“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 “ . ARE YOU READY TO SELL OR PURCHASE YOUR LAND OR COMMERCIAL BUILDING IN PHOENIX, SCOTTSDALE, MARICOPA COUNTY AND PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA, CLICK HERE AND PLEASE CALL ME. 520-975-5207 or email me walterunger@ccim.net. …. VIEW ALL OF WALTERS LISTINGS. Let me know if you are interested in Apartments: CLICK HERE FOR APARTMENTS FOR SALE
Russ Wiles, Arizona RepublicPublished 6:00 a.m. MT June 28, 2018 |
TUCSON — The recession, both nationally and in metropolitan Phoenix, ended years ago.
But those trends have been slow to materialize in Tucson, which still hasn’t quite recovered all the jobs it lost during the recession of 2007-09.
The region has badly lagged metro Phoenix and the nation in creating jobs, attracting new employers, growing businesses and improving its residents’ prosperity.
There have been signs of life lately, helped by a revitalizing downtown and expansion plans announced by several big corporations. But Arizona’s second-most populous city still has a lot of catching up to do.
“The recession hit Arizona hard, but it hit Tucson really hard,” said Joseph Snell, president and CEO of the area’s Sun Corridor economic development group. “And we just weren’t seeing the recovery.”
It has been a mostly lost decade.
Last place in the West
Tucson is at or near the bottom in most economic categories when compared with other Western cities of roughly similar size, a new online tracking website run by the University of Arizona shows.
The online dashboard, or monitoring website, shows Tucson to be dead last of 12 Western cities in growth rate for new businesses, growth of local gross domestic product and teacher wages.
It’s next to last in median household income and poverty, and below average in employment growth rate, median wages, college degree attainment of residents and housing cost burden.
The website, mapazdashboard.arizona.edu, compares Tucson with Phoenix; Las Vegas; Salt Lake City; San Diego; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and six other cities.
Other studies have shown similar signs of stress.
A WalletHub report ranked Tucson as the “neediest” of nine Arizona cities that the website evaluated, based on 25 indicators from child poverty rates to the percentage of residents lacking insurance.
A U.S. News & World Report ranked Phoenix as the nation’s 19th-best city in which to live, with Tucson much lower, in 67th place.That study examined factors including local job markets, home affordability, health care, education and crime.
Other economic headwinds
Tucson’s economy is much less diversified than metro Phoenix’s, with a higher reliance on the defense industry and government spending. This is a key reason the region struggled in recent years amid public-sector belt-tightening.
Tucson also is relatively dependent on trade with Mexico, which has been hurt by a strong dollar and concern over the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement
Arizona’s exports to Mexico peaked in 2015, then tumbled 17 percent over the next two years, said George Hammond, a University of Arizona economist. Any unraveling of the trade pact — let alone outbreak of a trade war — could hurt southern Arizona even more.
Also, Tucson is especially vulnerable to the hiring or layoff decisions made by corporate executives outside the state. Of the 35 largest public companies headquartered in Arizona, Tucson has only one, a medical-testing company called Accelerate Diagnostics.
All other larger Arizona-based companies — such as mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, trash-hauler Republic Services and Microchip Technology in semiconductors — are in metro Phoenix.
Hammond predicts the Tucson area will add 5,500 net new jobs this year. Although that’s an improvement from a couple of years ago, it represents just a 1.5-percent growth rate. It’s also barely half the historic pace of growth for the city and compares poorly with forecasts calling for 2.8 percent job growth in metro Phoenix.
The Tucson area’s estimated population growth in 2017 was half that of metro Phoenix and has trailed significantly coming out of the recession.
Tendency to leave
Job growth in recent years has been so sluggish in Tucson that the city hasn’t created enough new positions to accommodate the nearly 10,000 annual graduates from the University of Arizona, let alone people coming out of local high schools and community colleges and those moving in from other parts of the state and nation.
Joe Previte graduated from the university in 2016 with a degree in general studies but had no luck with Tucson employers.
“I applied with maybe five or 10 companies there but didn’t get any interest,” he said.
