The road that today constitutes the street was laid by Francisco Pizarro when he founded the city of Lima on 18 January 1535.

In 1862, when a new urban nomenclature was adopted, the road was named jirón Arica, after the province in Tacna.

[11] The Edificio Santo Toribio was built in the street's intersection with the Jirón Huancavelica in 1923 by Fred T. Ley & Cía, an American company.

The three-storey, 925.30 m2 work is part of the set of real estate projects undertaken by the Archbishop of Lima, Emilio Lissón, in the 1920s to strengthen the economic activities of the archdiocese.

[13] In 2016, the street was closed due to the acreditation of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski as president of Peru.