Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport is economic engine that East Valley was ‘praying’ for after 25 years

by Jessica Boehm | The Republic

Mesa Mayor John Giles was a first-time council member in the 1990s just after the U.S. Air Force handed over the keys to Williams Air Force Base, allowing the East Valley to repurpose the base into a regional airport.

Giles said he remembers Mesa and other surrounding cities “writing a lot of big checks” and “knowing and hoping and praying” that someday the investment in what is now called Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport would pay off for the growing region.

Almost two decades later when he became mayor, Giles said he had to “choke back a tear to see how everything had come together as we thought it would.”

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