Phoenix to consider selling 450 acres near Luke Air Force Base
Selling about 450 acres of land near Luke Air Force Base could generate about $100 million for Phoenix’s aviation department, department leaders said this week at a subcommittee meeting of the City Council.
Phoenix owns about 820 acres of land near Litchfield Road and Olive Avenue, north of Luke Air Force Base. The city's aviation department has proposed selling the northern portion of the land for industrial or commercial development. The land is unincorporated county land, but it is near land that has been annexed into Glendale.
Phoenix has owned the land, called the Tal Wi Wi property, since 1999, and the land was originally purchased to protect airspace around the Air Force base, according to Phoenix documents. In the years since, the state Legislature has enacted laws that protect military installations, restricting the types of development that can be built there.
Selling a portion of the property could provide needed funds to support the aviation department’s future comprehensive asset management plan, Chad Makovsky, Phoenix’s director of Aviation Services said at the subcommittee meeting.
At the meeting, Councilwoman Laura Pastor asked why the city would sell the property instead of leasing it, to preserve the asset should the value of the land will go up.
Makovsky said the land has garnered a “dramatic increase” in interest from industrial and commercial developers who are interested in purchasing and developing it. The city is also considering using the remaining space on the southern portion of the property as a solar electricity generating project, which would generate renewable energy credits for the city.
The land is leased now for agricultural use, which generates about $150,000 per year for the city, Makovsky said.
The city released a request for information about the land in 2022 and received four responses, two from companies interested in the industrial development portion and two from those interested in solar.
The aviation department is required to get City Council approval before selling city-owned property, so the item will go before the council.
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The area around Luke Air Force Base has become a hot spot for industrial development. South of the base, near Litchfield and Bethany Home roads, Phoenix-based ViaWest Group bought 82 acres of land for $12 million and plans to close on an additional 57 acres of land this month. The developer plans to build a 15-building industrial park, which will total nearly 2 million square feet of buildings.
In September, the Glendale City Council approved a rezoning of 134 acres at Northern Parkway and Dysart Road for a development that will bring about 2.1 million square feet of warehouse and distribution space, according to real estate database Vizzda. The project was proposed by Clarion Partners.
Phoenix-based Merit Partners has also bought hundreds of acres north of the Air Force base to develop industrial buildings.
Lincoln Property Co. bought 140 acres of land for $53 million near Northern Avenue and Litchfield Road in May 2022. The company plans to build 2.3 million square feet of industrial buildings on the site. Construction is scheduled to be completed in early 2024.
West of the base, along Loop 303 and Bethany Home Road, McKinney Investments got approval from Glendale City Council in December to rezone 38 acres to develop about 700,000 square feet of buildings for a project called Bethany 303.
Most of the projects planned in the area are being built speculatively, meaning no companies have signed leases for the buildings ahead of time.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix may sell land near Luke Air Force Base: What could be built next
