Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Profile
Hedrick Acres by CJ Boyd
Hedrick Acres stretches from East Glenn St. to East Fort Lowell Rd., and from North First Ave. to North Campbell Ave. While neighborhoods vary in size, Hedrick Acres is about twice as big as most of the surrounding neighborhoods (Mountain View, Richland Heights West, Samos, Mountain First, etc.). Founded in 1998, the Hendrick Acres Neighborhood Association is one of the more active associations in Ward 3 and keeps in regular contact with the Ward 3 office.
At the heart of Hendrick Acres is Navajo Wash Park. Like many of Tucson’s washes, Navajo Wash is dry for most of the year, with occasional flows during monsoon season. Spanning much of northern Tucson, Navajo Wash connects with Flowing Wells Wash at its western end, which in turn connects to the Santa Cruz River. On its eastern end, it connects to Wilson Avenue Wash. In the 1990s, neighbors established a pocket park along the wash in a section just south of Fort Lowell Rd. and just west of Mountain Ave.
Navajo Wash Park
The establishment of the park was a joint effort between the City of Tucson, the University of Arizona, and neighborhood leaders. According to Hendrick Acres resident Adrian Wurr, the creation of the park coincided with the creation of a park-and-ride lot just adjacent to it, where university staff and students could park their vehicles and take the shuttle to campus.
As Adrian wrote for a Hedrick Acres Neighborhood Association newsletter, “The arrangement tasked the neighborhood with cleanup and maintenance, the city with refuse removal, and the university with security. Over the ensuing 30 years or so, the wash has evolved—with the help of a dedicated group of neighborhood volunteers who meet regularly to pick-up trash, prune the vegetation, and maintain walkways and water berms—into a diverse desert arboretum with ground cover and tree canopy to support a variety of wildlife.”
The area around the pocket park is a hub for community activity. There is a mural on one of the walls adjacent to the parking lot thanks to a neighborhood grant from the City. Salpointe High School’s science classes and Ecology Club have studied the area intensely and reported their results in a dozen final projects. Residents have contributed artwork and an interactive message board, and a little free library is currently being developed for the site.
The mural at Navajo Wash Park
In the last few years, which have seen a record number of our neighbors displaced from their homes and living outdoors, Navajo Wash has also been home to some of our unsheltered neighbors, who benefit from the shade provided by its many trees. While this is not a safe place to camp during monsoon season, several neighbors have sheltered in this lush location during the dry season.
Like most neighborhoods in Tucson, the interior of Hedrick Acres is almost entirely residential, with businesses lining the thoroughfares along the exterior. Some key local businesses along the edges of the neighborhood are Rosa’s Mexican Food on Fort Lowell Rd., El Berraco (a Mexican seafood restaurant) on First Ave., Govindas Natural Foods Buffet (a vegetarian restaurant) on First Ave., Taqueria El Pueblito on Campbell Ave., and Nico’s on Campbell Ave.
A private home on Blacklidge Dr. that looks like a medieval castle
While there are no schools or churches in Hendrick Acres, Little Ranch Preschool is a day care center on Glenn St. It’s worth noting that while Navajo Wash Park is treated as a pocket park by the neighbors, it is not officially a park due to the fact that it is both a wash and technically a roadway, though driving through it would be very difficult with existing vegetation. Technically, a park cannot be in a roadway, or in an area that is often underwater during monsoon season. But during the majority of the year, housed and unhoused neighbors alike see it as a place to beat the heat and recreate.