Maricopa City Manager Rick Horst has confirmed that a major retail development is coming to the area at the southeast end of the overpass – soon.
Horst said a developer is in place and “dozens” of shops and retailers have signed letters of intent, with other joining the center at a rapid pace.
“Timelines move and this is not locked in, but we think they could start (construction) as early as September or October,” Horst said. “It’s in the area we call the New Maricopa Station, all that dirt on the east side of John Wayne Parkway.”
That area has been a prime target for commercial development for years. Speculation about major retailers such as Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Lowe’s has been rampant, but no details have yet emerged. Horst did nothing to change that but did stoke the fire a bit.
“What I can tell you is they (the developer) have been signing up national and regional tenants and there is a lot more interest than we ever expected,” he said. “There is a developer on board. They have letters of intent from a lot of these retailers.”
If construction begins this fall as Horst indicated it might, many of those retailers could have their Maricopa locations open for the holidays in 2023. That would be a huge economic boon to the city, keeping dollars in the local economy and boosting the city’s tax base.
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If you were Target, Kohl’s, Home Depot and Lowe’s, would you build something in a city with only one road in and out??? Imagine the nightmare on Route 347 when construction vehicles and materials start rolling in to build a 100,000+ sq. ft. Lowes or Depot, not to say anything regarding restocking semi’s rolling through Maricopa in the wee hours of the morning. This from the city that thought it was prudent to tie up traffic midday when erecting the beautiful rock cages…..this city is run my amateurs and dilettantes.
NYTOAZ – Yes I would. If it’s a pain in the a$$ to get out of town then people are more apt to stay & shop local if given the option. As a business they can schedule delivery trucks outside of rush hour so traffic wouldn’t really be a logistical issue. With a consumer base of 95K & more development on the way, snagging a prime location early is a wise move. The more retail we can draw into Maricopa the less retail traffic will clog 347.
It would be nice if this publication amounted to more than a mouthpiece for city leaders to spout unsubstantiated claims about some hopeful future they envision for our community. Rick Horst can use his own Facebook account to tease this sort of non-information to the community if he wants, but this in no way should constitute front page news here, seeing as there’s no actual news in this story.
Maricopa city leadership have been promising major retail development “Soon” for as long as I’ve lived here. What would make for a much more interesting story would be a report on all the previously promised developments that never came to fruition over the past decade, and how each and every one of those ventures failed due to the greed and incompetence of our city leaders.