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The following is excerpted from Western Preservation News, the journal of the National Trust for Preservation Fund, July/August 2005

The Curley School

Historic preservation equals economic development in Ajo, Arizona

by Tracy Taft

Ajo is a rural community in southern Arizona-140 miles west of Tucson, 100 miles southwest of Phoenix, and 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.  The town was economically devastated when the Phelps Dodge open-pit copper mine closed in the mid 1980s.  Today Ajo's largest employer is the U.S. Border Patrol and its tax base is now a quarter of what it was prior to the copper mine's closure.

More than one million cars (and more people) pass through Ajo each year on their way to or from Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Cabeza Prieta Wildlife Refuge, or the Gulf of California in Mexico (only 90 miles south of Ajo).  Driving down Route 85 into Ajo for the first time the visitor is in for a wonderful surprise.  After passing miles of open Sonoran Desert and the beautiful Crater Range, one arrives in Ajo to a view of dilapidated buildings interspersed with occasional new commercial venues.  Rounding a curve, suddenly a lovely town plaza appears on the east; to the west, two exquisite churches frame a stunning view of the Curley School.

These buildings are Ajo's treasures.  The Ajo Townsite Historic District, encompassing its oldest 97 homes and buildings, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 at the national level of significance.  This historic town center is one of the only remaining examples of the City Beautiful movement in Arizona.  Built in 1919, with additions in 1926 and 1937, the Curley School is a complex of buildings in the Spanish Colonial revival style, designed by Leslie J. Mahoney of Lesher and Kibbey, a firm known for its design of educational buildings across Arizona.

In 2002 the International Sonoran Desert Alliance (ISDA) worked with the Western Office of the National Trust and was awarded a $5,000 National Trust Preservation Fund grant to sponsor a community planning process to save the Curley School.   ISDA's idea was to convert the Curley School to affordable live/work housing for artisans.  Many artisans had bought vacant company homes in the 1990s.  ISDA reasoned that by attracting more artisans to live and work in Ajo, the Curley School could act as a magnet and help the community to build a new economic niche.  If Ajo can consolidate its appeal as a community of artisans, some of the people for whom Ajo is currently simply a stop along the route to other tourist destinations would stop and buy arts and crafts and, in time, Ajo itself would become a destination for cultural tourism.

With the assistance of the NTPF grant and a matching grant from Tucson's Pro Neighborhoods, ISDA invited ArtSpace Projects, Inc., the leading national non-profit developer of affordable artist live/work buildings, to Ajo to explain how this could be done.  More than ten percent of the town's 3,700 residents participated in the community forum and out of it a project was born!  The successful community forum in 2002 helped ISDA win HUD and CDBG predevelopment funding.  After more than two years of predevelopment studies and planning, ISDA proposed Phase 1 of the development, a 7.9 million dollar rehabilitation and conversion of the two most historic Curley School buildings into 30 living/working rental units for artisans.  The Curley School auditorium and library will also be restored and will remain open to the public.  Phase 2 plans include a retail gallery and business support center for the artisans, a multi-generational learning center with vocational education programs, and homeownership units.

There are nine different funding sources for project development, including historic tax credits and grants from the National Trust, Pro Neighborhoods and the Arizona Department of Housing.  

AFTERWORD:  Renovation of the two oldest buildings on the Curley School campus began in April, 2006, and is expected to be completed within a year.  Artisan loft rentals will be available in early 2007; artists and artisans wishing to participate should express their interest now.