“You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take, and if you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur “ I AM YOUR LAND / INDUSTRIAL AND INVESTMENT SPECIALIST / LOOKING FOR OWNERS Call me if you want to sell your property and need an estimated value. Prefer cell: 520-975-5207 or email me walterunger@ccim.net. A CLICK HERE TO VIEW ALL MY $ 60 MIL OF LISTINGS .
Russ Wiles, Arizona Republic Published 10:18 a.m. MT Jan. 30, 2020 | Updated 8:34 a.m. MT Jan. 31, 2020
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When Jackob Andersen emigrated from England to Arizona in 2004, he spent a lot of time sizing up the state for development potential.
“It was very new to me, so I spent several months driving up and down what seemed like every street to establish myself — Thomas, McDowell, Indian School,” he said.
But Andersen, who grew up in London, eventually focused his attention farther south in Pinal County. He bought farmland and other properties there, especially after studying maps and reports detailing the state’s long-term population trend.
“The dots all came together in Casa Grande,” he said.
Years later, the dots finally are morphing into broader, tangible development, especially along Pinal County’s northern border, which abuts metro Phoenix.
Places like Casa Grande and Maricopa — once sleepy towns and commute-weary suburbs — are among the state’s fastest growing cities. Health services, transportation/distribution, green energy projects and even big manufacturing sites are starting to supplant Pinal’s traditional reliance on mining and agriculture, with homebuilding still in the mix.
The majority of the county’s 475,000 residents still live in rural, unincorporated areas. In fact, cattle outnumbered people until recently, said Tim Kanavel, Pinal County’s economic-development director.
“We’re located between two giant metro areas, and we’re looking to maximize that opportunity,” says Pinal County Economic Development Director Tim Kanavel, seen outside the new Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande on Jan. 24, 2020. (Photo: Sean Logan/The Republic)
Still, the human population has risen steadily, expanding the area’s potential but also raising worries about water scarcity and traffic bottlenecks.
Many Valley residents know little more about the Connecticut-size county other than the flat, open, mostly dull space they traverse on the way to Tucson. But that drive gradually is getting less boring.
“We’re located between two giant metro areas, and we’re looking to maximize that opportunity,” Kanavel said.
Auto manufacturing jobs on the horizon
Pinal County is the site of several recent and significant development announcements.
One of the biggest prizes is the new factory for Nikola Motors, a private Phoenix-based company that will start manufacturing zero-emission heavy trucks and other types of vehicles. Nikola claims to have booked $14 billion worth of orders for its electric and hydrogen-fueled big rigs, from customers including Anheuser-Busch and US Xpress.
The site of the future Nikola Motors plant is seen on Jan. 24, 2020 in Coolidge. (Photo: Sean Logan/The Republic)
Nikola is breaking ground this year on a factory on land formerly owned by Andersen’s development company, Saint Holdings, near the intersection of Interstates 10 and 8 in Coolidge. The truck maker plans to hire 2,000 workers at the plant, which seems destined to lure suppliers, too. Production will start next year.
Another factory going up this year, to the west in Casa Grande, will produce luxury electric vehicles made by Lucid Motors.
In a groundbreaking ceremony late last year attended by Gov. Doug Ducey and his Sonoran counterpart, Gov. Claudia Pavlovich, Lucid executives announced that their cars — powerful enough to hit 60 miles per hour in less than three seconds and capable of traveling 400 miles between charges — will roll off the assembly line by the end of this year, destined for sale with price tags of more than $100,000.
Construction workers build the new Lucid Motors plant in Casa Grande, where the luxury electric vehicles will begin rolling out by the end of 2020. (Photo: Sean Logan/The Republic)
Lucid said it looked at more than 60 sites in 13 states before deciding on Arizona and Casa Grande, on the basis of infrastructure, an available workforce, a business-friendly climate and other factors.
