The Site

Academy Village is located on the southeast side of Tucson, Arizona, in an area that is still mostly wild desert, surrounded by the spectacular Rincon Mountains.  Tanque Verde Ridge is on the north, Rincon Peak on the east, and Mica Mountain in between.   If your home is oriented toward the north and east, you will receive minimum heat during the summer, and you will enjoy these mountain views from your living-room.  The landscape is gently rolling.  The elevation is 2980' at the northern end of the property and 3120' at the southern end.  For comparison, downtown Tucson is at 2400' and Phoenix at 1100'.

In the map below, Academy Village is indicated by the red oval that is hiding the name of the road on which it lies.  The road's name is "Old Spanish Trail".

The entire Rincon Mountains range is part of Saguaro National Park East.  We are 2 1/2 miles from the southern border of the park and 6 miles by road from its entrance.  The rest of this page is mostly pictures.  For more details about distances and how to get around in Tucson, go to Geographical Information.

Academy Village site plan

Each numbered area is a house lot.  In addition to the individual houses, there are also blocks of town houses along Vivaldi Court and Carver Lane.  At the moment, February 2004, only about 1/4 of the houses have been built.  The lots are large enough to allow for plenty of planting and landscaping around the houses.  However, only plants that are native to the Sonoran desert, or closely related species, are allowed.  To decrease the amount of pavement and to encourage neighbor-to-neighbor interactions, the lots are grouped in clusters of four with a common driveway.  All the land that is not designated for building lots remains in its original native desert state.  In particular, there is a fairly deep wash (a dry stream, which may become a real stream in heavy rains) running approximately north-south through the middle of the property, from between lots 11 and 13 to near lot 151.  This wash is still quite wild.  It is home to many birds, small animals, coyotes that can be heard howling at night, and occasionally families of javelinas.

(Much more to come, especially pictures)