By Phil Riske | Senior Reporter/Writer
The Union Pacific Railroad announces plans to construct a classification yard in the Picacho area. The project received another nudge toward reality with the announcement of a pair of studies addressing infrastructure feasibility and the demand for industrial uses near the site.
Both studies were part of the Arizona State Land Department’s analysis in advance of possibly putting the needed land up for sale.
That was 2006.
Background of delays
The Red Rock switching yard would be located northeast of Union Pacific’s current right of way and west of W. Kodial Road, across from the Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch in Picacho. The 650-acre property being sought is approximately 6 miles long and about a mile wide. It could accommodate up a yard up to 74 tracks wide.
“The question remains: Why are Gov. Brewer, the State Land Department and the Arizona Commerce Authority dragging their heels on a project that
has the best interests of Pinal County and the state at hand?” Pinal County Supervisor Pete Rios wrote in November 2012, six years after UP’s announcement.
“We have a golden opportunity to create high-paying jobs in a time when we need them the most. The land is right and the time is right. The highest and best use of this land is for the people of Pinal County and the state of Arizona.”
Bring in the consultants
A pair of Land Department reports by a consultant had raised concerns about the plan. While consultants recommended a sale of the state land, they also said that the rail yard posed significant environmental and engineering challenges and advised that the touted economic benefits were exaggerated.
The consultant’s disparaging remarks about Pinal County’s economic development projections, the county responded, seemed to be based on the then current market conditions without consideration for what’s planned in the future.
Economic benefits
Pinal County supervisors in 2013 unanimously approved a resolution urging the Arizona Land Department to approve the sale of state land within six months to Union Pacific Railroad for the proposed Red Rock railway exchange project. Supervisors said there’s a danger the county could lose the project to New Mexico because of foot dragging by the land department, and 300 jobs could be lost.
Taxes on real estate provide approximately 40 percent of the county budget yet 75 percent of the land in Pinal is non-taxable, states Douglas Wolf, Pinal County assessor.
“This project would allow us to get more property onto the tax rolls and either increase revenue to the county, lower the tax burden on existing residents or a combination of both. Those benefits are on top of the high compensation jobs that Union Pacific would bring to our region,” Wolf wrote in 2013.
False alarm
In 2014, The Arizona State Land Department hired RBF, a national planning, design and construction firm, to examine the technical issues surrounding the Red Rock project Union Pacific also hired an outside firm to assist with the analysis.
“We are happy that this phase of the proposed project is moving forward,” Vanessa Hickman, then the land department commissioner, said in a statement and suggested the property would be auctioned later that year or early in 2015.
A false alarm happened in 2014 when an erroneous notice of auction surfaced, followed by an apology and explanation from a state land official.
“Sorry for any confusion, Bill Boyd told Rose Law Group Reporter. “We have been receiving a lot of inquiries that seem to stem from someone incorrectly concluding that the document (see below) . . . was an actual auction notice.”
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From what Rose Law Group Reporter understands, auction notices are prepared in advance per the agency’s procedures. This one got loose, leaving people to believe auction of the state trust land critical to the Red Rock project had been set.
Getting new information difficult
Rep. Vince Leach (R-11) told Rose Law Group Reporter in an e-mail interview in 2015 he saw the Ducey administration moving the Red Rock project along.
“The last of the studies are to be reviewed in mid May. No commitment on auction date yet,” Leach said April 6.
Repeated attempts to reach the Governor’s Office and a spokesman for the Land Department for new information were not successful at press time.
Supervisor Rios was asked if he has heard of any movement on the project.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “ [The] new land commissioner [is] supposed to be meeting with our county manager in respect to all state lands in Pinal County. Says she wants to start a conversation with Pinal County. Nothing yet as far as I know.”