CASA GRANDE — The Casa Grande Dispatch is reporting PhoenixMart and Dreamport Village are back on the table as well as "zombie" subdivisions that have haunted the town.
Within the past few years, “zombie” subdivisions within Casa Grande have all been resurrected back to life, thanks to a housing boom and major influx of manufacturing companies to the area. Could larger “zombie” megaprojects be next?
In the recent past, Casa Grande has been haunted by the specter of massive proposals that died under mysterious circumstances, most notoriously PhoenixMart, which went so far as to partially build a structure along Florence Boulevard for an international wholesale center.
PhoenixMart has almost reached “undead” status with property developers refusing to sell or move the project along.
However, City Manager Larry Rains said in a recent study session that the developers are now telling the city they are “active again.” In addition, Rains said developers of a Disneyland-style amusement park project, Dreamport Village, have also told him they are active again as well. That project, which was originally planned for an area near the Interstate 10 and Interstate 8 interchange, appeared to have been felled by water concerns and the pandemic.
“Those projects were on the back of the stove,” Rains said. “Maybe they move back up here?”
Less speculatively, Rains said that staff is “busy and crazy” with current negotiations with up to four industrial projects that have identified Casa Grande as a final location. Rains said that staff is updating their priority list of smaller projects that would go out for review to departments as they juggle the bigger items.
The City Council will discuss some of the possible new industrial projects during an executive session prior to its regular council meeting on Monday.
Along with Lucid Motors officially delivering customer vehicles this week, the city has seen some major projects through to completion, and success, making the loftier dreams of amusement parks — or nightmares of enormous empty abandoned structures — less of a concern.
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