Economic & Business News Fall 2009
Construction Begins on Freeway Around Phoenix Construction began this year on the Loop 303 freeway in the deserts of the far northern section of Phoenix. The proposed six-lane freeway will connect Interstate 10, on the west side of Phoenix, to Interstate 17 on the north side of the city, in a 36-mile arc around the northwest corner of the metro area. This freeway will relieve congestion on the Loop 101 freeway that also wraps around the northwest corner of Phoenix, but closer to the urban core. The Loop 303 project is scheduled for completion in 2015 at a cost of $2.2 billion. Eventually, Loop 303 will be extended to the south of Interstate 10. As a result, the Arizona Department of Transportation is designing an interchange at the intersection of those two freeways that will be the largest in the state, with five layers of overpasses.	New International Flights to Phoenix US Airways, headquartered in the Phoenix metro area, has announced plans for two new international flights from Phoenix. Direct flights between Phoenix and Jamaica will start in December and run through the winter season. Then in 2012, US Airways plans to start non-stop flights between Phoenix and Tokyo. This will benefit many Phoenicians who now have to change planes in California to fly to cities in the Far East. In addition, WestJet, a Canadian airline, announced plans to start direct flights between Phoenix and Vancouver. WestJet already has non-stop flights from Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg to Phoenix. About a half-million Canadians visit Arizona every year, particularly in the winter.
Construction Finished on College of Nursing A second building for the College of Nursing and Health Innovation was completed on the Arizona State University Downtown Phoenix campus, just in time for the beginning of classes in August. The city of Phoenix bought the land and paid for the building with $28.5 million of bond revenue. DPR Construction Inc. broke ground in April 2008, and finished the five-story, 84,000 square-foot-building in only 16 months. The building houses classrooms, a 200-seat conference center, a 60-seat computer lab and office spaces for faculty and administrators. Most of the dramatic copper skin exterior was made from recycled copper which, together with the solar water heater on the roof and other green building attributes means the building will qualify for LEED certification. The college offers doctorates and masters degrees in nursing, as well as bachelor degrees.	Topping Out Celebration in Downtown Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon joined the “topping out” ceremony on July 16 for the 27-story CityScape office building under construction in downtown Phoenix. This office tower is scheduled for completion in spring of 2010. Most of the commercial space on the lower floors is leased to restaurants, a drug store, a gym and other retail outlets. Meanwhile, construction of a 45-story hotel and condo tower, just to the south of the office tower, is well underway. The hotel tower will have three levels of commercial space at ground level. Both towers have substantial underground parking. Ultimately the CityScape project will cover three city blocks and include about 600,000 square feet of office space, 250,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 2,500 below grade parking spaces, all within blocks of the Phoenix Convention Center and the sports arenas.
Phoenix Gains Electric Charging Stations A Phoenix company, Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation, won a $100 million federal economic stimulus grant in August to build and install charging stations for electric cars. The grant will accelerate and expand a project announced last April in which ETEC, Nissan and Maricopa County partnered to build a network of charging stations around Phoenix. Nissan is supporting this project because it plans to release 1,000 of its electric cars in Phoenix by the end of 2010. But the charging stations will work for all the electric vehicles that other car companies are now planning, as well as the plug-in hybrid cars. The Nissan cars will go 100 miles on a full charge, and recharging the battery at home will consume only about 90 cents of electricity. The charging station project is expected to create 750 new jobs, mostly in Phoenix, by 2012, according to ETEC. Visit etecevs.com/home.php for more information.	Large Solar Plant Proposed Near Phoenix The Bureau of Land Management hosted public meetings in August to solicit comments about a huge concentrated solar thermal power plant that would be located on BLM land about 45 miles west of Phoenix. BLM expects to make a final decision on leasing 4,000 acres for this project in December 2010. Construction will take 2 ½ years, so the project could start generating electricity in mid-2013. The solar plant will be built, owned and operated by NextEra Energy Resources, a subsidiary of Florida Power and Light Group. Its “Sonoran Solar Energy Project” will include 936,000 parabolic mirrors spread over 2,200 acres. The mirrors will concentrate solar heat on tubes of a petroleum-based fluid that will produce steam for two turbines. The turbines will have a total capacity of 375 megawatts. BLM has already received 35 applications to lease land in Arizona for solar power projects.
