Arizona beat out 12 other states competing for the location of a proposed $700 million electric car manufacturing plant.
In late November, Gov. Doug Ducey announced that Lucid Motors, a Silicon Valley luxury electric car startup, plans to build its manufacturing center on 500-acres in Casa Grande next year.
Lucid Motors, formally Atieva, narrowed down on Casa Grande after looking at 60 potential sites in 13 states, Brian Barron, director of Global Manufacturing at Lucid Motors, explained at the announcement for the facility.
Although financing for the $700 million plant hasn’t been finalized, according to a KJZZ report, the Menlo Park-based automaker plans to start construction on the facility next year, and will eventually employ 2,000 workers, and Barron expects production to begin in 2018.
A collaborative relationship between Lucid Motors, Gov. Ducey’s office, Arizona Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake, the Arizona Commerce Authority, Pinal County and the City of Casa Grande was formed to help this deal come to fruition.
Lucid Motors will be buying five properties, a portion of which is Pinal County land that the city will be annexing, says Greg Stanley, county manager at Pinal County.
In the past, the area was mostly agriculture, but Casa Grande has been investing in infrastructure and attracting many industrial projects to the area, Stanley says.
Some of the land owners who will be selling their plots to Lucid Motors have already had a hand in getting other industrial projects to the area, says Larry Rains, Casa Grande’s city manager.
“[They] know how important it was to get this development and project going,” Rains says.
Existing infrastructure in the area was a big help in getting Lucid Motors to pick Casa Grande, he says.
The land, which starts at the southwest corner of Peters and Thornton Roads, is close to an existing rail line, and has easy access to sewage, Rains says.
Lucid Motors would not confirm names or companies of any brokers or general contractors that are working on the project, but Land Advisors Organization’s Pinal County advisor, Kirk McCarville, is representing one of the owners of the five properties.
McCarville has seen the city invest a lot of money into infrastructure over the years. The area has been targeted for industrial projects, and McCarville had a hand in the Walmart Distribution Center project adjacent to the future Lucid Motors plant.
The Pinal County and Casa Grande area seems to be gaining momentum. In June, a 2,360-acre motorsports facility, dubbed Attesa, was announced.
“Just since the Attesa announcement, we’ve had a lot of people calling and looking at things,” Stanley says, the Pinal County manager. “But certainly a lot of interest in that area, and I think this is going to help spur a lot of that growth we want to see.”
