The City of Chandler has been touted as having the fastest growing labor base in Metro Phoenix, which should bode well for the several speculative office projects that recently broke ground in Chandler. It should also help Chandler’s continued mission to bring more high-wage jobs to the city. 

Chandler has historically been known for attracting innovative technology companies like Intel, which employs 11,000 workers and eventually led to the relocation of other companies nearby such as NXP and Microchip, says City of Chandler Economic Development Director James Smith, but the city’s largest growth industry over the last 6-7 years has been financial services.  

He notes Well Fargo’s 410,000-square-foot expansion with 4,500 new jobs, Bank of America’s expansion to 3,800 employees, as well as other companies like PayPal and Toyota Financial Services, which account for nearly 2,500 jobs.  

“This shows confidence in our market from developers and site selectors,” explains Smith. “The spec buildings constructed a few years back are filling up and developers are seeing another opportunity in Chandler.”  

For example, Park Place, a 160-acre speculative business park at the intersection of the Loop 101 and 202 freeways, already has 10 existing buildings, nine of which are fully leased and nine more buildings are currently being planned.  

At full build out, the connected campus with proposed dining and retail spaces as well as an on-site hotel will total more than 2-million square feet and consist of a variety of building types, including low-rise and mid-rise office space and flex space for research and development needs. 

Referring to The Hub, a 76-acre campus offering 300,000 square feet of Class A office space, Smith points out, “if there was a large corporate type campus wanting to come to the Phoenix area, this presents a great opportunity to have an immediate building to occupy and then really grow into the campus with future buildings on that site.” 

Overall, he attributes the main driver of new companies and jobs in Chandler to the city’s large and highly educated workforce, which totals over 152,000 residents with nearly 75 percent of adults having attended college.