Dunbar/Spring Homes for Sale — Tucson, AZ

Key facts

Jurisdiction

Tucson, Arizona — incorporated city, Pima County

Average sale price

$405,000

Price range

$285K – $700K

School district

TUSD (Davis Bilingual Magnet, Roskruge K-8 Magnet, Tucson High Magnet)

Approximate population

~1,800

Approximate number of homes

~850 homes

What defines this area

• Largest historic district in AZ when listed (NRHP 1978)
• Historic Preservation Zone — no fee HOA, design review
• Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association (volunteer)
• Dunbar Pavilion African American Arts & Cultural Center
• Neighborhood food forest — 1,700+ native food trees since 1996
• Brad Lancaster rainwater-harvesting curb cuts citywide model
• Sonoran row houses, Craftsman bungalows & Mission Revival
• Oury Pool & rec center at Herrera/Quiroz Park
• Walk to 4th Avenue, streetcar, downtown & U of A
• Bike-first, walkable, sub-1-mile to downtown core

About Dunbar/Spring

A small, fiercely creative historic neighborhood tucked between downtown Tucson and the University of Arizona, bounded by Speedway Boulevard on the north, 6th Street on the south, Stone Avenue on the east, and the Union Pacific railroad on the west. The southern half was first platted in 1904 as an extension of downtown, and the bulk of the housing stock — Sonoran row houses, Craftsman bungalows, Territorial cottages, brick Mission Revival, and a handful of Victorians — was built between roughly 1910 and the late 1920s. The district takes its name from two figures who shaped early Tucson: the Black American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (via the 1918 Dunbar School at 325 W. 2nd Street, the segregated public school for Tucson's Black children until voluntary desegregation in 1951) and the Swiss-born teacher John Spring, who taught Tucson's first generation of public-school students in the 1870s. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 as the largest historic district in Arizona at the time and protected today as a City of Tucson Historic Preservation Zone, Dunbar/Spring has no fee HOA — exterior changes are governed by the volunteer Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Association and the city's design review under the 11th Avenue/Dunbar-Spring Design Guidelines. What sets the neighborhood apart from any other in Tucson is what its residents have built into the public right-of-way: since 1996, the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood Foresters — co-founded by rainwater-harvesting author Brad Lancaster — have planted more than 1,700 native food- and medicine-bearing trees and harvested over a million gallons of street stormwater per year into curb cuts and tree-well basins, turning the streets themselves into a working native food forest. The restored Dunbar Pavilion (the original Dunbar School, purchased from the city for $25 by the Dunbar Coalition in the 1990s) now anchors the neighborhood as an African American arts and cultural center, and the Dunbar/Spring Community Garden on University Boulevard, the deck-plaza park over the Union Pacific underpass, and David G. Herrera & Ramon Quiroz Park (with Oury Pool and rec center) all sit within or on the edge of the district. Residents walk or bike to 4th Avenue, the Sun Link streetcar, the Mercado district, and downtown Tucson — all within a 10-minute trip.

Dunbar/Spring is an urban neighborhood in the City of Tucson, on the central side of metro Tucson, Arizona, served by TUSD (Davis Bilingual Magnet, Roskruge K-8 Magnet, Tucson High Magnet). Homes trade in the $285K – $700K range, with an average sale price of $405,000 across roughly 850 homes and a population of about 1,800. Kyle Berglund, REALTOR® at Tierra Antigua Realty, represents buyers and sellers here — call (520) 250-8904.

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