[EDITORIAL] Win-win in large Pinal County land sale
Casa Grande Dispatch
Announcement this week of a massive land sale in the Coolidge area and south toward Eloy fits with the long- held concept of expanded development in the “Golden Corridor” between Phoenix and Tucson. While that will not explode overnight, the purchase of 11,400 acres of farmland for $135 million over a few years clearly is a sign of things to come.
The city of Mesa bought the land some 30 years ago for water rights at a cost of $29 million but gave up on the idea because of the cost of transfer and cheaper alternatives. The city began marketing the land five years ago and expected to need 10 to 20 years to sell it, but Pinal Land Holdings LLC of Scottsdale (a Rose Law Group client), an entity formed by world- wide agricultural company Farm Sources International, stepped forward and offered to buy it all. The first phase of sale of the land, which has been leased to farmers, is for $23 million.
PLH President Jackob Andersen, a European businessman who has been involved in exporting Arizona crops and development of industrial property in Casa Grande, plans to keep the land in agricultural use until market conditions are right for development. The area is slated, long term, for a new major highway.
Meanwhile Mesa will use the money for paying off its new Chicago Cubs training complex and supporting such projects as the Benedictine University campus and the Mesa Center for Higher Education, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
All of this means big long-term changes for Coolidge and Pinal County. Change is inevitable, and this one appears to be very positive.
