The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District Board of Directors unanimously approved three contracts, an indication that the two-year-old project is progressing on schedule.

Approved by voters in last year, the Rio Nuevo project is a redevelopment project that focuses on culture and historic facilities as a way to leverage additional private sector investment.

Tucson-based Michael Bolchalk Marketing was retained to handle what project director John S. Jones described as the daily, regular public relations duties of the project.

“We're pleased,” said Michael Bolchalk, whose company specializes in tourism and real estate development issues. “It's a viable project with a lot of opportunity.” Kaneen Advertising, according to Jones, “had specific skills, particularly in their ability to communicate with the neighborhoods adjacent to Rio Nuevo.”

In January, a downtown stakeholders meeting involving members of all the committees and boards associated with the Rio Nuevo project, including the city council, and the citizen action committee, is scheduled.

Combining all the information from all the groups involved was deemed by the project coordinators to be a huge undertaking beyond the scope of any of those currently involved in the project.

Accordingly, the board approved the contract for Progressive Urban Management Associates, a Colorado consulting firm that has worked extensively on downtown projects, and counts among its specialties strategic planning for downtown management organizations. The firm will be responsible for facilitating the meeting and for a follow-up report. Total cost of the contract will not exceed $20,000.

In addition to planning for the future, the board heard about Tucson's rich past.

Jonathan Mabry, a research archaeologist with Desert Archaeology Inc., has been involved in the excavation of sites important to the Rio Nuevo plan, said his group has made several significant discoveries since excavation began, including remnants of a 4,000 year-old community that existed at the base of “A” mountain.

Previously, the oldest communities in Tucson were thought to exist 3,000 years ago. The new discovery makes Tucson among the oldest consistently populated communities in the Southwest.

A main feature of the Rio Nuevo plan is the reconstruction of the three buildings of the St. Agustin Mission, located south of Congress Street and immediately east of Mission Road. The area was first occupied at least 2,600 years ago, with a number of pithouses found to the west of the mission.

The San Agustín Mission was established in the mid-1700s and was completed in the late-1790s to early-1800s. The Mission included the convento (a two-story priest's residence and trade school), a chapel and a granary.

The mission was abandoned by the 1840s with the chapel falling down in 1862. The convento remained in relatively good condition until the late 1890s. By the 1940s however, clay mining had encroached upon the mission. Much of the rich history of the site was lost due to in the 1950s as the City of Tucson used the area as a dump.

An open house is scheduled for the Mission garden on Dec. 1, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. A previous open house netted more than 1,000 visitors.