History in Arizona gives hints for New Albany
CHANDLER, Ariz. – Intel and this Phoenix suburb have grown up together.
Before Intel’s arrival in 1980, Chandler was a small farming community of nearly 30,000 people. Today, it’s a city of more than 280,000 people thathas become a tech hub led by Intel, its largest employer with 12,000 workers.
As Intel officially enters the Greater Columbus market this fall when the semiconductor
company starts construction on its twofactory $20 billion project, Chandler’s 40-year history with Intel provides some indicators of the growth ahead for New Albany and Licking County.
Intel has said the site over the next decade could grow into a $100-billion investment and eight factories, called fabs, making it potentially the largest semiconductor site on Earth. “Intel in the 1980s transformed an agrarian economy in the central valley and the southeast valley (of Phoenix) into this now hotbed of tech, the most advanced companies in the world,” said Chris Camacho, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, the region’s economic development arm.
To his point, a business corridor in Chandler that leads to Intel is filled with big-name companies, including Northrop Grumman, Wells Fargo and GM Financial.
Camacho and other business leaders say the Phoenix area would have grown without Intel, but it would have been different.
“The type of employee who came here because of Intel is a higher wage earner with more disposable income,” he said.
Intel’s investment in Chandler is now up to $52 billion, counting the two fabs that are under construction. Intel – already Chandler’s largest employer – will employ 15,000 workers when those factories are finished in 2024. The city says indirect employment from Intel’s factories is now up to 55,000 workers.
“Having Intel inside Ohio is a good thing,” Chandler Mayor Kevin Hartke said. “It will benefit the local communities. It will raise education. It will benefit the state coffers.”
Dennis Hoffman, director of the L. William Seidman Research Institute at the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and director of ASU’S Office of the University Economist, agreed.
“Extending manufacturing in Ohio to electronics will be an important diversification strategy for the region. It will help lead to growth and prosperity in Ohio in a fashion that will tend to parallel that of Phoenix,” he said.
“Of course, Phoenix is blessed with other attractive attributes that have led to population growth. But in the end, this population growth could not have been sustained without key export base industries like Intel.”
Intel factories in Chandler, Arizona started as a farm
Chandler’s leaders decades ago wanted to diversify an economy that, at the time, was largely dependent on farming.
Going back to the 1960s, the city set aside area meant for industry and jobs, said David De La Torre, Chandler’s planning manager.
“Even though it was agriculture and farms, the expectation was there,” he said. “This is going to be industry.”
Both of Intel’s two Chandler campuses were once farms. Over time, they have become surrounded by homes, offices and other businesses on what was also once farmland. Residential areas are as close as 1,000 feet to the Intel site, including a retirement community just south of Intel’s Ocotillo campus in Chandler.
As city leaders set aside land meant for new jobs, they rebuffed pressure from homebuilders who wanted to meet the growing demand for houses in an area increasingly popular with retirees.
“City founders were looking for, at the time when they started a relationship with Intel, a more diversified community,” Hartke said. “I don’t think they foresaw farming would be totally gone from our community. They certainly wanted a broader base of jobs that would survive economic downturns.”
Jay Tibshraeny, a former two-time mayor of Chandler and state senator who is now a judge with the San Marcos Justice District, said the biggest challenge at the time was preserving the land for industrial and technological growth.
Some residents around the New Albany site have complained that Intel will spark a surge of development that will ruin the largely rural character of the area and result in the loss of thousands of acres of farmland, cause traffic jams, lead to higher taxes, overwhelm schools and create more crime.
“There’s always a little pushback from some of the folks who have been around forever,” Tibshraeny said. “We were sensitive to that. We tried to do it the right way.”
Chandler residents, by and large, trusted Tibshraeny and other leaders to manage the growth that came with Intel, he said.
“Most people, they get it,” Tibshraeny said. “A lot of those folks made money because they sold their ground.”
Motorola was one of the initial tech companies to move into Chandler in the 1950s, but Camacho said it was really Intel
that spurred tech development in the metro Phoenix area.
Intel’s arrival launched a supply chain of companies in gases, chemicals, tool and dye, and machining, the bulk of which are located within about an hour’s drive from Chandler to be close to Intel. Other semiconductor companies such as Taiwan Semiconductor and Microchip have also set up shop in the region.
“This is a catalyst,” Camacho said of Intel’s plans for Ohio. “Eyes-wide-open catalysts create change. That means new retail. That means new multifamily. That means more single-family (homes).”
It’s also been a catalyst for small businesses that serve Intel.
“We’re hitting a super cycle of industrial tech growth in this region,” Camacho said, spurred by the need to reshore semiconductor production to the U.S. and growing demand for these devices used to power everything from cellphones to cars to military equipment to gaming consoles.
The Phoenix region of about 5 million people now adds about 80,000 new residents a year, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the country.
“Intel was one of the pinnacle shifts that enabled us arguably to have the success we’re having today where companies’ success begets success,” he said.
‘I’m so glad Intel is in our town’
In Chandler, everyone either works for Intel, has a relative who works for Intel or knows someone who works for Intel.
With that, complaints against the company are few.
“I’m so glad Intel is in our town,” said Bob Harvey, 82, who lives in a neighborhood right across the street from Intel’s factories.
Like others in the neighborhood, Harvey said Intel has been a good neighbor and treated residents with respect.
“They bring money into the town,” he said.
Chandler leaders praise the company as well, citing Intel’s tens of thousands of volunteer hours with schools every year, and the company’s willingness to work with neighbors and the city to resolve all the issues that come with a big company being located in a town in the desert where water is always top of mind.
“We have had the opportunity to grow together and work out problems over the long term,” said John Knudson, director of Chandler’s Public Works and Utilities Department.
Residents around the plant planned for New Albany should be prepared for what’s coming, Knudson said.
“To take the beautiful rural setting ... and plop a plant that size in that location, it would definitely change the landscape,” he said.
Planning manager De La Torre said in his 23 years with the city, he’s never gotten a complaint about Intel. He said he can’t same the same about other companies in Chandler.
Intel’s presence also has created a more diverse community than other Arizona cities that are primarily white and Latino.
“I’m not trying to be a commercial, but the relationships are good. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship for the residents of Chandler,” said Micah Miranda, the city’s economic development director. “It’s beneficial for Intel. Everybody has been working with them for years.”
In one example, Intel agreed to replace some trees near a retirement community after residents complained that the Eucalyptus trees on company property were shedding in their yards and pools.
“They take the feedback they get from stakeholders, their neighbors, seriously,” Miranda said. “They listen. They work to avoid a situation. If they do cause one, they actively work to solve it. ... They actually do stuff.”
How will Intel’s Ohio chip factories impact the New Albany community?
Intel will definitely impact New Albany, De La Torre said.
“Yes, it will change the community. Yes it will trigger growth,” he said. “That’s what we saw in Chandler, but you control it and the (New Albany area) should prepare plans. If it is controlled in a manageable way, it benefits the city and benefits the residents, too.”
Intel has promised to set up a similar system in New Albany that it uses in Chandler to communicate with neighbors about construction and other issues to avoid surprises and to take suggestions on how to handle the landscaping around the New Albany operations, for example. It will set up a 24-hour hotline that neighbors with problems can call.
“It was important for us be good partners with government and cities and to be great partners and neighbors with the folks living around there,” said Intel Arizona plant manager Jim Evers, who will move to Ohio this fall to take over the Ohio operations. “I will take everything I’ve learned in my last 28 years (with Intel) and we will replicate that in Ohio. I can’t wait.” mawilliams@dispatch.com @Bizmarkwilliams