TUCSON, Arizona -- The Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) 2015 approved sale of Townsend Middle School closed this week at 2120 N Beverly Ave. in Tucson to Pima Medical Institute (PMI) for $5.63 million. The site will be developed into a medical educational campus with a mix of medical office and small retail use on the excess land.
The buyer, Pima Medical Institute has been helping students change their lives for 40 years, providing training and education for careers in health care. Pima Medical Institute offers certificate programs, associate degree programs and bachelor's degree programs. Students get the training needed for a new career in less than a year, earn an associate degree in less than two years, or earn a bachelor's degree in health care.
Soon after PMI became the successful bidder, Jim Marian of Chapman Lindsey Commercial Real Estate and Linda Morales of The Planning Center began the planning process tasked with creating a vision for the campus. Together with the neighborhood, they developed a concept that retains a majority of the 102,741-square-foot school building, and redirects traffic onto Craycroft, away from the neighborhoods.
The existing ball-fields were being heavily used by local soccer clubs that had funded the lighting of the fields. So a plan, in cooperation with the City of Tucson and County Parks and Recreations, was put into place to relocate these clubs to other fields at Booth-Fickett Middle School for the clubs to continue there.
Neighbors were also concerned about losing the ability to walk the school grounds in the evening and on weekends, so the development team proposed a walking path through the site that would continue neighborhood access to the new medical education campus.
Since the site is larger than needed, PMI formed a joint venture with Craig Masters and Walter Hoge of Rio West to develop a portion of the property into a mix-use medical office and small retail use that would enhance the medical education campus.
The sale is the largest yet for a closed campus by the Tucson Unified School District governing board. Proceeds from these sales must be used for specific purposes such as to pay off bonds, reduce taxes, improve existing schools, or to purchase new school sites.
For additional information on this transaction, Marian can be reached at 520.747.4000 and Morales can be contacted at 520.623.6146.