Tucson’s Milagro on Oracle Wins a Second Statewide Award for Community Design

One of Arizona’s most creative multifamily projects keeps collecting recognition. Milagro on Oracle, a $21 million, 63-unit affordable community for residents 55 and older on North Oracle Road in Tucson, has won the Arizona Multihousing Association’s Developers Award for Best Community Design in the Affordable Community category. The award was presented at the AMA’s August 7 ceremony in Phoenix and announced by the City of Tucson on August 18.

The project is the first development from El Pueblo Housing Development, the City of Tucson’s nonprofit housing arm, in partnership with Gorman & Company. What makes Milagro remarkable is its site. The team adaptively reused two pre-World War II motor courts in the Miracle Mile National Historic District, the 1940 DeAnza Motel (later the No-Tel) and the 1941 Don Motel, and paired them with a new four-story, elevator-served building. A two-piece mural by artist Jessica Gonzales nods to the site’s mid-century roadside history.

Completed in January 2025, Milagro was Tucson’s first Low-Income Housing Tax Credit project in more than a decade. Its earlier honor was the Arizona Department of Housing’s Urban Development of the Year Housing Hero Award in August 2025.

Why it matters to JFN

Adaptive reuse is some of the most rewarding and most demanding work in our trade. Bringing 1940s motel buildings up to modern plumbing, mechanical, and accessibility standards while preserving their character means new supply and drainage throughout, new mechanical systems threaded through existing structure, and close coordination with preservation requirements. Pairing that with a new four-story building on the same site adds a second set of systems that have to work together. We started in Tucson in 1996 with a single apartment project, so we take particular pride in seeing the city’s housing work recognized statewide.

Sources: City of Tucson Housing & Community Development, August 18, 2026; Real Estate Daily News, August 19, 2026