How the West Valley Evolved Into Hotbed for Innovation and Growth Article originally posted on AZ Big Media on July 24, 2024 Buckeye Mayor Eric Orsborn recounts a 2015 story that perfectly illustrates how the perception of the West Valley has dramatically evolved in less than a decade. “Then-Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton was celebrating an investment the City of Phoenix was making in Buckeye,” Orsborn recalls. “Mayor Stanton said, ‘One day, we’re all going to be suburbs of Buckeye.’ And everyone laughed because — at that time — it was funny to hear the mayor of Phoenix say something like that.” But Buckeye might get the last laugh. Orsborn points out that Phoenix is about 525 square miles. Buckeye is 640 square miles with the potential to add more. The 37,000-acre master-planned community Teravalis has broken ground in Buckeye and promises to bring 100,000 new homes and 300,000 residents. Bill Gates also plans to build a “smart city” on 25,000 acres of land in the city. And with thousands of new jobs coming to Buckeye annually, the once-tiny West Valley city — which the Census Bureau says was America’s fastest-growing city over the past five years — is no longer playing second-fiddle to its bigger neighbor to the east. “Buckeye WILL be bigger than Phoenix,” Orsborn says, matter-of-factly. But it’s not just Buckeye that is emerging from the shadow of Phoenix. The entire West Valley has evolved from a being a region once perceived as a farming community and retirement destination into one one of the world’s economic development hot spots, attracting billions of dollars in investment, fostering an environment of innovation, attracting technology giants and becoming the go-to destination in Arizona for new residents to call home and businesses looking to start, grow or expand operations. “The perception used to primarily be that the West Valley was a place that mostly offered tremendous affordability benefiting either retirees or lower-income, lower-skilled workers,” says Jeanine Jerkovic, economic development director for the City of Surprise. “While businesses might appreciate the affordability, the low-skill workforce perception presented barriers for major business operations in need of a talented workforce.” But that perception has changed — dramatically. “The West Valley’s great strength is its ability to reinvent itself and create a balanced offering of a variety of culture, development, open space and business opportunity,” says Jason Morris, founding partner of Withey Morris Baugh. “Bear in mind there are over a million West Valley residents who are ‘new’ to the Valley and have no concept of any negative connotation associated with that area. All they see is a new and thriving frontier, which they want to claim.” Today, Jerkovic says the true vision of the West Valley has come into clearer focus: It’s an up-and-coming place of abundance that is growing with new young families, students, visitors and talented professionals. “Over the last 10 years, we have watched the West Valley transform from farming communities to the leader in foreign direct investment, manufacturing and consistent residential and commercial growth and development,” says Matt Carpenter, chief operating officer, senior vice president and partner at Haydon. “The West Valley has become a hot spot and example for growth strategy.” Redefining a region Sintra Hoffman, president and CEO of WESTMARC, a public-private partnership of 15 West Valley communities, says the region’s rapid growth has been a major factor in what has helped redefine it. “One of the fortunate things we have going on in the West Valley is there are a lot of newcomers,” Hoffman says. “There are 200 or 300 new people a day that move to the Metro Phoenix area. So, there are a lot of newcomers coming to the West Valley that don’t have those old perceptions. They are seeing the area for what it is today. We often hear people say, ‘Everything’s new.’ We have new housing, new communities, new retail. Everything is a little bit more spacious. We’re not as congested. We’re not as old. The impact of having so many new people — especially young people move into the area — has been really positive for us and we’ve been able to build upon that.” Along that line of thought, Hoffman has seen a huge shift in the perception of the West Valley, specifically in the area of age. “I think at one point, we were very much branded a retirement community,” Hoffman says. “But there are two things that have really demonstrated a shift in demographics.” The first, Hoffman says, is Phoenix Children’s and Banner Health investing hundreds of millions of dollars to build new West Valley pediatric facilities to serve the region. “They don’t do these things lightly,” Hoffman says. “Clearly, they see not only the market today, but the market of the future and they are looking at the changing demographics and the evolution of the West Valley.” Rising in the west The second milestone Hoffman has seen is in educational opportunities. “When ASU expanded its West Valley campus, it signified a major shift,” Hoffman says. “For almost 40 years, ASU West Valley had been a campus for lifelong