City manager shares details of possible hospital, hotel and airport

A hospital for Maricopa? It could be a reality, said Maricopa City Manager Kevin Evans. Evans, a featured speaker at Friday’s Pinal Partnership breakfast in Florence, said the city was negotiating with three hospitals about the prospect of locating in Maricopa.

“We have high hopes for a hospital in Maricopa; health care is an area in the community that is not served at all,” Evans said. “How many areas (Maricopa, plus surrounding area) have a population of 60,000 and don’t have a hospital?”

Pinal Partnership is a coalition of community, business, educational and governmental leaders, whose goal is to provide leadership and support in specific areas. The group typically holds a breakfast meeting each month with guest speakers offering up information pertinent to the county’s future. Besides Evans, other speakers included Robin Sewell with Arizona Highways Magazine, Mark Winkleman with ML Manager LLC and Jim Holway with the Sonoran Institute.

Despite his optimism on a hospital for the city, Evans could not provide any further details due to confidentiality agreements. However, he did squash rumors concerning the closing of the Volkswagen test track in Maricopa. “I was informed yesterday they plan on staying and are possibly expanding their operations,” he said.

Currently Evans said the factory accounts for roughly 100 jobs in Maricopa and is one of the reasons several hotel chains are interested in building in Maricopa. “Every day it seems we are approached by at least one hotel chain about coming to Maricopa,” Evans said. “If the financing was available, I know we would have one by now.”

Evans also talked about the possibility of an airport being constructed near Maricopa. In his experience working with other cities, Evans said he’s never seen so much interest from the Federal Aviation Administration this early in the planning process.

“Typically, they won’t visit your site until you have the site plan complete, but Maricopa has already had three visits,” he said. Evans added that these visits have originated from the FFA’s San Diego office, and the city expects another visit in the near future.

While a hotel, hospital and airport are good cornerstones, Evans said they are not the city’s only economic development needs. “For the first time in my life, I am working in a community that is underserved in retail,” Evans said. “We have plenty of pizza places and nail salons, but other than that, there’s not a whole lot on the plate.”

To help bring economic development to Maricopa, Evans urged the group to put pressure on state leaders to give cities the tools they need to be competitive with their counterparts in other states. “Arizona needs to go after two to three economic development tools or it is done.”

One specific tool he referenced was tax-increment financing, which allows financing based on future projected gains. “Every state in the U.S. has this tool at its disposal with the exception of Arizona,” Evans said. “Not having this is like asking a person to go deer hunting with a rock.”

File photo