MCE debuts ‘Engage’ series with Mayor Price (video)

Mayor Christian Price’s approach to business leadership is a sum of all his experiences back to high school.

That was one of the tidbits he shared in a sit-down discussion as Maricopa Center for Entrepreneurship debuted its “Engage” series at the Copper Sky Mutigenerational Complex.

“We realized that there were people in the community that were very influential in how businesses operated,” MCE Director Dan Beach said. “From that, we decided to create some kind of an event where we could bring them in and ask them the tough kind of questions about the business behind business.”

Dozens of Maricopa residents and business owners came to Copper Sky to hear the mayor speak. The discussion was initially meant to be at MCE’s storefront location, but large numbers of committed attendees forced MCE to rent out space at Copper Sky.

The conversation started with Price discussing his influences and journey into politics, but quickly transitioned into how Maricopa has and will continue to grow.

“How do we do something that is hard for us, and how do we build an image?” Price said. “We have lots of home-based businesses, but where is the middle ground? The cost per square foot [in Maricopa] is worse than Scottsdale! It’s ridiculous!”

According to Price, the city is hoping to lower the extremely high cost of renting office space in the city by installing “flex” buildings at the Estrella Gin Business Park.

The “flex” buildings allow businesses to rent as much space as they need without having to install thousands of dollars worth of upgrades to make the building meet safety codes. The buildings will also be a “public/private partnership,” so officials will have more control over the cost to rent space.

“As a city, we do not want to come into the real estate business and we don’t want to come in and be competitive to the market, but we do want to create an outside-the-box way of thinking,” Price said. “So we need to partner with private industry and take what both sides are good at to fill that niche. That’s what we’re doing at [Estrella Gin Business Park] behind Acacia Crossing.”

The next date and guest speaker for MCE’s “Engage” series has not been announced yet.