🏗️ Building for Tomorrow: Why Pima Community College's Demolition is a Step Forward

A fresh perspective on how educational growth outweighs architectural nostalgia. Examining the court ruling that prioritizes learning spaces over outdated structures.

Dec 20, 2024

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers
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Pima Community College 🏫 is being allowed to tear down old buildings 🏚️ so they can build new classrooms 🏗️ and spaces for students to learn 📚. A court decided that making sure students have the best chance at education 🎓 is more important than keeping old buildings that aren't being used anymore. This means they can create better places for learning 🏆 and help more kids succeed! 🌟

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🗝️ Takeaways

🏫 Educational Growth Over Aesthetic Preservation: New buildings create more learning opportunities for students.
🔄 Adapting to Modern Needs: The court ruling emphasizes that cities must evolve and support current educational demands.
💰 Investing in the Future: Clearing legal hurdles for educational development showcases a commitment to forward-thinking solutions.
🙅‍♂️ Preservation that Impacts Communities: Holding onto old buildings can hinder equally important progress for underrepresented groups.

PCC Statement on Drachman Properties Demolition Injunction Decision

We are pleased that the court has confirmed that state historic preservation laws do not apply to local governments like Pima College or College decisions about the Drachman properties. We are also pleased that the court refused to issue the injunction and provided plaintiffs with only a limited time to seek review of the court’s decision. While we respect the right of opponents to pursue further legal action, ongoing litigation will delay our efforts to address critical safety and security issues on the site and divert taxpayer resources away from our educational mission and the students we serve.

The College has been transparent and diligent in determining the best path forward for these properties. We thoroughly explored preservation and redevelopment options, issued a Request for Proposals to attract viable private-sector partners, and engaged extensively with community stakeholders. Despite these good-faith efforts, no financially sustainable or mission-aligned alternative emerged.

Every dollar spent defending against extended legal challenges is a dollar not invested in our students and community. We remain committed to ensuring safety, fiscal responsibility, and the prudent use of public funds, and we continue to seek a resolution that allows us to uphold these values and advance our educational mission.

🚧 From Wrecking Ball to Classroom: How PCC is Redefining Education

Listen up, preservation purists and architectural sentimentalists: sometimes, progress comes with a wrecking ball, and that's not just okay—it's necessary.

The recent court ruling in the Drachman condemned property case is not just a legal decision; it also makes a powerful statement about prioritizing educational infrastructure over architectural nostalgia.

Pima Community College (PCC) isn't just tearing down buildings—they're constructing futures.

The Architectural Autopsy: Context Matters

Those mid-century modern motels? Sure, they're cute. Charming, even. But let's be brutally honest: charm doesn't educate students. Infrastructure does.

The court's decision is a surgical strike against bureaucratic preservation that would otherwise handcuff institutional growth. By ruling that state historic preservation laws don't apply to local governments like PCC, the judicial system has essentially said: "Your educational mission trumps architectural tourism."

Why This Matters: Breaking Down the Bulldozer's Blueprint

Educational Expansion Over Aesthetic Preservation PCC isn't just building structures; it's building opportunities. Each square foot of new development represents potential classrooms, laboratories, and learning spaces that could transform lives. In the brutal arithmetic of social mobility, educational infrastructure always wins over preserving aesthetic relics.
Systemic Flexibility in Urban Development This ruling represents more than a single demolition. It's a critical statement about institutional adaptability. Cities aren't museums; they're living ecosystems that must evolve to serve contemporary needs.
Economic Pragmatism Meets Social Responsibility By clearing legal obstacles to institutional growth, the court has effectively said, "Your future matters more than your past." In a capitalist system that often commodifies education, this is radical compassion.

The Preservation Paradox: When Nostalgia Becomes Oppression

Let's be crystal clear: fetishizing old buildings isn't preservation. It's a form of systemic obstruction that disproportionately impacts educational institutions serving diverse, often marginalized communities.

Those mid-century motels? They're not sacred texts. They're just buildings that happened to survive a few decades. And in a world where educational access remains stratified and unequal, holding onto architectural relics is nothing short of intellectual gentrification.

The Preservation Puppet Show: A Tale of Opportunism and Empty Activism

Enter Demion Clinco – the poster child for performative preservation and municipal manipulation. Let's pull back the curtain on this little drama of architectural opportunism that would make even the most cynical political operative slow-clap.

Picture this bureaucratic ballet: Clinco, wearing his preservation hat, helps condemn the Tucson Inn. A move that might seem noble to the untrained eye – except it's less about historical salvation and more about a calculated real estate chess move.

By lowering the property's value through condemnation, our intrepid board member conveniently positioned himself to swoop in and purchase the property with taxpayer dollars meant for – oh, I don't know – actual education?

The Grift of Preservation: When Neon Signs Trump Student Safety

While Clinco and his preservation posse wax poetic about mid-century motel aesthetics, let's talk about the real urban landscape. Our downtown PCC campus isn't a postcard-perfect preservation project – it's a daily survival challenge. Frequent safety alerts about campus dangers, plummeting enrollment, and state education funding being gutted like a bargain-bin budget – these are the real architectural challenges.

But sure, let's talk about saving some neon signs.

These preservation warriors—predominantly white and privileged—love to romanticize urban decay from the safety of their cars. They are drive-by historians and performative activists who pontificate about architectural heritage while studiously avoiding the actual lived experiences of students and neighbors navigating daily urban challenges.

The Irony Industrial Complex: Preservation as Privilege

It's a particular brand of liberal performativity: fetishizing historical structures while remaining comfortably disconnected from the communities they impact. These are the same voices who wax lyrical about community preservation while ensuring that the community remains firmly preserved in economic stagnation.

The new PCC board – mercifully rid of Clinco's motel management fantasies – understands a fundamental truth these preservation romantics seem to have missed: Education infrastructure matters more than Instagram-worthy architectural relics.

Conclusion: Progress Prevails

The court didn't just side with PCC. It sided with potential, with possibility, with the radical notion that educational institutions should have the autonomy to design their own futures.

So to the preservation chorus: your nostalgia is noted. But it won't stop educational progress for underrepresented minorities in higher education.

Demolition isn't destruction. Sometimes, it's just another word for opportunity.

Progress doesn't pause for pretty signs. It builds futures.

P.S. To Clinco:

PCC is not in the business of condemned motel management. Repeat. Yes, this is your fault for trying to use your privileged position as a board member for a college for your conflict-of-interest (see below) pet projects.

The irony is too great: By purchasing the property using your position at PCC, you exempted it from state historic preservation laws!

Conflict of interest filed by then-board member Gonzales regarding the purchase of these hotels for historic preservative by the recent Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation CEO, PCC board member Demion Clinco: