Disclosure: Rose Law Group represents Saint Holdings as the landowner
By Callan Smith | Rose Law Group Reporter
Not one, but two electric vehicle companies are coming to Pinal County, first Lucid Motors, now Nikola Corporation, which made for an excited crowd at the Pinal Partnership breakfast panel event this morning in Chandler.
Jordan Rose, founder and president of Rose Law Group, moderator of the panel, suggested, “Pinal County is in the early stages of becoming the Detroit of electric automated vehicles.”
Bringing Nikola to Pinal County, specifically the City of Coolidge, started with Jackob Anderson, president and CEO of Saint Holdings after he watched a Nikola video on YouTube. Reaching out to Tom Stringer, managing director of Site Selection & Incentives with BDO, he learned the site selection process was starting.
Arizona entered the running with 14 states, all vying to make the cut with hundreds of variables at play, including demographics, land and workforce, Stringer said.
The Arizona Department of Commerce began working with Stringer, initially looking at Maricopa County along with Pinal, Sandra Watson president and CEO, said. Their goal was meeting the needs of the client, Nikola in this case, which includes infrastructure at present and in future, such as changes coming to the county from the recently passed RTA. Another critical consideration was how the community embraced the project and the employer.
“This was extremely competitive between Arizona and two other states. Where Arizona distinguished itself immeasurably was on deliverability, we can count on getting it done here because the team of people and everything was in place,” Stringer said.
Arizona has changed in the 20 years Stringer has been doing this type of work in selecting sites, and the state does have to fight against many other states and cannot rely solely on the weather, lower costs or lower taxes, especially considering states like Tennessee where automotive supply chains and manufacturing are locating.
“The site selectors that come into this don’t want one hundred sites that aren’t viable. They have to be filtered down to those that are actually delivered. So, for us, it was important to have good shovel-ready projects to the user. If you’re in the business of building semi-trucks you don’t want to worry about sewer or water rights from miles away,” Anderson said, whose company brought in Tractor Supply Company and the Central Arizona Commerce Park to Casa Grande.
The other states in the running all did a wonderful job, “at the end of the day, it was really about personal connections, and feeling like Arizona could deliver,” Britton Worthen, Nikola Corporation chief legal officer, said.
Nikola is in the process of building a zero emission semi-truck, which is a different perspective than Tesla. As for timeline, they want to get started as quickly as possible and are building the site plan, which is expected to be one million square feet. They also expect to exceed the originally estimated 2,000 employees, Worthen said.
In the first ten years the Nikola project is expected to bring over $700 million in economic output, $12.6 million in net revenue for the city, 3,605 jobs regionally and $255.9 million in wages, Coolidge Mayor Jon Thompson said.
Arizona Department of Commerce has been working closely with community colleges, such as Central Arizona College.
Maricopa, Central Arizona and Pima Community Colleges came together first for Lucid with a unified curriculum, and now for Nikola along with all the manufactures along what is known as the tech corridor of Tucson to Phoenix to prepare potential employees. Because, “they’re a critical player in producing the talent necessary for Nikola,” Watson said.
Five years ago, Stringer gave a talk in Arizona where he stated the biggest issue in bringing in development was the disconnect between state and local levels, but that has changed. Worthen, Stringer and Watson praised those involved in the process including Governor Ducy, and when asked what could be done better next time, the advice was keep doing what you’re doing.
For the city of Coolidge, there has been a lot of excitement, “since the announcement was made the phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” said Thompson.
