TUCSON, ARIZONA — The Rio Nuevo Board last week unanimously approved a motion to authorize its executive officers to finalize and execute the $43 million loan package issued by Rio Nuevo to finance the construction of Caterpillar’s Tucson Mining Center.

The entire $43 million plus interest will be passed on to Caterpillar by the terms of a multi-year lease. At its regular board meeting, the Board approved the next phase of construction for the Tucson Mining Center totaling approximately $7.4 million dollars for the foundation work to begin November 1, 2017. Sundt Construction reported that the project is on time and on budget.

The Board also approved its executive officers to finalize and execute the final terms of an agreement with Flores Concepts to reinvigorate three downtown properties, investing as much as $250,000 with Ray Flores of Flores Concepts, which plans to assume control of one closed nightclub, one operating club and an adjacent vacant building.

The Flores family, responsible for El Charro Café, Charro Steak, Sir Veza’s Taco Garage and the Stillwell House & Gardens, negotiated an agreement to buy out the lease interest of the H2O Discotec at 61 E. Congress St., Zen Rock nightclub at 121 E. Congress St. and the former Betty Gay building at 125 E. Congress St. Flores Concepts intends to renovate, re-brand and reopen all three establishments.

Recently, the Board also authorized a Request for Proposal to be issued in conjunction with the development of Pima County’s parking lot at 77 E. Broadway Blvd., between North Scott Avenue and South Sixth Avenue and north of the Tucson Electric Power headquarters. The District will seek competitive proposals offering to develop a high-rise, mixed-use project to include retail, parking and Class A office space. The District has an option to lease or buy the property from Pima County and, consistent with the District’s current public/private partnership investments, will look for a private sector partner to develop the project.

The Board also authorized the hiring of a project manager for improvements to Ochoa Street as part of the Cathedral Square project.

The creation of the Rio Nuevo Multipurpose Facilities District was approved by Tucson voters in 1999, along with an appointed Board, to invest state tax dollars in public and public/private projects to create a vibrant Tucson core. For every dollar the Board invests, the community reaps $10 of construction activity with projects like the AC Hotel Tucson by Marriott, the Arena, Greyhound, the Mercado Annex, City Park, the Marist project and Caterpillar. For more information, visit https://rionuevo.org.

TUCSON, Arizona — Sundt Construction has announced the go-ahead to start construction on the new Caterpillar’s Surface Mining & Technologies (CSM&T) division headquarters in Arizona for Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT). Tucson-based, Sundt Construction the contractor, announced Wednesday of getting the go-ahead to start on the new $43 million division headquarters in Arizona for Caterpillar Inc.

Caterpillar is one of the 30 stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Along with other blue-chip Dow companies with big Arizona footprints including UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), Intel Corp. (Nasdaq: INTC), American Express (NYSE: AXP), Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and

The much anticipated, Caterpillar’s Surface Mining & Technologies (CSM&T) division headquarters is to be based at the base of A Mountain just west of Interstate 10, is slated to bring 600 jobs to Arizona via the headquarters development. The Rio Nuevo Board — which oversees a voter-approved development district to bring jobs and investments to Tucson — authorized finalization of a lease deal with Caterpillar that asked for a contingency for Rio Nuevo to set up the City’s GPLET approval.

Not anticipating any problems, the Rio Nuevo board approved actions this week to allow Sundt to move forward with the Caterpillar headquarters. The Rio Nuevo group has paid $7 million to acquire the title to the property where the CSM&T base is going and is spending $4.8 million to clean up a landfill on the construction site. Sundt is based in Tucson and has an office in Tempe.

Caterpillar’s stock closed at $104.71 in Wednesday action. The machinery, tractor, construction and mining equipment manufacturer’s stock is up 13 percent so far this year, according to Google Finance.

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