The factory, going up on another tract formerly owned by Saint Holdings and other landowners, will have about 750 workers initially, ramping up to around 2,000. This plant also could bring suppliers to the area and will connect central Arizona to the automotive supply chain extending into Mexico, which explained the Sonoran governor’s visit.
(Despite their similarities as privately held manufacturers of zero-emission vehicles, Lucid and Nikola are separate companies that are not working together.)
While Pinal County lacks a university, Central Arizona Community College, in partnership with its counterparts in Maricopa and Pima counties, has developed a unified curriculum to support technical jobs at the new vehicle-manufacturing sites.
“As (Pinal’s) population — and the available labor force — continues to grow, industries are following,” said Sandra Watson, president and CEO of the Arizona Commerce Authority.
‘GAME-CHANGING’: Nikola Corp. claims major battery enhancements
Water challenges and growth pains
Pinal County’s growth in the past has been halting, with the deep housing bust in Maricopa and the unincorporated San Tan Valley area a dozen years ago among the most vivid examples. The area still has needs and will experience growing pains. What could slow the area’s development engine?
One concern is water.
The Arizona Department of Water Resources raised this issue late last year with a report that projected an insufficient amount of groundwater in the area. The study forecast a roughly 10% water shortfall for the county a century from now, with nearly two-thirds of that in agriculture.
The potential shortfall could slow or impede the building of housing developments that potentially could bring 139,000 new homes to the area. State law requires companies building in urbanized areas to prove they have sufficient water access, though existing developments and those with water permits wouldn’t be hindered.
Pinal officials have countered that they believe the report doesn’t present an accurate projection, for several reasons. One is that the area’s water needs will ease as thirsty farms give way to homes and various industries, from vehicle manufacturing to solar farms, that use less of the resource. The new Nikola and Lucid operations, for example, are not expected to be high water users. Agriculture currently soaks up about four-fifths of the area’s water.
WATER CRISIS: AZ has tried to safeguard groundwater. But things are set to change
Also, critics of the report argue, if water becomes more costly to farmers, they will switch to crops that use less of it (replacing cotton with hemp, for example) and might forsake digging more wells if they need to drill ever deeper.
“We’re not sure they projected it accurately,” said Stephen Miller, one of Pinal’s five county supervisors. “We know agricultural use will diminish.”
Shauna Evans, a spokeswoman for the Arizona Department of Water Resources, said commercial and industrial subdivisions also must meet the requirement of having an assured water supply. Currently, 20 commercial and residential developments have applications pending in the Pinal area, though she didn’t cite any that are impeded by water issues.
Specifically, those requirements apply to commercial or industrial subdivisions of six or more lots and thus wouldn’t apply to large single-occupant projects like Lucid or Nikola, said Andersen, the developer behind the Nikola and Lucid sites. There are thousands of lots in Pinal County that already are certified to get water, he added.
Kanavel, the county supervisor, said the county’s ability to lure Nikola, Lucid and other big employers hasn’t been affected by water restrictions.
Searching for water solutions
Changing various water assumptions or inputs, even small ones, can produce a substantially different outcome, especially if stretched over the 100-year scenario envisioned in the department’s water report.
County officials and representatives of the water-resources board are working cooperatively on finding solutions, Miller added. The dialogue continues.
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Watson too expressed optimism that solutions can be found. “What’s needed in order to secure our water future decades from now is a continued focus on working together with an eye on the long term,” she said. “A local process has already begun to determine Pinal County’s water future.”
Pinal County ranks among the nation’s top 2% of agricultural counties, in terms of the value of crops and other commodities, according to a 2018 University of Arizona study. The area’s top products include cotton, dairyitems and cattle. The county’s agricultural businesses supported about 25% of its manufacturing jobs, including food processing, at the time of the study.
Homebuilding, meanwhile, continues to recover and prices are rising again. Building zones range from the San Tan Valley area in the far north to Red Rock near Picacho Peak farther south. San Tan would be the county’s largest city if it were incorporated.
