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D.R. Horton successfully bids $31.35 million for 125 acres of State Trust land in Peoria; proceeds to be invested to benefit Arizona Pioneers’ Home, state corrections agencies
PHOENIX – D.R. Horton successfully bid $31.35 million Tuesday in an Arizona State Land Department auction for 125.36 acres of State Trust Land in Peoria that is zoned for residential use, State Land Commissioner Lisa Atkins announced.
D.R. Horton, a Texas-based developer with several developments in Arizona, made the only bid in the auction, bidding the minimum allowable bid of $31.35 million. That figure is the appraised value of the subject parcel, at the southwest corner of Lake Pleasant Parkway and Deer Valley Road. The subject parcel has been zoned by the city of Peoria for a planned community development.
The auction was scheduled Per Commissioner’s Initiative, where the Department itself was the applicant to put the subject parcel on the market.
The successful bid amount from this sale will be deposited into an account of the Permanent Land Endowment Trust Fund at the Office of the State Treasurer of Arizona. The account is designated for the exclusive Beneficiaries of the subject parcel, which are the Arizona Pioneers’ Home in Prescott, the Arizona Department of Corrections, and the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections. The account is invested by the State Treasurer, which pays monthly distributions to the Beneficiaries.
“While the largest Beneficiary of the State Land Trust is Arizona’s public education system, proceeds from this auction will be invested to benefit the Arizona Pioneers’ Home as well as the State’s adult and juvenile corrections systems,” Commissioner Atkins said. “Like the public schools, these Beneficiaries were established at statehood to receive perpetual benefit of Trust assets and resources.”
K-12 public education is by far the largest Beneficiary of Trust land managed by the Arizona State Land Department, whose mission since 1915 is to manage the assets of a multi-generational perpetual trust in alignment with the interests of the Trust’s 13 Beneficiaries and Arizona’s future.
All uses of the land and resources held in the Trust must benefit the Trust, a fact that distinguishes it from the way public land, such as parks or national forests, may be used or managed. While public use of Trust land is not prohibited, it is regulated to ensure protection of the land and compensation to the Beneficiaries for its use. Today the Arizona State Land Department pro-actively manages more than 9.2 million acres of Trust land, which is 13 percent of the land within the State of Arizona.
