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Real Life Stories
Profile: Curley School Artisan Lofts Help Revive a Tiny Desert Town
Program: A $200,000 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) subsidy used to preserve an abandoned school and repurpose the building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to create live/work apartments for low-income artists.
Partners: Bank of Tucson and International Sonoran Desert Alliance
For more than a century, an open pit copper mine was the economic engine of Ajo, Arizona, located just forty miles north of the Mexican border. When the mine closed it was devastating not just to Ajo, but also to the surrounding communities of Why, Lukeville, and the western villages of the Tohono O’doham Nation.
Without the mine, the only new economic activity to speak of was coming from retirees seeking a warm place to winter–and from a smattering of artists who appreciated the quiet majesty of the desert landscape and the low cost of living.
 Built in 1919 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ajo’s Curley School closed before the mine did, its students relocated to a new facility when aging classrooms fell into disrepair. Its future looked bleak until the International Sonoran Desert Alliance’s Executive Director Tracy Taft saw a unique opportunity to preserve the imposing Spanish Colonial-style buildings at the top of the plaza—and to begin to transform the tiny town into a destination for cultural tourism.
“It was an empty shell crumbling to nothing when Tracy came in to my office and said, ‘I want to build an artist colony in the old Curley School,’” recalls Gary Bachman, Pima County Community Development and Housing Planner. “I said you want to do what? Where?” Once convinced that the proposed project could reanimate not just the school but also the economically depressed town, Bachman was sold, and his enthusiasm was key to generating additional political support and funding for ISDA’s ambitious plan.
ISDA designs and implements projects intended to protect and enrich the environment, culture, and economy of the Sonoran Desert. “The best way to preserve the desert is to reuse what’s already here,” Jim Wilcox, Senior Project Manager at ISDA explains. And the Curley School was ready-made for repurposing, with just the right structural qualities for creating loft-like live-work spaces that could give struggling artists room to develop their talents without worrying about how to make the rent.
“The building had such good bones,” says sculptor Zoë Walsh, who lives and works in one of the larger units, where an abundance of natural light streams in from the high, wide windows. “And we artists love the whole rehab thing.” For applicants who meet U.S. Department of Urban Housing and Development guidelines for low-income renters, rents are based on a sliding scale of affordability.
Curley School’s artist residents are also offered an opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills to help them market their work and manage the business of being a working artist. On the town plaza, residents staff a gallery/gift shop where they and other local artists can display and sell their work.
The Curley School Artisan Lofts project is the centerpiece of ISDA’s creative approach to preservation and economic transformation in Ajo. The plans were ambitious; the results to date are inspiring. Says Bachman about the success of the Curley School project, “Now when people say something’s too difficult, I just say: we did it in Ajo.”
Back to Real Life Stories
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Real Life Stories
Profile: Curley School Artisan Lofts Help Revive a Tiny Desert Town
Program: A $200,000 Affordable Housing Program (AHP) subsidy used to preserve an abandoned school and repurpose the building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, to create live/work apartments for low-income artists.
Partners: Bank of Tucson and International Sonoran Desert Alliance
For more than a century, an open pit copper mine was the economic engine of Ajo, Arizona, located just forty miles north of the Mexican border. When the mine closed it was devastating not just to Ajo, but also to the surrounding communities of Why, Lukeville, and the western villages of the Tohono O’doham Nation.
Without the mine, the only new economic activity to speak of was coming from retirees seeking a warm place to winter–and from a smattering of artists who appreciated the quiet majesty of the desert landscape and the low cost of living.
Built in 1919 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Ajo’s Curley School closed before the mine did, its students relocated to a new facility when aging classrooms fell into disrepair. Its future looked bleak until the International Sonoran Desert Alliance’s Executive Director Tracy Taft saw a unique opportunity to preserve the imposing Spanish Colonial-style buildings at the top of the plaza—and to begin to transform the tiny town into a destination for cultural tourism.
“It was an empty shell crumbling to nothing when Tracy came in to my office and said, ‘I want to build an artist colony in the old Curley School,’” recalls Gary Bachman, Pima County Community Development and Housing Planner. “I said you want to do what? Where?” Once convinced that the proposed project could reanimate not just the school but also the economically depressed town, Bachman was sold, and his enthusiasm was key to generating additional political support and funding for ISDA’s ambitious plan.
ISDA designs and implements projects intended to protect and enrich the environment, culture, and economy of the Sonoran Desert. “The best way to preserve the desert is to reuse what’s already here,” Jim Wilcox, Senior Project Manager at ISDA explains. And the Curley School was ready-made for repurposing, with just the right structural qualities for creating loft-like live-work spaces that could give struggling artists room to develop their talents without worrying about how to make the rent.
“The building had such good bones,” says sculptor Zoë Walsh, who lives and works in one of the larger units, where an abundance of natural light streams in from the high, wide windows. “And we artists love the whole rehab thing.” For applicants who meet U.S. Department of Urban Housing and Development guidelines for low-income renters, rents are based on a sliding scale of affordability.
Curley School’s artist residents are also offered an opportunity to learn entrepreneurial skills to help them market their work and manage the business of being a working artist. On the town plaza, residents staff a gallery/gift shop where they and other local artists can display and sell their work.
The Curley School Artisan Lofts project is the centerpiece of ISDA’s creative approach to preservation and economic transformation in Ajo. The plans were ambitious; the results to date are inspiring. Says Bachman about the success of the Curley School project, “Now when people say something’s too difficult, I just say: we did it in Ajo.”
Back to Real Life Stories
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