Previte eventually followed his girlfriend to the Valley. Having taught himself computer programming, he landed a job in Scottsdale, where he now lives and works.
“In Tucson, it feels like the university is the main hub of the city,” he said. “Unless you’re working there, there’s not as much attraction (for staying) and not as much going on.”
As noted, the Tucson area still hasn’t quite recovered all the jobs it lost over the past decade, although metro Phoenix is up nearly 10 percent. The Tucson region was starting to emerge from the recession just when automatic federal spending cuts, including those centered around defense, hit in 2013.
Without many job openings, the population of the Tucson area, with 1.03 million residents, increased just 0.8 percent in 2017, less than half the gain for metro Phoenix.
Coming out of the recession, from 2010 to 2016, Tucson’spopulation grew about 0.6 percent a year, well below the nearly 1.6 percentannual rate for the Phoenix area.
Reasons for optimism
Despite the tough past several years, some things appear to be looking up in Tucson.
Amazon said in May that it would add at least 1,500 jobs at a new order-fulfillment center. Construction equipment maker Caterpillar is expanding too, with 600 new jobs, many of them high-paying engineering and management positions.
Insurer Geico, which already employs more than 2,000 people in the area, plans to add 700 more over the next couple of years.
This hotel was the first to open in nearly a half century in downtown Tucson. (Photo: Russ Wiles/The Republic)
Business is booming for missile-manufacturer Raytheon, the largest employer in Southern Arizona with nearly 12,000 workers. Bolstered by rising orders from the U.S. military and allies, the company has boosted its head count.
“Tucson is a unique place that offers a lot for us as a company,” said Greg White, vice president of finance for Raytheon’s missile division.
He cited room for expansion and testing as a favorable factor, along with both a major university and a big military installation, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in the vicinity.
Tucson and its voters have earned a reputation for being anti-business and anti-growth, perhaps best exemplified by the tendency not to raise taxes to fund road improvements.
But White said Raytheon received broad support for its expansion plans, from local officials on up to Gov. Doug Ducey’s office.
“There was no partisanship at all,” he said. “They all asked, ‘How can we help?'”
Fletcher McCusker, the former CEO of a Tucson-based corporation who now heads the city’s Rio Nuevo downtown-revitalization district, also senses more cooperation.
“What’s working now that wasn’t working before is increased private-sector involvement,” he said.
Waking up from recession
Snell at Sun Corridor said the recession and slow recovery have been a “wake-up call” for companies, elected officials and academics to start working together.
The new approach includes more aggressive marketing of Tucson to land corporate expansions and jobs, with emphasis on targeting the consultants who help companies with site selection plans.
Tucson economic development officials also are honing in on industries where they think they have the best chances for success — and passing on others.
Snell cited four key sectors for southern Arizona: aerospace/defense, distribution/logistics (including shipment of goods to and from Mexico), natural resources such as copper mining, and biomedical research, with an emphasis on disease diagnostics.
Those sectors draw on strengths such as existing large local employers, as well as University of Arizona researchers and graduates.
Tucson officials have become more assertive in seeking opportunities, rather than sitting back and hoping they materialize, Snell said. They also have become more willing to cooperate with businesses and development officials in the Valley, rather than competing as rivals.
“We’ll never be able to go head to head against Phoenix,” he said. “We’re one-fifth their size.”
