Buckeye Moves Forward with Tech Corridor, Axes Master-Planned Community

Article originally posted on AZ Central on August 13, 2024

Buckeye is moving forward with its tech corridor after it made plans earlier this year to scrap one of its planned master-planned communities.

In April, the City Council continued a motion to discuss terminating the city’s development agreement for Cipriani, which was approved in 2008 to be one of Buckeye’s many master-planned communities.

The over 2,000-acre area is in the northern part of Buckeye, with 315th Avenue to the west, Yuma Road to the north, Johnson Road to the east and Southern Avenue to the south, according to city documents.

On Tuesday, the City Council approved a measure that terminates the development agreement with Cipriani and creates an amendment in the new Buckeye Tech Corridor Community Master Plan. That agreement re-envisions the site as a technology-centric light industrial and commercial campus, said principal planner Ken Galica.

While the land was previously largely designated for residential use, the new uses could include retail office spaces, data centers or light manufacturing.

What happened to Buckeye’s Cipriani development?

What was Cipriani?

The 2,091-acre community would have included 9,700 homes, 190 acres of commercial area, 276 acres of open space, five schools, five fire stations and one police station.

The land was originally purchased for development between 2003 and 2006. A group of 125 investors planned to flip the property and sell to investors. Then the economy crashed, halting development.

All investors took a loss in 2021 when the land was sold.

Buckeye moves forward with tech corridor

Despite the land being unable to sell, Anita Verma-Lallian saw a vision with the property.

Verma-Lallian is the CEO and founder of land acquirer Arizona Land Consulting and purchased the Cipriani site in 2022. Verma-Lallian said she was following the growth patterns in the West Valley and the white-hot growth of Buckeye. While there has been demand throughout the Valley for industrial uses, the proximity to the airport means it wouldn’t be ideal for a residential area, she said.

The company then worked towards rezoning the area for industrial employment use. The land will eventually be home to data centers and could bring hundreds to thousands of jobs to Buckeye. Many of those jobs will be high-paying, Verma-Lallian said.

The area will be divided up into different planning units. Unit 1, which is about 40 acres, is designated to be about 75% light industrial and commercial. The remaining 10 acres are required commercial in order to provide restaurants and services to employees, Galica said.

Development:

Unit 2, which is nearly 1,730 acres, is anticipated to be a large regional data center, developed by Denver-based Tract. The company previously asked Maricopa County to rezone land near Buckeye for a $14 billion data center, but later retracted the request in May.

Unit 3 will be 80 acres of light industrial or commercial use, while Unit 4 will be about 230 acres, with an addition 10 acres designated for commercial uses for employees.

Rules for light industrial zoning require low intensity uses that are in fully enclosed spaces with no anticipated odor or noise impacts, Galica said.

The developer will also be responsible for the construction of any streets in the site, which can be public or private, Galica said. And if the city’s traffic impact analysis determines the project will create issues outside of the project, the developer may be responsible for those improvements as well.

If the property does develop into a data center, the city will reimburse the developer with 20% of the tax revenue generated by data centers in the project for 20 years. That could be extended another 15 years but will be capped at $50 million.

The developer will also be responsible for constructing and staffing one of two public safety centers. In the meantime, the company is responsible for allocating $3.5 million to the city for a temporary public safety facility.

Overall, Galica said the traffic impacts are expected to be minimal if Tract does end up developing the data center.