InFocus: As Maricopa grows, Horst says jobs will follow

1077
City Manager Rick Horst speaks about jobs and growth. [Bryan Mordt]

Maricopa finds itself in an interesting place these days. With housing running short in the Phoenix metro area, the growing city seems to be one of the few places in the area where land is still available to be developed.

City Manager Rick Horst recently offered his thoughts on growth and what it is going to take for the city of Maricopa to see long-term success.

Maricopa is an attractive option for many reasons, Horst explained.

“We have the resources, including water supply,” he said. “Our values for homes, although growing, are still significantly lower than the Greater Phoenix area.”

A few months ago, Horst met with a group of real estate and development advisers, who pointed out there is really nowhere else to go in the Valley.

“From Buckeye, all the way to Queen Creek, all the land that’s available has already been purchased and is being prepared for development. So, there’s very little actual land left,” Horst said. “There is no place to go but here or the Buckeye area, out that way or further north. But when you talk about proximity to downtown Phoenix and the airport, and those type of things, where all the high-tech jobs are in the corridors and Chandler and everywhere else, we’re it.”

Horst said more homes means more voters in Maricopa and down the line, with the need for workers in neighboring areas, the city will get more attention from the state legislature and local county governments.

“And that’s why the 347 problem will get resolved, because now Maricopa County needs us to resolve it as much as we need to resolve it,” Horst said. “Before it was ‘Maricopa is not even in our county.’ But now, they need our workers to get there.

“And if (employees) have a tough time getting there, (employers) will have a hard time supplying their manpower needs, so it works both ways.”

Which leads to the question of jobs in Maricopa, another cure for the SR347 woes city residents face daily, Horst pointed out. “With more jobs created here, fewer people need to go on 347.”

While service jobs in Maricopa are already plentiful, there is a need to diversify through high-tech opportunities that pay more.

Getting in the game

The widening of Porter Road represents one of the many projects within Maricopa that will continue as its population grows. [Brian Petersheim Jr.]
Maricopa was only fully incorporated in 2003. In many ways, other cities had a head start.

“Some of our sister cities have been working on programs for 50, 60 years, such as the new Lucid plant (in Casa Grande) and other things, because they worked on creating industrial sites and other opportunities over the decades,” Horst said.

“We’re 18 years old,” he continued. “And probably for the first 10 years, this is somewhat of a guess, we were just content to be a bedroom community. And then the next five years, we were kind of content to be a bedroom community, but we’ve recognized we needed something more.”

More importantly, without good-paying jobs, any community stagnates. But the price of housing rarely stalls, especially in an area close to so many employment opportunities.

“For the last three or four years, it’s been about the realization that we can’t just be a bedroom community,” Horst said. “Because bedroom communities cannot thrive, and survive, unless you want to be a Park City (Utah) or Vail, Colorado, where taxes are through the roof. The average home price there is a couple of million dollars.”

To keep that from happening, Horst said Maricopa leaders have been actively pursuing high-paying jobs. He described them as “high-tech, research and development, and scientific” in nature.

“We’ve been involved with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council and the Arizona Commerce Association for years, paying our dues and we never got invited to the dance, meaning when they got leads, we never came away with anything, partly because we weren’t ready for them,” Horst said. “But now we’re starting to get leads.

“And now, not only are we invited to the dance, but we’re also actually in the spotlight.”

The city is currently working with six to eight entities to bring jobs to Maricopa — all opportunities with potentially sizable job creation. To win one or two of them would make a difference, he said.

“We may not win all of them,” Horst said. “But the more you have working, the better chance of success.”

347Beatification
Crews work on the John Wayne Parkway beatification project, an effort by the city to put its best foot forward to visitors and prospective citizens. [Brian Petersheim Jr.]
The challenges ahead

There’s a perception transportation is the biggest roadblock to Maricopa landing commercial and industrial plants and facilities, but Horst said there are exterior factors to consider.

Arizona municipalities compete against states that provide more incentives. The state does not offer tax increment financing, or TIF, which subsidizes companies by refunding or diverting a portion of their taxes to help finance development in an area or a project site.

“That’s always been an impediment for us,” Horst said.

And another obstacle in Maricopa is the fear of the unknown.
“I think the biggest challenge of growth is that it scares people,” the city manager said. “They don’t know what it means. They don’t know what that looks like.”

Population projections are also intimidating for some. The city has enough housing permits available to triple its population. But it’s not going to happen overnight. It will take decades.
The growth is going to be gradual, Horst said. It must be.

“It’s really about planning, and I was asked, ‘How are you going to get ready for the next 60,000 people? What are you going to do?’” Horst said. “Well, the same thing we did for the first 60,000 people. We are not going to build roads to accommodate 120,000 people today.

“Because if we did, we would have to rely on our current tax base to pay for it, which means raising everyone’s taxes, which nobody wants. And we are committed not to do it. Matter of fact, we’ve lowered our taxes for the last two years and planning to for the third year, both primary and secondary taxes.”

In addition to lowering taxes, Horst said the city is looking to expand the tax base with more jobs.

In the drive to lure more lucrative jobs to Maricopa, there are going to be wins and losses. But Horst feels the city is getting ready to turn the corner.

“We probably won’t win most of them, but we’re likely going to win one or two of them. And then once you start winning one or two of them, the question becomes, ‘Why do they pick Maricopa?’

“And so that’s where we’re at. We spend a lot of time and energy telling people that we are here to create jobs. Again, these are intended to be high-paying, clean industry, smart city-type, growth jobs. We are not interested in the old industrial park-type concepts and frankly, they do not exist that much anymore anyway. We want to do things that add to the community and build the community up.”

Expansion of health facilities in Maricopa will be another source of good-paying jobs. In December, the city’s first hospital, Exceptional Health, opened. Another hospital is slated to open within the next year.

“That created 80 or 90 new jobs in the medical field,” Horst said. “We already have about 1,600 people here, medically trained in our community. Now, they have jobs getting paid just as well, but staying here.”

Striking a balance

Jobs aside, the evidence of growth is visible throughout the city in road construction alone. The city continues its John Wayne Parkway beautification project, along with improvements elsewhere.

“People complain about the construction on our streets,” Horst said. “And my answer is: Can you imagine if we weren’t fixing the streets? Do you want a few months of inconvenience, or do you want a lifetime of inconvenience?”

Getting people to stay in Maricopa is one of Horst’s goals. He noted city residents spend about $400 million annually in other cities and towns that collect the sales taxes.

“So, all we want to say, we don’t want you to spend any more money, just spend it here, instead of there,” he said. “Their answer is: ‘We’ll be happy to do it as soon as you give us the stuff to do it.’

“And we’re moving in that direction.”

This story was first published in the March edition of InMaricopa magazine.

1 COMMENT