The District Tavern looking to relocate because of rent increase.
  • Photo courtesy of The District Tavern Facebook page.
  • The District Tavern looking to relocate due to rent increase in 2015.

District Tavern owner Noël Chester tells The Range this afternoon that the downtown tavern will celebrate its 10th anniversary by relocating in 2015 after she learned that her rent would be going up next year.

Chester said that she couldn’t justify paying $28 a square foot for an establishment that lacks air conditioning, water pressure and a walk-in freezer. The bar suffered a 30 percent decrease in business since the closing of Fourth Avenue underpass, fencing down East Congress for the streetcar construction that began in 2012.

But she’s still profitable and hopes to continue to be successful somewhere in South Tucson, where rents are lower.

“I’m in the black and I’m blessed,” Chester said.

Chester has expressed unhappiness with the city and foreseen the day would have to relocate.

Chester says establishments like The District, that cater to a certain demographic downtown, are being “systematically decimated.”

The building is owned by Scott Stiteler, who did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

This article appears in Jan 16-22, 2014.

14 replies on “Downtown’s District Tavern Looking to Relocate in 2015”

  4. I didn’t understand what she meant by that either. Is she saying there’s less people downtown? Less demographics? (?)

  6. Someone needs to stop guys like Stiteler from owning whole blocks and gutting the businesses who kept Congress street alive during the hard times. And what would District Tavern get in return for raised rent? Probably nothing.

  7. It’s not much of a stretch to understand her meaning. Places like Proper and $15 a burger establishments bring in a higher paying clientele (business people, rich college students). Rent goes up, struggling businesses relocate, more posh places move in. Then we had the streetcar construction and various development deals… It’s a certain type of gentrification I suppose, and I doubt it is ever done accidentally. Hence: “systematically decimated.”

  8. I like the new look of congress. This bar has been a blight on the street for too long. Priced out of the market is exactly what is happening and I’m glad.

  9. Typical urban re-development event progression: lure businesses downtown in the beginning stages of revival, then sacrifice them at a later time when things start to pick up. Basically used like so many dishrags.

  10. In the end, Scott Stiteler is a wicked, ruthless little weasel. That’s all that can be said. It’s just the truth.

  11. no one that lives here or opens a business here needs to work anyway??? … sound like Pearl of Portland?
    What a sweet culture we have to look forward to! I’m oh so happy to have been a part of what made this awesomeness possible! More trolley!!! PLEASE!!!
    Go Tucson!

  13. Well, shit. I confess I was big on the idea of seeing downtown grow a LITTLE livelier, and a few of the additions are positive ones (such as Empire Pizza, as it had been a while since slices were available downtown) but these entrepreneurs (why do we inevitably see that term as 100% positive?) are making it downright expensive and intolerable. What’s worse is that the people who avoided downtown like it was a leper colony for decades and complained about it are now flocking to it and thumbing their noses at everyone who’s been spending their time and money there for years, giving the attitude that “WE’RE here now…time and the universe are born with OUR arrival, so you and your cozy, cheap dive bars and unpretentious music spaces can go shove off because we need more duck confit and cocktails with St. Germain for rich foodies!” I fucked up. Money does not always bring improvement, but money is what these people are after. I should have seen this coming, and should have tempered my enthusiasm.

    There is little worse downtown, and no better example of the ruin that money can bring than the Playground. That element of douchebag simply did not go downtown up until a couple of years ago. And downtown was the better place for it. That element really didn’t even go to 4th Avenue much, except for O’Malley’s, Maloney’s, Isla Tiburon and whatever incarnation of what was in the building behind O’Malley’s. But the frat-douche/”phat kash” set pretty much stayed confined to those places or else went to Dirtbag’s, or the Keys, or other semi-northside place. Now the “upscale douche” has made downtown its home, sadly. On just one Saturday night I saw three fights IN THE STREET as the bars let out. That was never the case before the frat/daddy’s money types invaded. The teenage punk rawk kids who used to flock to Skrappy’s never behaved themselves that poorly.

    I always thought Tucson was too sensible to allow any part of it to turn into Mill Avenue, but it’s happening. But wait! Even Mill Avenue doesn’t have a trolley to drag students the easily-walked or biked distances from campus to funland. After years of thinking Tucson was a pretty unique place that marched to its own beat, it seems now that Tucson just might win the race to the bottom after all!!!

  14. Its Tucson. All the neon can’t outshine the poverty flood lights ten blocks south. Like all speculation, the downtown bubble will burst.

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