Developer expecting release of funds any time
PhoenixMart
Supply Chain Solutions President Kevin O’Reilly and Vice President of Marketing Jason Clark look at a model of the North American Logistics, Trade and E-Commerce City on Tuesday in the PhoenixMart welcome center. The company is one of almost 2,000 expected to be PhoenixMart tenants.
Posted: Thursday, June 11, 2015 8:29 am
By KEVIN REAGAN,
Casa Grande Dispatch
The model is built, plans are approved and deals have been made. Not much is left on PhoenixMart’s checklist except building PhoenixMart itself.
The 585-acre site near Florence Boulevard and Overfield Road has yet to see any major construction, but that hasn’t curbed the excitement of its future tenants.
“This is real, it’s happening,” said Jason Clark, spokesman for Supply Chain Solutions, one of the almost 2,000 companies expected to occupy PhoenixMart. “It’s going to be happening very soon — sooner than most people around here think it will.”
Parent AZ Sourcing officials say the structure housing 1,740 business suites is scheduled to be completed by mid-2016. A collection of hotels and condominiums built in the surrounding complex is expected to follow by the end of that year.
This is good news for Supply Chain Solutions, a Wisconsin-based logistics provider. In addition to being a tenant, the company was chosen by PhoenixMart to be the on-site logistics provider.
It beat out numerous other companies that put in bids to be a service-provider for PhoenixMart. SCS is to be responsible for monitoring a variety of imports and exports utilized by tenants.
The centrality of having hundreds of companies under one roof will keep SCS busy tracking orders, shipments and invoices. Clark said the PhoenixMart concept should help businesses save time and money finding pieces to build their products.
“Instead of sending teams of people out to source different parts of your supply chain,” he said, “you can send one person or one team to PhoenixMart and source your whole supply chain.”
Clark and SCS President Kevin O’Reilly toured a life-size replica of their PhoenixMart suite Tuesday at the
company’s welcome center, which will open publicly next month, near Interstate 10 and Jimmie Kerr Boulevard.
They had the option to pick from a selection of glass-walled offices where they can showcase their services to other PhoenixMart tenants.
The layout of the suites is broken down into six clusters: industrial, food, electronics, office, fashion and hospitality. Each category has a limited amount of slots, allowing PhoenixMart to be selective and strategic with its leasing.
“Once a company gets in, then a piece of the puzzle is already established, and we have to work around it,” said PhoenixMart Chief Operating Officer Steve Gardner.
The last tenants to sign with PhoenixMart will be chosen to fill a specific need, said Gardner. If a home flooring company is already occupying one suite, then leasing agents make sure not to place another flooring company next door.
Tenants presently have to rely on blueprints and models to visualize where their suites will be located.
The $150 million needed to construct the main hub of PhoenixMart is tied up in escrow with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. When the PhoenixMart project was launched, about 300 foreign investors each forwarded $500,000 to the company to qualify for the EB-5 visa program.
In 1990, USCIS started handing out visas to foreign investors who stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation. The program reached its visa cap for the first time in 2014.
AZ Sourcing spokesman Patrick Welch said this has caused a backlog in exchanging capital investments for visas. He said the $150 million should be released at any time and will initiate the construction phase of PhoenixMart.
“Because you never know when the funds are actually going to be funneled in,” Welch said, “it really ties your hands for a while.” In the meantime, Clark said he’s content with looking at a model of PhoenixMart until the real thing is completed.
