Council approves land sale for SE Mesa railway
Oct. 27—Mesa City Council last week approved the sale of 5 acres of city-owned land for $1.78 million to Union Pacific Railroad to make way for a planned 6-mile spur railway through the Pecos Road manufacturing corridor.
The Pecos Industrial Rail Access and Train Extension (PIRATE) project would run east from an existing railway along Rittenhouse Road out to the CMC Steel plant on Meridian Road.
CMC Steel, which recycles scrap metal into new steel products like rebar, is Union Pacific's "anchor customer," but the idea is for other industrial operations along Pecos Road to eventually access the rail.
The city owns 35 acres in a critical area for PIRATE to proceed, close to where the spur would join with the existing rail line.
The strip of land approved for sale will bisect Mesa's 35 acres at the corner of Pecos and Sossaman, which the city has owned for 80 years.
While highly strategic today, staff told council members they could find no records regarding why the city purchased the property in 1942 and how much was paid for it. They guessed the sale would net a healthy profit.
Council had no objections to selling the land for the railway.
Mayor John Giles cited the potential economic benefits of railway, which a Union Pacific project description claims will support "high-skilled manufacturing jobs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and local air pollution by taking over 29,000 truckloads off U.S. highways and local roadways each year."
"We talk about (PIRATE) behind the scenes a lot, but I'm anxious for the public to learn about this more. ... I think we need to help people understand how important this is to the industrial users out there."
The parcel was purchased long ago for unknown reasons, but more recently it has been eyed by city officials as a possible location for a regional recycling facility — badly needed to grow Mesa's recycling capacity after the pandemic and a fire at Republic's Salt River recycling center in 2019.
City staff assured council that the railway would not prevent the city from constructing a recycling and transfer station on the site.
"We made sure there was enough left us" for a facility, Brady said.
Mesa and Gilbert officials have been talking for months about sharing costs to construct a waste sorting facility used by both municipalities. A feasibility study conducted by Mesa found that constructing its own materials recovery facility would be cost prohibitive.
Brady broke news at a study session before the vote on the sale that Gilbert and Mesa have come to an agreement to move forward.
"We've actually just made an agreement with the Town of Gilbert that we're going to both work on preliminary drawings to go to 15% of what this could be in the future, because there's a strong possibility that they would join with us," Brady said.
"Because it's on the southeast part of Mesa, it works for us, but it also works well for them."
According to a staff report, Union Pacific first approached the city with an offer of $1.68 million for the 5-acres through the parcel. The city subsequently had an appraisal conducted which valued the land at $6.50 per square foot plus $401,000 for "severance damages," since the strip cuts the parcel in two. Union Pacific accepted the revised price of $1.78 million.
City staff are currently planning to put the recycling facility on the north side of the property, and City Engineer Beth Huning said another department was interested in the southern half.
Huning said the railroad company wants to complete property acquisition before the end of the year, and it has already submitted design plans to the city for review.
Giles reflected in study session that in 1942, the parcel was "in the middle nowhere," but he appreciated the purchase, whatever the reason.
"Governmental use is important," Giles said. "I know this is a very strategic property, and thank you to the city council 80 years ago for buying that," he said.