ARE YOU READY TO SELL OR PURCHASE YOUR LAND OR COMMERCIAL BUILDING IN PHOENIX, SCOTTSDALE, MARICOPA COUNTY AND PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA, CLICK HERE AND PLEASE CALL ME. 520-975-5207 or email me walterunger@ccim.net. …. VIEW ALL OF WALTERS LISTINGS. Let me know if you are interested in Apartments: CLICK HERE FOR APARTMENTS FOR SALE
KASTEN LONG Commercial Group and AMA Events, Resources & Education For Apartment Owners
Timeline of Arizona from 900 BC – 2017
WHY PHOENIX? AMAZING!!! POPULATION IN 1950 – 350 K PEOPLE; “NOW 5 MIL”. – “5TH. BIGGEST CITY IN USA”
FROM ME:
Phoenix Commercial Real Estate and Investment Real Estate: Investors and Owner / Users need to really know the market today before making a move in owner user Commercial Properties, Investment Properties and land in Phoenix / Maricopa County, Pinal County / Arizona, as the market has a lot of moving parts today. What is going on socio-economically, what is going on demographically, what is going on with location, with competing businesses, with public policy in general — all of these things affect the quality of selling or purchasing your Commercial Properties, Commercial Investment Properties and Commercial and large tracts of Residential Land Therefore, you need a broker, a CCIM (Certified Commercial Investment Member) who is a recognized expert in the commercial and investment real estate industry and who understands Commercial Properties and Investment Properties. I am marketing my listings on Costar, Loop-net CCIM, Kasten Long Commercial Group. I also sold hundreds millions of dollars’ worth of Investment Properties / Owner User Properties in Retail, Office Industrial, Multi-family and Land in Arizona and therefore I am working with brokers, Investors and Developers. I am also a CCIM and through this origination ( www.ccim.com ) I have access to marketing not only in the United States, but also internationalClick here to find out what is a CCIM: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CCIM
PLEASE CALL ME 520-975-5207 OR E-MAIL ME walterunger@ccim.net
ARE YOU READY TO SELL OR PURCHASE YOUR LAND OR COMMERCIAL BUILDING IN PHOENIX, SCOTTSDALE, MARICOPA COUNTY AND PINAL COUNTY, ARIZONA, CLICK HERE AND PLEASE CALL ME. 520-975-5207 or email me walterunger@ccim.net
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH July 27, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH July 20, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH July 13, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH July 6, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH June 29, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
WEEKLY APARTMENT CLOSING UPDATE THROUGH June 22, 2018, Phoenix Arizona Metro.
8 Reasons You Should Invest in Land
Timeline of Arizona from 900 BC – 2017
WHY PHOENIX? AMAZING!!! POPULATION IN 1950 – 350 K PEOPLE; “NOW 5 MIL”. – “5TH. BIGGEST CITY IN USA”
DOT – LOOP 202 / SOUTH MOUNTAIN FREEWAY / PHOENIX AZ – UNDER CONSTRUCTION
ARIZONA FACTS – YEAR 1848 TO 2013
- DEMOGRAPHIC FACTS ABOUT MARICOPA COUNTY:
- The average age of the population is 34 years old.
- The health cost index score in this area is 102.1. (100 = national average)
- Here are some of the distributions of commute times for the area: <15 min (22.7%), 15-29 min (36.8%), 30-44 min (25.1%), 45-59 min (8.6%), >60 min (6.8%).
PHOENIX PROJECTED AS NUMBER ONE US HOUSING MARKET FOR 2017
LIST OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN PINAL COUNTY, REVISED 2-14-17
Reasons to Consider me for Commercial Referrals – I have the Knowledge and Experience
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Walter Unger CCIM – walterunger@ccim.net – 1-520-975-5207 – http://walter-unger.com
2016 Official Arizona Visitors Guide
Timeline of Phoenix, Arizona history
Facts of Arizona – year 1848 to 2013
Feel free to contact Walter regarding any of these stories, the current market, distressed commercial real estate opportunities and needs, your property or your Investment Needs for Comercial Properties in Phoenix, Tucson, Arizona.
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Kasten Long Commercial Group tracks all advertised apartment communities, including those advertised by other brokerages. The interactive map shows the location of each community (10+ units) and each location is color coded by the size (number of total units).
Walter Unger CCIM, CCSS, CCLS
I am a successful Commercial / Investment Real Estate Broker in Arizona now for 20 years. If you have any questions about Commercial / Investment Properties in Phoenix or Commercial / Investment Properties in Arizona, I will gladly sit down with you and share my expertise and my professional opinion with you. I am also in this to make money therefore it will be a win-win situation for all of us.
Please reply by e-mail walterunger@ccim.net or call me on my cell 520-975-5207
Walter Unger CCIM
Senior Associate Broker
Kasten Long Commercial Group
5110 N 40th Street, Suite 110
Phoenix , AZ 85018
Direct: 520-975-5207
Fax: 602-865-7461
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