Infrastructure gives Pinal an edge
Still, the economic momentum continues. The foundation for that growth has been laid by Interstates 10 and 8, which run through the county, as does the Union Pacific railroad, with three international airports within an hour’s drive. The planned north-south Interstate 11, if it gets completed, also would extend through the county.
“Pinal is amazingly crisscrossed by infrastructure,” Andersen said. “But people just don’t know us yet — these little towns have been dormant.”
Nikola and Lucid could emerge as the county’s largest nongovernmental employers. Other big ones include Walmart, which runs a grocery-distribution center; Frito-Lay, which makes snack foods; Abbott Laboratories, which makes Ensure, Similac and other products; auto-parts refurbishing company LKQ Corp. and Tractor Supply, a retailer that caters to farmers, ranchers, horse enthusiasts and homeowners.
Border fence segments are pictured outside the Stinger Bridge & Iron facility on Jan. 24, 2020, in Coolidge. (Photo: Sean Logan/The Republic)
CoreCivic, which operates a state prison at Florence and other corrections facilities in the area, also ranks among the area’s biggest employers.
Most of those companies operate in Casa Grande, raising the possibility of a strain of fire, police or other municipal services.
However, Larry Rains, Casa Grande’s city manager, downplayed that concern. “I’m very confident we will be able to provide the delivery of services to Lucid and maintain the level of services for the rest of the city.”
Similarly, Miller, the county supervisor, said he envisioned few problems of the scope that has beset the area around Sparks, Nevada, after it landed a giant Tesla battery factory. The area has dealt with a housing shortage, slow emergency-response services and more.
Pinal County, Arizona’s third-most populous county with the third-largest workforce, has seen its employment picture improve, mirroring progress at the state level. The county’s unemployment rate, which peaked above 13% a decade ago, has eased to around 4.5%, putting it roughly on par with the overall Arizona jobless rate.
County has other needs
Water isn’t the only challenge.
PInal County’s growth will necessitate more freeways and highways, though many already have been built or are planned. For example, Ducey in January released a budget proposal calling for Arizona to invest $28 million to accelerate the widening of a stretch of I-10 between near Casa Grande, with an expanded six-lane bridge over the Gila River bed.
Two months earlier, the federal Department of Transportation announced $900 million in grants to support 55 infrastructure projects around the nation.
Arizona received two of those grants, with one in Pinal County — $15 million to rebuild a stretch of Hauser Road in Florence to ease traffic near the planned Nikola factory and a nearby industrial park.
Another need for less-populous areas generally is data connectivity. Ducey recently cited this as a priority, proposing greater broadband development in northern and southern Arizona, though not in Pinal County. Good connectivity helps to attract data centers or advanced manufacturing businesses. Pinal appears better positioned than many rural counties.
Actually, many types of lines and connections pass through the county, whether it’s railroads and highways or fiberoptic, gas or electric lines. These connections link not just Phoenix and Tucson but, in many cases, California with states further to the East.
“There are a lot of trunk lines passing through the area,” said Andersen. “We’re at the epicenter of it all.”
METRO PHOENIX POPULATION GROWTH: Area to add 1M people by 2030
One recent setback for the county could be the proposed closure of Florence prison, announced in Ducey’s latest budget. That could result in a more than $1 million annual hit to the town’s services, in reduced state-shared revenues. But alternative-use proposals already have surfaced for the prison, ranging from a movie studio to an industrial park, Kanavel said.
Pima County’s connections also include those with Mexico, and they will be deepened by the Lucid and Nikola ventures.
“Trade with Mexico will most certainly support the key industries of advanced manufacturing and aerospace/defense — both high-wage, high-growth sectors in Arizona and particularly Pinal County,” Watson said
Renewable-energy projects grow, too
One theme in an area with good connectivity and many open places, not to mention abundant sunshine, is the emergence of solar farms.
