Council approves 500,000 square foot retail center

Maricopa’s City Council approved the first two phases of the city’s biggest retail center in history at a specially called meeting Monday night.

The approval allows construction to begin on what all reports indicate will be a Wal-Mart. Vice Mayor Brent Murphree said the Shea development also will include a major home improvement and electronics stores.

The 500,000 square foot retail center will be at Porter Road and the Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway. It will include free-standing restaurants, smaller retail stores, day care and other stores. A pedestrian trail will run along the front, as well as an equestrian trail. Parking will be in front of the stores. Landscaping will be drought-tolerant desert.

The major retailer, which would use about 100,000 square feet, likely will be Wal-Mart. That was discussed at a previous city meeting (see related story), and the Council on Monday asked about a stipulation on overnight parking. Wal-Mart stores nationwide generally allow RVs to park in their lots overnight. Murphree said he was “not at liberty to say” what the stores would be.

The buildings will have a Southwestern look with earthtones, stucco, stone and metal. At one point, Council members huddled over a map to see where a chain link fence would be.

Having that much new retail would “keep people in town” as well as their sales tax dollars, which now go to Ahwatukee, Chandler and Phoenix-area cities, said Vice Mayor Murphree, who presided over the meeting because Mayor Kelly Anderson was ill.

Murphree also said it was exciting that the project also contains multi-family housing, which could provide housing for some of the people who would work at the center.

The unanimous vote to approve the project came at a special City Council meeting called to approve an unrelated 313-acre annexation. Asked why the Shea development needed to be done in a special meeting, Murphree said the company was anxious to get started and simply was added to the agenda for the annexation decision.