Shipping containers used for Arizona's makeshift border wall are for sale, buyer beware

Wanted: New homes for over 2,000 massive metal shipping containers that once served as a makeshift barrier at Arizona's southern border. Price: $500 to $2,000 each.

They may come with stains, rust, holes, "a multitude of dents," scratches, cracks and a controversial place in Arizona's political history.

Former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey's shipping container wall, which he took down in December under pressure from the Biden administration, has so far cost Arizonans over $194 million, according to state financial records.

After months spent contemplating what to do with the 20 and 40-foot big metal boxes, the state's administrative agency has put them up for sale.

For now, the containers are available to government entities and nonprofits that can find uses for them, though the Arizona Department of Administration says any left by October will be available for public sale. Early buyers are turning the containers into storage, and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has signaled interest in making them available to turn into affordable housing units.

But some may not be in great shape. The containers are 10 to 20 years old, according to a very high-energy video created by the department, and this deal is buyer beware. "Buyer must agree to purchase without viewing the shipping container," the Arizona Department of Administration warns on its for-sale site. "No refunds."

Best case scenario: Arizona recoups 2% of project's cost

Exactly how much the state could recoup if it sells all the containers isn't clear. The containers are priced differently based on size and condition, and a breakdown of how many fall into each category is not available. If all were sold at the maximum price, the state would recover approximately $4 million — or just 2% of what the border project cost.

"Ooh, ouch," said Stephen Pauken, the city manager in Bisbee, Arizona, when he heard the gap between state spending and what it will get back from selling the beat-up boxes.

"There's a lot of things in the state that money could have been spent on," he said. "Just name one and I'll agree with you. Everything is more important than buying containers to double stack them at the border."

But Pauken, despite being "perturbed" by the use of state resources on an "ugly" border barrier, also saw a chance for savings in the state's surplus of containers.

The city previously planned to buy two containers to store supplies for its ongoing restoration of Camp Naco, a more than century-old U.S. Army encampment that housed Black regiments known as Buffalo Soldiers. But the city was able to secure the state's leftovers for about 50% savings, he said.

It opted to buy additional containers for other city departments to use as storage for everything from excess PVC pipe and garbage cans to tools, a purchase first reported by the Herald/Review in Cochise County. The city has yet to receive the 13 containers it ordered for just shy of $28,000, which also covers fees to transport them from their temporary home at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson.

Other orders for containers have come in from state agencies, including the Department of Water Resources and the Department of Veterans' Services. The water agency ordered one container to use as storage in Phoenix, where it will keep office cubicle components, according to a department spokesperson. The veteran service agency ordered nine, which will be scattered at the department's facilities across the state for storage, a spokesperson said.

Purchasing the containers rang up at over $20 million, a slice of the more than $194 million the state has paid to date to put up and take down Ducey's border wall, according to state purchasing and contract records. The biggest chunk of the money for the ill-fated project covered labor, according to the contracts, which authorized over $200 million for the project.

Arizonans paid $6,750 per 40-foot container and $5,700 for each of the smaller 20-foot ones, according to the state's initial contract with supplier AshBritt, Inc., an emergency response contractor that often works for governments after natural disasters. AshBritt ran afoul of federal campaign finance rules in 2018 over a large donation in support of former President Donald Trump while also doing government contract work.

Hobbs' spokesperson reiterated the governor's past criticisms of her predecessor's project, and touted a recent announcement shifting $25 million of state border security funds to law enforcement in border communities.

"From day one, Gov. Hobbs has denounced this political stunt as a waste of taxpayer dollars," spokesperson Christian Slater said. "Instead, we are putting border security money to good use by giving border communities the funds they need to staff up, improve technology, and buy additional supplies for their operations."

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Environmentalists decry destruction from shipping containers

Apart from the small amount of money the state is able to get back, opponents of Ducey's wall say it created other lasting effects. Laiken Jordahl, southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity, said desert grasslands, trees and washes were bulldozed to make way for the makeshift barrier.

"The damage that was inflicted from this political stunt, it's totally heart-wrenching," Jordahl said. "And while it's tempting to laugh about how just how ridiculous the whole situation was, it caused very real and lasting damage to fragile ecosystems in the borderlands."

The Center for Biological Diversity joined the federal government in opposing Ducey's action, and has said the shipping containers blocked migration corridors for endangered jaguars, ocelots and streams that provide an oasis for migratory birds, among other environmental impacts.

Ducey announced his border project in August, just hours before the first bus-sized boxes were double stacked on the state's border with Mexico and weeks after the Biden administration said it planned to fill gaps along the border. The Ducey administration said the containers were temporary, but that it was done waiting on the Biden administration to act on border security, an issue for which Ducey and other Republican governors have often criticized the Democratic president.

Ducey 'stands by the project'

The temporary wall project ultimately came at a significant cost to Arizonans, but Ducey, who left office in January, hasn't had a change of heart.

"He stands by the project," Daniel Scarpinato, a former Ducey chief of staff. "Arizona has been hard hit by the border crisis, and the Biden administration has ignored it even as it has gotten worse and worse."

The border container project, Scarpinato said, "did result in getting the administration's attention when almost nothing else would."

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Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669. Follow her on Twitter @sbarchenger.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY NETWORK: Arizona's shipping container border wall boxes are now for sale