By Christina Fuoco-Karasinski
Grand jury indicts former assisted living facility operator
A Pima County Grand Jury indicted Jerone Davis for one count of fraud, and 14 counts of theft.
Davis operated several assisted living facilities in Pima County, under the name of Rancho Verde Care Homes.
Davis is accused of entering into long-term care contracts with 14 residents of the facilities between April and May 2017. Shortly after executing the long-term care contracts, Davis allegedly ceased operating the residential facilities and failed to return to the residents any of the funds for those unused portions of the long-term contracts. The indictment alleges Davis failed to return more than $100,000 to the residents.
Rio Nuevo OKs investment
in $72M Bautista project
Work on the Bautista is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2020 and construction is anticipated to take 22 months, says Adam Weinstein, president and CEO of The Gadsden Company.
The Rio Nuevo Board unanimously approved an investment in one of the district’s biggest projects.
The Bautista, a $72.5 million, mixed-use development near West Cushing Street and South Linda Avenue, will include 16,500 square feet of retail space, 253 residential units and a restaurant.
The development’s central plaza will allow visitors to walk to the Santa Cruz River, which now flows year-round. Other water features will harken back to canals associated with 18th-century farms that were in the area.
After Weinstein’s request, the board agreed to provide a $2.8 million investment as part of a Government Property Lease Excise Tax (GPLET). The deal includes $1.8 million in cash from Rio Nuevo and $1 million in sales tax rebates. This financing allows Gadsden to meet a December 31 deadline to qualify for Opportunity Zone funds used for tax-incentive developments.
Info: rionuevo.org.
PMG breaks ground for
St. Mary’s Medical Pavilion
PMB, a real estate owner and developer across the continuum of care, broke ground on the new class-A, 55,000-square-foot St. Mary’s Medical Pavilion on Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital campus in Tucson.
The $19 million project on the campus of the 400-bed acute-care hospital is already 60% preleased by Carondelet Medical Group, which will anchor the building with a 23,000-square-foot multispecialty practice. Other tenants will be The Oncology Institute of Hope and Innovation and Marana Health Clinic.
“The new St. Mary’s Medical Pavilion will add needed medical office space on the St. Mary’s Hospital campus,” says Ryan Harper, chief operating officer of Carondelet St. Mary’s Hospital.
“The new medical offices show a commitment to adding health provider options for the community and will increase the total square footage by 50% compared to the existing Century Medical Plaza.”
The new, two-story medical office building will be located adjacent to the existing 37,000-square-foot Century Medical Plaza, which PMB acquired from Healthcare Realty Trust in December 2018.
Century Medical Plaza is a functionally obsolete property located at 1701 W. St. Mary’s Road in Tucson on St. Mary’s Hospital campus. When St. Mary’s Medical Pavilion is completed in July, PMB will demolish the Century Medical Plaza and develop 275 surface parking spaces dedicated to servicing visitors to the new building. A number of existing Century Medical Plaza tenants will relocate into the new building upon completion.
Supervisors will fix all
county roads in 10 years
The Pima County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a new board policy that will use the general fund to pay for county capital infrastructure projects, including road repair in the unincorporated county.
The Pay-As-You-Go plan, or PAYGO, will provide $10 million next fiscal year for road repair, in addition to $16 million of Transportation Department funding. The Library and Flood Control districts and the Wastewater Department, which all have their own dedicated funding sources, already use PAYGO plans for their infrastructure needs.
The new policy, which the county administrator will use to craft a recommended county budget each year and is similar to one used by Maricopa County, will repair all of the county’s roads in 10 years and keep them in good repair, and fund hundreds of essential capital projects identified in the Integrated Infrastructure Plan over that same period. Initially, the majority of PAYGO funds will be used for road repair. Once the county is caught up on road repair, PAYGO will primarily fund Infrastructure Plan projects.
The funding for PAYGO will come from a percentage of the growth in the overall county tax base and recapturing a portion of the taxes no longer needed to pay off bonds, while still reducing the combined county property tax rate over time.
“This PAYGO plan will provide us the funding to make sure our critical infrastructure is maintained and that we’re meeting the needs of a growing population, while at the same time providing tax relief to county taxpayers,” says County Administrator Chuck Huckleberry.
“It is a win-win plan that still gives the board the flexibility to determine funding priorities every year.”
