TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — A historic Midtown building has a new future on its horizon.
The pink Benedictine Monastery at 800 N. Country Club Road was once home to a covenant of nuns before transforming into a temporary shelter for asylum seekers in 2019. That shelter closed down a year later, making way for developer Ross Rulney to build The Benedictine Apartments off Speedway and Country Club.
“This is the heart of the city. Right here. This place,” said David Slutes, a long-time entertainment professional in Tucson. He's best known for the over two decades he spent as Entertainment Director for downtown Tucson's Hotel Congress.
Slutes paired up with another known name in Arizona's entertainment scene, Phoenix's Crescent Ballroom owner Charlie Levy, to create a mid-size midtown music venue.
Slutes says the historic monastery's chapel was the perfect location for their new venue, which is supposed to hold around 750 people. The color even inspired their name for the venue: La Rosa.
“You open the doors to this big church and it's just awe-inspiring," Slutes said. "You can almost see how the events and the programming and the cultural events would happen.”
The building's most recent neighbors, renters at The Benedictine Apartments, however, are slightly concerned about the space they'll share with the new venue.
“First of all, this parking lot is already a disaster," said Cole Janes. He's been living at the apartments for a little over three years.
"It seems like it could kind of be a cool thing," he said after learning about La Rosa. "I feel like it would also get very tiring... like cars coming in and out, Ubers coming in and out girls screaming at like 2:00 in the morning.”
As one of the neighbors who shares walls with the chapel, he just requests that they soundproof the building.
Slutes and Levy say they do plan on enhancing the sound quality inside the venue and adding lights behind the columns, but otherwise they want the building preserved.
“Everything else is staying," Slutes said. "We just love it. Why mess with it?”
The team is hoping to have La Rosa up and running by October 2025, and though Slutes won't share who the first performer will be, he did say it's a Grammy Award-winning act.
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Alex Dowd is a multimedia journalist at KGUN 9, where her work combines her two favorite hobbies: talking to new people and learning about the community around her. Her goal is to eventually meet every single person in Tucson. Share your story ideas with Alex via email, alex.dowd@kgun9.com, or connecting on Instagram or X.