learning. It was more liberal arts and catered towards the older population.” But in 2023, ASU’s West Valley campus opened up three new schools — The School of Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the W. P. Carey School of Business; The School of Interdisciplinary Forensics in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences; and The School of Integrated Engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “The West Valley is already home to many engineering and tech employers, with massive growth and investment on the horizon,” says Associate Professor Shawn Jordan, the interim director at the School of Integrated Engineering. “That’s one of the main reasons ASU wants to help bring engineering here. We want to support current and future students to study engineering close to where they live and make an impact in their communities.” Hoffman says the shift came after ASU asked West Valley leadership for feedback. “We had a workforce development strategy — West Valley Pipeline,” Hoffman says, “so we were able to give them information on what the in-demand occupations are today and projected into the future.” ASU, in turn, realigned its curriculum to match the needs of the workforce. “When ASU no longer saw the West Valley as a retirement community and realized they needed to shift gears and make a significant investment, that was a big telltale sign for me,” Hoffman says. “These things showed me we are getting more specialty services — healthcare and education — that are geared towards that younger population that is helping us build the workforce we need for future growth. That’s a major shift for the West Valley.” Team sport If you ask Hoffman or other West Valley leaders what propelled the region into becoming the economic juggernaut it is today, they universally agree that it’s not one victory or the success of one organization. It’s the collective effort of the region. “Our West Valley mayors and managers are a very congenial, collaborative group,” says Goodyear Mayor Joe Pizzillo. “We know that what is good for one city benefits the entire region, so we celebrate each other’s wins. We share best practices, ask one another what has worked — or didn’t work — in each of our cities so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel when we are tackling an issue. We are all growing at an incredible rate, so having that positive working relationship brings a cohesiveness that has us all moving in the same direction to the benefit of each community and the region as a whole.” And that cohesiveness has helped the region score some major wins when it comes to economic development. Among the highlights: TSMC is investing more than $65 billion in three greenfield fabs in Phoenix. TSMC will create approximately 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs, more than 20,000 accumulated unique construction jobs and tens of thousands of indirect jobs in this decade. Amkor Technology, a leading provider of semiconductor packaging and test services, plans to build an advanced packaging and test facility in Peoria. Amkor plans to invest approximately $2 billion and employ approximately 2,000 people at the new facility. KORE Power is building an $850 million battery cell manufacturing facility in Buckeye that will create nearly 2,000 new jobs. Microsoft recently paid more than $258 million to acquire 280 acres in the El Mirage area to support data center construction that’s already underway in the area. “When TSMC announced it was investing in the West Valley, it proved our workforce,” says Jennifer Stein, economic development services director for the City of Peoria. “It showed we have a really talented, highly educated workforce. We are not being overlooked anymore. The West Valley is actually a leader in economic development.” Every job counts But it’s not just the big-dollar investments that have shifted the perception of the West Valley. Cities in the region have cultivated an environment where startups can find a supportive and welcoming environment to launch and grow their businesses. “There are three incubators that have helped startups grow in the West Valley — AZ TechCelerator in Surprise; Canyon Ventures at Grand Canyon University; and Peoria Forward, which is a partnership between the ASU Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program and the City of Peoria,” Hoffman says. “They are doing a great job of providing basic resources, giving startups incubator space, allowing them to learn from each other and to grow and scale their businesses.” According to the West Valley Innovation Alliance, 139 new businesses have been created in the West Valley in the past 38 months. And in the technology space, the number of new startups in the West Valley is growing an astounding 34% each year. “We were able to assist 47 entrepreneurs with their business plans, funding and strengthening the ecosystem of the West Valley,” says Ron Babich, co-founder of the West Valley Innovation Alliance. Those 47 startups have attracted funding value of $18.7 million and created 278 new jobs. Experts say this ecosystem of innovation and growth is only happening because people have finally taken notice of