Growth highlights year for Yuma
‘New things are coming up all over the place,’ says city admin
Don’t be surprised if you’re having a hard time finding a contractor to do some work. Construction in Yuma has gone up 20 percent in the last year.
Projects are popping up all over town: new construction, expansions, renovations, small and large projects. It’s no wonder that every contractor seems to be booked.
The Yuma Sun sat down with City Administrator Greg Wilkinson to review the city’s achievements for 2017, and construction was a very big part of it.
“It’s been a very successful year for the community. The construction industry is doing really well. New things are coming up all over the place,” Wilkinson said.
This growth reflects the efforts by the local city government to be businessfriendly by reducing development fees 40 to 60 percent in all categories to make it less costly for a new business to locate here and less costly for new construction. The city also reduced the water and sewer capacity fees for new hookups and businesses.
“We will continue solidifying the business-friendly. It’s really kind of taking hold with people looking for new places to expand. We’re starting to get people calling us wanting to come (to Yuma),” Wilkinson said.
“We work hard to be business-friendly. For the year overall it was a really good year,” he added.
Every company that relocates or expands into the area brings new jobs and increased revenues for the city. And many companies and organizations have done just that. Almark Foods is building a 120,000-square-foot egg processing plant. MarTech, a medical device manufacturer, opened a plant in the Ramster Industrial Park and will ship $100 million worth of products across the globe.
Several companies had
major expansions, such as InsulTech, a Californiabased manufacturer of insulation products; Alside Window Company; ThermoTech, a plastics tooling, molding and assembly company; and S+A Industries, which manufactures parts for Toyota trucks. Sunset Community Health Center is also in the middle of expanding its facilities on South Avenue B.
The city also landed MPW Industrial Services, which announced plans to create 44 jobs with a water regeneration plant.
Yumans eagerly awaited several retail stores that opened this year, including Sprouts Farmers Market and Sportsman’s Warehouse, and several new restaurants, like Black Bear Diner. The Littlewood Fine Art and Community Co-op also opened this year on South 2nd Avenue.
Developers announced plans for two new major hotels, a four-story Home2 Suites by Hilton will be built on the northeast corner of 1st Street and Madison Avenue and Yuma’s first Four Points by Sheraton Hotel will be built on South Avenue 3E, next to the Holiday Day Inn Express and Candlewood Suites, along Interstate 8.
The 58-unit Mesa Heights Apartments, a $13.8 million housing development for low- and moderate-income families, is currently being built on Arizona Avenue, between 20th and 22nd streets.
The city saw several of its own projects come to fruition. The now-branded Center Pointe intersection at 16th Street and 4th Avenue was completed. The $7.25 million widening project added a third throughlane, dedicated right-turn lanes and dual left-turn lanes in all four directions. It also includes bike lanes, raised medians and other improvements.
Now that the Pacific Avenue Athletic Complex opened Sept. 1, the city expects an economic impact of at least $1.3 million a year if it can get at least 20 new tournaments per year. The $14.2 million, six-field athletic complex was built on 50 acres near the Yuma Palms shopping center, at the corner of Pacific Avenue and 8th Street.
The 16th Street water tanks, located off I-8, were repainted with the city’s logo, a project that at first dismayed some local residents but now they seem to like the finished product with some asking the city to put the artwork on Tshirts and other items. The city is still considering that request.
The Joe Henry Gym now has air conditioning, a big deal for kids who want to play basketball in the summer. Previously the city had to close the gym in the summer due to the excessive temperatures.
The council adopted the Infill Overlay District and Plan to encourage development of vacant lots and old buildings that have fallen into disrepair in the historical parts of town. The Infill Overlay District identifies properties within the city that qualify for development or redevelopment incentives. An inventory identified 448 vacant properties in the district. The ordinance has been recognized with a “State of Planning” award from the American Planning Association, Arizona Chapter.
The city entered into a contract with anyCOMM Holdings Corp. for the installation of a city-wide network of nodes on city infrastructure, such as streetlights and traffic boxes. The devices have the ability to provide lighting control, a gigabit-speed wireless mesh network, cellular carrier offload capabilities, digital video recording and other uses.
The project is being done in conjunction with a conversion to LED streetlights by Siemens Industry. The city estimates that at full implementation, it will save more than $100,000 per year in maintenance costs and more than $250,000 a year in energy costs. The cost to replace the city’s 7,5000 streetlights to LEDs will be about $3.7 million, which will come from the city’s road tax fund.
Yuma continues to work with 4FrontED, which brought MarTech to the city. “It looks like that relationship is really working out well,” Wilkinson noted. “Next year there will be more announcements.”
Mayor Doug Nicholls launched the regional initiative to attract businesses in partnership with Mexico. Regional partners GYEDC, Yuma County, Wellton, Somerton and San Luis work together to establish a strong working relationship with Mexican companies and agencies like PIMSA and Copresan, which is similar to Greater Yuma Economic Development Corp.
Of all the 2017 achievements, what is Wilkinson most proud of? “The community and employees. With the employees, they had a few tough years to get through. We had to cut back. Employees are doing a really good job serving the community,” he said.
As for the community, “Yuma isn’t facing the issues going on in the rest of the country, like law enforcement protests. This community is a very patriotic, safety-oriented community. We pull together and work with each other like no place I’ve seen,” Wilkinson said.
He expects the city will continue to face the same challenges, like lack of funding to fix roads.
“We’re doing the best with the money we have. Eventually the state will have to start returning funds or we’re going to have to find the money to fix roads. There’s not enough money,” he said.
He points to the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System as the No. 2 challenge facing the city. In 2017, the unfunded liability for the city was $99.8 million.
“It will continue to be that way. We need to work with the community to figure out how to fix the roads and retirement system,” Wilkinson said.
Another concern for the coming year is the return of battles over the rights to Colorado River water.
“The water battles were handled several years ago, but they’re back. We have to make sure our guard is up and people don’t take our water, not just city but the Yuma area. We will work hand-in-hand with agriculture community,” Wilkinson explained.
The city will also work with the ag industry to address some of the internet broadband issues growers have had with cellular phone carriers. Service is indispensable, but Yuma County still has checkerboard service or no service in some areas.
“Yuma is a larger city, but we’re still in a rural area. We need to make sure companies are provided with what they’re paying for,” Wilkinson said.
The city experienced some changes in staff this past year. Deputy City Administrator Ricky Rinehart left the city and Ron Corbin, formerly the head of human resources, stepped into his place. Monica Welch moved up from within the department to become the new HR head.
Kathleen Fernandez was named the new chief information officer. Jeff Burt came in as the new economic development administrator, and Jeff Kramer became the new city engineer.
“Both (Burt and Kramer) are very well known and highly respected in the state,” Wilkinson said, noting they could probably have worked anywhere they wanted, but they chose Yuma.
“Yuma’s really on the map now,” he added, pointing out that 110 people applied for the position of deputy administrator and 80 applied for the IT chief position.
For the next year, Wilkinson is looking forward to the anyCOMM implementation mid-year. Not only will the city be saving money with LEDs streetlights, but the anyCOMM wireless nodes should bring in additional bandwidth capabilities and make the city a safer place.
“For the next year, things look like they will be good,” Wilkinson said.