Two More Teams Move To Phoenix Two more professional baseball teams announced that they will move their spring training operations to the Phoenix metro area. The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies will share a training center and stadium that is being built by the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community on their reservation just west of the metropolitan area. The 140-acre facility will be located by an exit off the Loop 101 Freeway where it passes through the reservation. The training site will contain 12 practice fields, office buildings and an 11,000-seat stadium when completed in time for spring training in 2011. These two teams are moving their spring training operations from Tucson in order to reduce the commuting time required to play the other 12 baseball teams with training facilities already in the Phoenix metro area.	Contract for Automatic Trains Awarded In July, Phoenix awarded the contract for the driverless train system being installed at the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport, to Bombardier. The $255 million contract calls for Bombardier to supply all of the electrical and mechanical equipment for this project and to operate and maintain the system for ten years. The 18 rubber-tired, driverless vehicles will be built at the Bombardier plant in Pennsylvania. The first segment of the train system, scheduled for completion in late 2012, will extend 2.2 miles from the light rail stop on the northwest corner of the airport to Terminal 4. Then the people mover, named PHX SkyTrain, will be extended eastward to connect with the other two terminals at Sky Harbor airport, and eventually to the car rental center.
Company Highlights	Upcoming Trade Shows
Union Distributing Installing Solar Panels Union Distributing Company, a Phoenix-based company, recently contracted $1.6 million of photovoltaic panels and inverters from Solar Hawk Energy, another local company. Union Distributing sells gasoline, diesel fuel and lubricating oils on a retail and commercial basis throughout Arizona. The company will divide the PV panels with a total generating capacity of 250 kilowatts between the rooftops of its warehouses in Phoenix and Tucson. The solar panels will produce nearly 90 percent of the company’s electricity needs. Visit UnionDistributing.connekt2.com and SolarHawkEnergy.com for more information.	Greenbuild Conference & Expo, Nov. 10 - 13 The U.S. Green Building Council is now calculating that about 30,000 people will attend the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Phoenix, nearly double the original estimate. The conference will be held in the LEED certified Phoenix Convention Center West Hall. Former Vice President Al Gore will give the key note speech next door in the Chase Field baseball stadium. The conference will have educational sessions and fill a huge exhibit hall with about 1,900 booths showcasing innovative products and services for building green. Go to usgbc.org for more information.
Keller Electrical Building Major Expansion Phoenix-based Keller Electrical Industries Inc. announced plans to build a $16.5 million plant for manufacturing and repairing electrical motors. The company purchased 8.7 acres south of the Phoenix airport where it will build a 105,000-square foot plant with 270 kilowatts worth of solar panels on the roof. The company expects to create an additional 125 jobs over the next five years to build and repair electric motors for solar and wind turbines, as well as for the utilities and irrigation districts. The company Web Site, KellerElectrical.com, has more information.	National Science Teachers, Dec. 3 - 5 The western regional conference of the National Science Teachers Association will occur in the Phoenix Convention Center in early December. NSTA is expecting about 1,700 science teachers and about 100 executives of companies renting booths in the exhibition hall. More than 400 workshops and presentations are scheduled for science teachers from the elementary school level through college. Exhibitor sponsored workshops are also scheduled for science teachers. Visit nsta.org for more information.
Athletes’ Performance Opens New Center Athlete’s Performance, a Phoenix-based company, opened its fourth athletic training center in August, this one in north Phoenix. The company began in 1999 in an 18,000 square-foot-facility at Arizona State University for training world-class athletes while collaborating on kinesthetic research. The company earned a sterling reputation by training professional athletes at this location, subsequently opening two more training centers in Florida and California. The new 31,000 square-foot-facility in north Phoenix includes experts to assist athletes with their physical, nutritional and emotional needs. Visit athletesperformance.com for more information.	Electric Utility Environmental Conf, Feb 1 - 3 The 13^th annual Electric Utility Environmental Conference will be held at the Phoenix Convention Center in February. More than 2,000 representatives of utilities and energy technology companies are expected to attend this conference. Presentations by 600 technical and company experts are scheduled on topics that include: corporate sustainability, climate change, carbon management and markets, renewable energy, finance, clean technology and energy security. About 250 companies are expected to exhibit their monitoring equipment and control technologies, as well as solar and wind energy innovations. See euec.com for more information and to register.
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