Tuesday, January 26, 2021 / by Adam Donaldson-Moxley
Wine-centric boutique hotel coming to downtown Tucson in late spring
The old Tucson Citizen building on South Stone Avenue will soon be home to a 10-room, wine-centric boutique hotel, and tasting room.
The Citizen Hotel will be the second boutique hotel for former lawyer turned hotelier Moniqua Lane, who also owns the nearby Downtown Clifton Hotel at 485 S. Stone Ave.
Sand-Reckoner Vineyards, which has a Tucson tasting room at 510 N. Seventh Ave., will move its wine barreling and cellaring operation from its Willcox vineyards to the hotel's 5,000-square-foot basement, where it also will open a tasting room, said owner Sarah Fox Hammelman.
The collaboration between the winery and the hotel was born over a glass or two of wine, recalled Lane. She bought The Citizen Building for $1.45 million in 2018, about a year after Sarah and her husband/partner Rob Hammelman opened the Tucson tasting room in the Warehouse District. The couple initially commuted from Willcox and often stayed at Lane's Downtown Clifton, where Hammelman and Lane bonded over their shared love of wine.
