Mesa AZ
The City of Mesa should receive a lot of credit for the work they have done over the last six months. They have controlled spending, looked at some great opportunities to bring in new revenue streams like the Gaylord Complex and now they are going out of their way to make it easy for Mesa businesses to do business with them.
The City is holding an open house on Tuesday December 9th from 3-6pm called “Mesa: Your Business, Your City.” The goal of the open house is to have more Mesa businesses do business with the City of Mesa. The event will be held in the Mesa City Plaza, 20 E. Main St., room 170.
The event is sponsored by the City of Mesa Office of Economic Development and the Mesa Chamber of Commerce. Representatives from various City departments, including Purchasing, Economic Development, Police, Fire and Mesa Arts Center will be present to explain the process of what products and supplies are ordered and what they need. Virtually all City departments make purchases and are always looking for new suppliers. The open house provides a great opportunity for Mesa businesses to conduct business with the City and understand the many components of Mesa’s decentralized procurement process.
Gaylord
The Gaylord Entertainment Company has been been talking about building one of they hotel-conference centers in southeast Mesa since earlier this summer. The facility would be built around the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and would bring thousands of jobs to Mesa.
The project received a boost this past week as Gaylord dropped plans on a San Diego location and will concentrate more of its efforts on Mesa. The plans which were announced this summer would build a 1,200 room hotel, a golf course and a retail center. The only thing holding up the project right now is the bed tax. In March voters will have a chance to OK a deal that would rebate the bed tax to the Gaylord resort.
As someone who has stayed at two separate Gaylord locations I can tell you that these resorts and conference centers are first class all the way and would be a welcomed edition to the Mesa economy and real estate market.
Cactus League
The East Valley could be getting another economic boost as the Arizona Diamondbacks are considering moving their spring training facilities from Tucson to the Phoenix area. The Chicago White Sox announced earlier this year they were moving their training facilities to Glendale which would leave only the Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies in Tucson.
The most likely location of a new facility would be in the South Phoenix and Chandler are at the Gila River Indian community which has admitted they are in talks with both teams. The move could be a shot in the arm for both the Valley and the D-backs. The move would obviously mean Phoenix fans could more easily asee their team more often which would boost the local economy and the team would also benefit from an increased traffic flow which could lead to more fans following them for regular season games.
