Business View Magazine | October 2020

359 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2020 The Arizona Innovation and Technology Corridor (AZITC), located in the heart of Pinal County between Phoenix and Tucson, is currently the focus of some of the most exciting green-energy development projects in the nation. There’s LUCID MOTORS, soon to open its first factory in Pinal County, which will produce the Lucid Air, the electric vehicle company’s state-of-the-art luxury sedan which should be rolling off the assembly line by the end of the year as part of a $700 million investment that will create nearly five thousand jobs by 2029. Another EV manufacturer, NASDAQ listed NIKOLA MOTORS, recently broke ground on its 1-million-square-foot plant where it will manufacture zero-emission heavy trucks, buoyed by a recent order of 2500 electrified refuse trucks from Republic services. So why are these next-gen businesses pinpointing Arizona’s Innovation and Technology Corridor in which to strategically locate their facilities? Lucid selected the AZITC after an extensive search across 13 states and more than 60 locations, citing the region’s business climate, infrastructure, talent, geographic location, and the automotive supply chain in the Arizona-Sonora region. Nikola spent 18-months looking across the United States and settled on the Corridor based on the tireless support of the region, breadth of workforce, year-round sunshine conducive to renewable energy, and the outstanding infrastructure available to scale. That infrastructure in this Connecticut-size county includes Interstates 10 (California to Florida) and 8 (Pinal County to San Diego) as well as the Union Pacific railroad, connecting the AZITC to numerous major markets. Three international airports within a short drive mean the country’s major cities are a direct flight away. It’s staggering to think that Pinal County, known historically for its agriculture and mining, had a population of under 180,000 at the turn of the Millenium. When the 2020 Census is tallied, all indications are the population of Arizona’s third-largest county will be over half a million people - and growing all the time. This provides a skilled and available labor force of nearly two hundred thousand, with over 40% of resident Bachelor degrees earned in the science and engineering fields, many at the University of Arizona and Arizona State University, located at either end of the AZITC. Pinal County’s government is passionately committed to providing a business-friendly climate, and with lower operating costs, numerous incentives, and thousands of acres of shovel-ready developable land, you are invited to explore what the likes of Lucid and Nikola have discovered at the Arizona Innovation and Technology Corridor. ...... For more information, please visit our website https://azitc.pinal.gov