the opportunities available in the West Valley. “West Valley leadership has done a better job of telling our story and creating market clarity over the last few years — something we have all had to do during the last cycle of industrial, commercial, and residential hyper-growth,” Jerkovic says. “WESTMARC has done a consistently excellent job of communicating new market information and convening West Valley leadership to accelerate new market information.” More to come Moving into the future, the West Valley’s greatest strength is that it is still growing and evolving and creating its own identity. “In the City of Surprise, we have added more than 5,000 people to our community each year for four years and consequently have seen our median household income rise from $65,000 to $97,000 and the median age in our city drop from 41 to 38,” Jerkovic says. “An increasingly new affluent and young demographic is changing our workforce, visitor and consumer profile — and this is an exciting opportunity for new developments and businesses.” Jerkovic points to the fact that there are few places in the nation where all types of development — industrial, commercial and residential — are all in growth-mode, but they all are growing in the West Valley. And success breeds more success. “Attracting Red Bull, Rausch and Ball to a multi-million-square-foot campus in the Loop 303 area was an eye opener for many in the region,” says Kevin Phelps, city manager for the City of Glendale. “That soon led to billion-dollar investments by White Claw and Nestle. These projects were a huge catalyst for the significant growth in manufacturing and industrial projects. But ultimately, VAI Resort will bring unprecedented attention to Glendale nationally when it opens next year.” And while the gigantic West Valley industrial deals and the $1 billion VAI Resort grab a lot of headlines, there are other major retail and hospitality projects — Verrado Marketplace in Buckeye, The Trailhead in Peoria, Mattel Adventure Park in Glendale, Village at Prasada and Prasada North in Surprise — that are also contributing the the changing face of the West Valley. “Buc-ee’s, of course, is huge,” Pizzillo says of the the 75,400-square-foot, 120-gas-pump convenience store known for its sandwiches, freshly made fudge and hot beef brisket. “They have an enormous following of faithful patrons. Buc-ee’s is a destination site, with people driving hours out of their way to visit their stores. To have them come to Goodyear is definitely a big win.” Pizzillo is quick to point out that Goodyear is also expanding its medical corridor. “We have two of the biggest names in cancer research and treatment now in Goodyear,” he says. “City of Hope (formerly Cancer Treatment Centers of America) has just broken ground on a major expansion and renovation at its Goodyear facility, and Ironwood Cancer and Research Center just opened its largest facility in Goodyear. Add to that, Abrazo West in Goodyear is also undergoing a major expansion. All this activity means our West Valley residents will have access to high-quality care closer to home and that definitely is a game-changer.” The future is bright Beyond all the transformative economic development wins and population growth, the evolution of the West Valley from quiet retirement community to innovative powerhouse comes down to the several key strengths that position the region for continued success in the future. “First, the West Valley’s strategic location, situated at the crossroads of major transportation routes and adjacent to bustling urban centers, provides access to markets and resources,” says Tucker Macon, project director at Sundt, which has been involved in several projects in the West Valley that have the potential to be game-changers for the region. “Additionally, the region has a diverse and skilled workforce, coupled with a collaborative and supportive business environment. Moreover, the West Valley has demonstrated commitment to investing in infrastructure, education and sustainable development, which further amplifies its potential for long-term economic prosperity.” Another factor driving economic growth into the future is the West Valley’s vast amount of available land and its robust transportation network. “Transportation initiatives, including ongoing improvements to Interstate 10, State Route 85, Loop 303, the future Interstate 11 and investments in State Route 30 will enhance accessibility and connectivity within the region,” Orsborn says. “For Buckeye in particular, our extensive rail corridors offer logistical advantages for businesses engaged in advanced manufacturing, transportation and logistics. Together, these strengths position the West Valley — and Buckeye — as a future hub for innovation and economic advancement.” But the bottom line is what has truly fueled the transformation of the West Valley has been its “open for business” attitude and the collective passion West Valley leaders have for the region and their willingness to work collaboratively to advance it. “This is our moment,” Pizzillo says. “The West Valley has been waiting for the spotlight to shine this way and now that it is here, we are ready for it.”