Two large projects coming to Coolidge are Saint Solar LLC, a 1,167-acre solar park that’s a subsidiary of Florida-based NextEra Energy (being built on another track formerly owned by Saint Holdings), with construction set to begin imminently. That project could become the largest solar farm in the county. That’s in addition to an 851-acre solar farm being developed by Sustainable Power Group.
Jackob Andersen of Saint Holdings says he decided to focus on Pinal County after studying the state’s long-term population trends and seeing that “the dots all came together in Casa Grande.” (Photo: Sean Logan/The Republic)
There’s also a plant being developed by Green Gas Partners, to be located in Stanfield near I-8. It will convert cattle manure into methane gas for shipment by pipeline to the Los Angeles area.
Solar parks fit well in places with still-low populations but with good connectivity.
“Solar needs infrastructure to connect to the grid,” said Andersen.
Solar facilities are considered “interim” economic projects, with lifespans of roughly 20 years. They can give way to residential, industrial or commercial developments down the road, as an area continues to fill in and land becomes more valuable for residential, retail or industrial uses.
In addition, many of the new manufacturing projects such as Lucid’s vehicle plant will use power from their own rooftop solar arrays, Watson noted.
A tourist and leisure destination?
Compared to the Grand Canyon, Sedona or other less-populated parts of Arizona, Pinal County wouldn’t seem to offer much in the way of tourism or recreation. But already, many people visit the county from elsewhere around the state and even the nation.
Eloy features SkydiveArizona, which claims to be the world’s largest skydiving center, and the renovated Harris Ak-Chin Hotel & Casino in Maricopa ranks as one of the state’s premier gambling meccas.
Pinal County’s other tourist and recreation sites include the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, Picacho Peak State Park, Boyce Thompson Southwestern Arboretum, Arizona Zipline at Mount Lemmon and Biosphere II, near Tucson. Seasonal events include the Arizona Renaissance Festival in Gold Canyon and the Country Thunder music festival in Florence.
There’s also an elite soccer-training facility in Casa Grande called Grande Sports World that was developed in partnership with European heavyweight FC Barcelona.
Plus, two private-membership motorsports complexes now are under development. Though unrelated to each other, both will feature closed racetracks, clubhouses, restaurants, private luxury garages, meeting spaces and other amenities — and both could lure wealthy visitors to the area.
One is the Apex Motors Sports park just west of Maricopa, which is already being developed and is open to members, who may use the 4.2-mile track.
There’s no speed limit at this 4.2-mile track south of Phoenix. The $40 million complex will have five-car garage condos, a clubhouse, pool, go-cart track, fueling station, restaurant and meeting spaces. Arizona Republic
The other is the Arizona International Raceway@Attesa, south of Casa Grande, near I-8. Phase one will feature a 2.65-mile track, with plans to expand that to 4.25 miles.
The facility will be near a hotel, convention center and private 6,000-foot air strip. Construction is slated to begin this spring.
Will Pinal County finally break through?
Pinal still faces many challenges, as all areas do. The county’s potential has been recognized for decades, yet progress has come in fits and starts.
“In a county with two interstates and a railroad, you’d think it would have been a home run right away,” said Miller, the county supervisor who has lived in the area 48 years. “I don’t know why it has taken so long.”
Water could become a worsening problem, and more roads and highways are still needed to ease spots of congestion. New manufacturing plants rarely go up without any hitches, and Pinal has several in the works simultaneously. The impact of the proposed prison closing in Florence has yet to be determined.
Also disturbing: More than half of Pinal’s residents still commute daily to jobs in other counties, especially Maricopa but even Pima and Gila.
“If you’re commuting 30 or 45 minutes a day each way, that’s time you’re not spending in your community,” Miller said.
But proponents hope they have a better formula in place. The focus now is on building a more diversified economy, with a broader range of industries to create more private-sector jobs for which residents won’t face such lengthy drives.
A decade or so ago, “We were building homes and hoping to attract retail to bring jobs, but it didn’t happen,” said Kanavel, who was hired in 2009. “We were doing economic development backwards.”
Reach the reporter at russ.wiles@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8616.
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