The southeast corner of Convent and Cushing Street
Offered for purchase in Barrio Viejo · 3 parcels containing 6 buildings plus a parcel of vacant land
Sonoran adobe rowhouses line these streets. They have adjoining walls rising high. Windows sit deep in their openings, and the life of the house turns inward onto patios and walled courtyards. Barrio Viejo contains one of the most extensive groups of 19th century Sonoran rowhouses remaining in this country. The southeast corner of Convent and Cushing Street is a piece of that history.
The 4 parcels that comprise the southeast corner of Cushing and Convent are divided into two groups.
Five of the six buildings are leased. 313 Convent, a restored adobe, is vacant and ready for an owner who wants to occupy part of the corner, or for a new tenant.
The restoration of the buildings on this corner was designed with shared patios and walkways instead of as isolated units. Underground utilities and easements are interrelated by group.
A separate little house on Cushing. Four rooms in a line, living room to bedroom to bath and kitchen. There’s a fireplace in the living room and a private yard out back under bougainvillea.
Three generous rooms under beamed ceilings with brick underfoot, one of them warmed by a corner fireplace, then a kitchen and bath behind. A door opens to a walled patio with an ancient saguaro.
The long room is what is special here: nearly thirty six feet along the Convent frontage under exposed beams, lit by deep set windows, with cobalt doors and a brick floor. Two more rooms and a small kitchen sit behind it, and the back door opens to the shared patio, about forty by twenty five feet.
Step in off Convent and the hall runs straight back over brick, under a pendant lamp, through an arched opening. The big front room is eighteen feet across with a fireplace and a ceiling of dark timber and saguaro ribs. Behind it, two smaller rooms, a kitchen with open shelving, and two baths.
The adobe rowhouse, restored and vacant; central zaguan, high ceilings, kitchen, baths, and a timber portal behind. The most formal front on the block: three doors and tall windows in perfect symmetry, steps up from the walk. Inside, paneled double doors line up room through room, the rafters are open, and the ceilings climb. At the back a portal of timber posts, about thirty feet long, faces the yard.
Behind 313, built new in 2002 and finished in 2003: a clean three room office, white walls and big windows, opening to its own yard green with tall bamboo. A quiet counterpoint to the adobe rowhouse in front of it.
The storefront that turns the corner onto Cushing. Three generous rooms under beamed ceilings with brick underfoot, one of them warmed by a corner fireplace, then a kitchen and bath behind. A door opens to a walled patio where the doors are painted saffron.
A parcel of vacant land inside the block, behind the Convent buildings, sold with Group B.
Measured plans and photography by Anthony Muse, 2026. Occupied spaces are shown by private appointment only; please do not disturb the tenants.
Every space on the corner was measured and drawn as one plan: 6,918 square feet of living area, 810 square feet of covered patio, and 1,843 square feet of open patio. Group A, the north half, is 3,638 square feet across four spaces. Group B, the south half, is 3,280 across three. Dimensions are approximate and subject to the buyer's own verification.
Sanborn drew fire insurance maps block by block, in color, and coded every wall by what it was made of: gray for adobe, pink for brick, yellow for frame. Three editions hold this corner.
On the 1886 key map, when the city counted about 10,000 people, section 8 is this corner. It shows where these buildings stood 140 years ago, and how small Tucson was then. They are still standing. Countless Tucsonans have passed through these doorways since the first adobe buildings on this corner were built. They were built well before there were automobiles, so the streets are narrow, accommodating horses and buggies in the 19th century.
The corner storefront is lettered Gro., a grocery, with dwellings beside it and a Meat market a few doors south. The row is shaded for adobe, and the adobe rowhouse at 313 is already drawn, directly north of where the brick house will stand.
A new house appears at 317, colored pink for brick, set back from the street. Old and new house numbers are printed side by side.
The corner at 287 Convent reads Chine S., a Chinese store. The adobe row runs unbroken from 287 to 307, frame porches at the back.
Metropolitan Tucson is now 100 times the size it was in the 1870’s and 1880’s. The people who built these buildings, living and working here in the late 19th century were in the center of Tucson. Now, 150 years later, this corner continues to be within a flourishing district of the City surrounded by performing arts venues, museums and galleries, excellent restaurants and hotels, the government center and we are a streetcar ride away from the University of Arizona.
The corner is shown by private appointment; please do not disturb the tenants.
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Lopez & Lopez, REALTORS®Long Realty Company · Tucson
(520) 270-6170
