning in 1918 his city directory entry is associated with the Arizona Hotel. Radulovich does not appear again in any city references until his death in 1921.

The property sold with three retail tenants on the ground floor and an art gallery upstairs. We were unable to speak with the new owner to ask his intentions for the building, but since selling two of the retail spaces have become vacant.

There were no brokers involved in the transaction.[/mepr-show]