The Building Blocks of Big Box and Beyond

Published on May 04, 2023

Ask Vanessa Bueras, the second ever City of Maricopa employee, what things looked like when she was hired and you’d think you’d opened a window to some long-forgotten western outpost.

“When I started working for the City, we were working out of a mobile trailer,” says Bueras. “Every day we’d walk across our gravel parking lot, which we shared with the Fire District and the Sheriff’s office, and we’d walk across a quiet road in town to get over to Headquarters for lunch.”

But Bueras isn’t describing a historic scene from the American frontier. She’s talking about a time less than 20 years ago, in the days shortly after Maricopa first incorporated as a cityin 2003. And that road she walked straight across daily was the 347, which is now traversed by more than 60,000 cars a day.

“I was a 26-year-old ASU grad and when we started, it was just me and the City Manager,” Bueras remembers. “The Pinal County Board of Supervisors had just appointed our city council and we were about to hold our very first city election. We had about six months to work on adopting the entire City Code and have everything ready to take over all services from Pinal County. Amazing to think that just a couple years later, we were processing building permits at a pace of more than 600 a month!”

Over its abbreviated existence thecity’s population exploded, currently topping more than 70,000 people and increasing at a rate of around 11% every year. According to cenus data, only two cities in all of Arizona grew faster than Maricopa last year. For anyone who recently made the move to Maricopa, it’s difficult to picture how far the city has come in such a short time.

“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the overpass over the 347. It essentially unlocked the city’s growth potential in ways that were completely beyond our reach. Now we stand at the threshold of another tipping point for economic development, and it’s important to understand how we got here.” -Vice Mayor Rich Vitiello

The tipping point in this case is the arrival of the city’s first big box home improvement store, as Home Depot recently filed applications for a proposed Maricopa location. The addition carries heavy significance for the city. It means new jobs and revenue opportunities. It signals to other big box chains that the Maricopa market has matured, paving a path for larger industries that can offer a large number of high-paying jobs. In turn, that growth fuels future waves of development. The continued growth also indicates to state and federal lawmakers that addressing Maricopa’s infrastructure needs is a priority.

The force that’s tipping the scales is not always as obvious, but developers and councilmembers agree; it’s the recent surge of investment in housing.

“The driving force behind all of this development is housing! We can’t stress that enough. As more single-family and multi-family housing projects continue to spring up, we unlock enormous potential, just asthe opening of our first overpass did.”- Mayor Nancy Smith

The trickledown effect of the development spurred by the housing is the capacity to address other issues, such as transportation.

“For most of our short history, the focus has been on building a population. While that remains a priority, the focus for some has shifted to infrastructure. We see the social media comments and articles and we get the calls2009suggesting that the City should somehow try to block developers from building more houses until the 347 is expanded. Let me just state emphatically, the two inherently connected and our ability to put the state in a position to address the 347 only increases as development moves forward.

“We’re fighting hard to get the 347 onto ADOT’s five-year plan. In the process, we’re building powerful relationships with our state and federal lawmakers, which requires much of our time and energy to get facetime with them. We’ve also brought in amazingly talented staff to help us accomplish our transportation goals. And we’re making progress!

“What’s really helping our case is our increasing ability to prove the need in Maricopa is real. We’re proving to all these lawmakers and partnering agencies that Maricopa is a rapidly growing community with incredible promise.”– Mayor Nancy Smith

Adding landmark development projects like the new medical campus near Copper Sky, the surf park, the expansion of APEX, one of the nation’s premier racing tracks which exposes some of the wealthiest executives in the country to all the investment opportunities of Maricopa, and now the addition of big box and so many other retail projects… it’s all putting Maricopa on the map for lawmakers and opening their eyes to our needs. But once again, all these gains begin with our population and the housing to support them.

“It’s important to recognize what it took to reach this stage, because the next round of opportunities is ahead. Once we understand what the right building blocks are and how they connect, we appreciate how the investments and sacrifices we make today benefits us in the long-run.

“Some people in Maricopa are excited about improving our roads and the 347, some people are excited about the quality jobs, amenities, and retail coming to town. The great thing is, we are headed down a path for all of that potential to be realized. The growth of Maricopa is fueling the funding and attention being paid to our infrastructure and has the eye of international business executives.” – Rick Horst, City Manager

From fledgling trailer to flourishing city, Maricopa’s story is unfolding right before our eyes! As the city prepares for the addition of its first big box home improvement store, here’s an expanded view of a few of the major commercial development projects currently underway. (Please note, all plans are strictly conceptual. Final designs and timelines for projects are at the discretion of individual developers.)

Already home to a Walmart, the expansion of the Wells Shopping Center & Stonegate Development along Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway proposes to welcome nearly a dozen new restaurant and retail outlets, including the potential site for Home Depot, Tractor Supply (which has already broken ground), and Slim Chicken’s first ever Arizona location. Other potential tenants include Burger King, Taco Bell, Bosa Donuts, and AutoZone (which is complete).

All of this development puts these businesses and homes directly along the future alignment of the Sonoran Desert Parkway, supplying the customers and workforce for Maricopa to court large corporations along this transportation corridor.

Located just south of the overpass across from Exceptional Health, this proposed development area is among the most coveted in all of Maricopa because of its position along John Wayne Parkway. It’s connection with the future pedestrian bridge, other commercial developments, and the Heritage District are designed to align with the City’s vision of creating a vibrant, walkable commercial and recreational downtown quarter.

The project intersects with John Wayne Parkway and Sonoran Desert Parkway which is currently under construction. As the city expands southward, this large development opens exciting new avenues for retail, commercial and residential opportunities.