TUCSON, Arizona -- The Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District board at a Special Meeting held Monday voted unanimously to issue a site mobilization notice to proceed on the future Caterpillar building site near downtown Tucson. While the lease between Rio Nuevo and Caterpillar is yet to be signed, Rio Nuevo attorney Mark Collins gave the board assurances that the lease will be signed without material changes to the draft presented at Monday’s meeting.
Caterpillar’s Surface Mining & Technology, a division of Caterpillar Inc. as guarantor, is to enter into a 25-year lease with a guaranteed interest rate of no more than three percent for the first 10 years. The draft lease also asks Rio Nuevo to take necessary action for Caterpillar to qualify for the Government Property Lease Excise Tax, or GPLET.
However, Rio Nuevo cannot guarantee the GPLET, since it must be voted on by the Tucson City Council. An all Democrat Mayor and Council that as recently as last week, June 6th, voted unanimously to pass a resolution denouncing any and all “planning, designing and construction of a physical border wall” and were joined in support by Pima County Board of Supervisors in a 3 to 2 vote split along partisan lines.
Tucson’s resolution goes beyond the County resolution, calling for the city to stop working with companies that “become involved in the designing, building, or financing of the border wall.”
Caterpillar has been specifically named along with the John Deere Company as two of the main equipment companies to benefit directly from the construction of such a border wall.
Rio Nuevo Chairman Fletcher McCusker however, pointed out that there is no reason the city would not approve the GPLET since it gets no revenue from the site now. “In my opinion, there’s no way… they can deny it,” he was quoted in the Star as saying.
So now the City of Tucson will have to decide whether to honor the GPLET agreement with Caterpillar or the resolution to stop working with businesses that benefit from the construction of a border wall. If it were any other city, it would be a simple prediction.
To see further details on the Rio Nuevo Special Meeting as published in the Arizona Daily Star click here.
And for related article see Real Estate Daily News https://wp.me/p4ZoA6-9w7