Bowman Hotel Renovation

Bowman Hotel Renovation Underway

Nogales Community Development (NCD) is in the midst of renovating the former Bowman Hotel into the Bowman Senior Residencies which will provide affordable housing for residents 62 years and older. It’s all part of a plan to rejuvenate the downtown corridor of Nogales, Arizona, located just 0.3 miles from the border crossing into Mexico. 

“The key for the board of directors was to try to maintain some sense of place in the 21st century downtown Nogales,” said Nils Urman, executive director of NCD and founding board member. “The Bowman Hotel for generations was an icon in this community. So many generations of people could identify with it.”

Once completed, the Bowman Senior Residences will be a four-story building with 48 one-bedroom apartments reserved for seniors earning 40, 50 and 60 percent of the area median income (AMI). The units are roughly 650 square feet and all feature one bedroom and one bathroom. In addition, the city of Nogales provided 20 Project-based Section 8 vouchers to the Bowman Senior Residences, meaning 20 residents will pay no more than 30 percent of their income on rent. According to Brian Swanton, Arizona market president of Gorman & Company Inc., “There is a huge shortage of housing, especially for seniors in need of affordable housing. The town has incredibly low median incomes,” said Swanton. “The downtown area has struggled in recent years to repurpose vacant commercial buildings as well. This project will help address all of these issues.”

The entire first floor will be used for communal amenities, including a computer lab, library, communal kitchen, fitness center, television area and a back patio. NCD will bring on an on-site service coordinator who will schedule nutrition and financial literacy classes, weekly free transportation services, health screenings every two months and recreation and wellness classes for residents, in collaboration with local service providers.

“The Bowman Senior Residences sits in the heart of downtown Nogales. Most seniors in Nogales don’t have cars, so they need amenities and services in walking distance,” says Yvonne Delgadillo, former executive director of NCD and project manager of Bowman Senior Residences. With that in mind, Delgadillo said that this is the “perfect location” for seniors because there is a pharmacy, full-service grocery store and a farmers market located one block from the development.

The construction timeline will be just over a year with an anticipated completion date by the end of 2015. While the Bowman Senior Residences is still under construction, the development team said that it has already received a number of requests to live in the building. Furthermore, Delgadillo reports that the support from the community has been outstanding. “This is a huge injection of capital into a community that hasn’t seen the level of investment needed to thrive,” said Swanton. Urman said developing the Bowman Senior Residences would “revitalize and support the growth of Nogales; not only physically, but economically.”