plans advance for redevelopment of historic benedictine monastery in tucson

Members of the Tucson City Council may provide a final vote of approval later this month to plans calling for the redevelopment of the city’s treasured Benedictine Monastery.

That ornate structure, completed in 1940 and located at 800 N. Country Club Road, was for decades the home to the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.

But after the remaining sisters moved out of the facility in 2017, the property was purchased for $5.9 million by Tucson developer Ross Rulney.

In a series of public meetings, Rulney has offered his conception of how the 6-acre midtown site should be repurposed.

The plan that will be reviewed and voted upon by the Tucson City Council calls for keeping in place the main monastery structure, which is also distinguished for its Spanish Revival style of architecture, and building residential units around it.
Those units, in three to five-story buildings, would go up on either side of the monastery, as well as to its rear.

An earlier proposal to turn the main monastery building into a boutique hotel appears to have been discarded, while a new proposal may well see the construction of a number of affordable residential units on the site.

By Garry Boulard

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