Investors banking on proposed Pinal freeways, projects
by Tanner Clinch | Casa Grande Dispatch
A rendering of Pinal Land Holdings’ planned Heritage industrial park shows where it would be located and its proximity to infrastructure.
Proposed freeways in Pinal County are spurring speculators to buy up vacant property in anticipation of a building boom.
Investors in real estate and developers have quietly been sinking money into land throughout the area, banking on key transportation projects coming to fruition, primarily the proposed Interstate 11 and the “north-south freeway” that would connect Interstate 10 at Picacho with the East Valley.
Most notable among these is a 11,447-acre buy by Pinal Land Holdings LLC, which followed the $114 million sale with annexation into the city of Coolidge in early 2014.
“A purchase of that size doesn’t come along very often,” said Matt McCormick, the vice president of acquisitions for Pinal Land Holdings, which bought the land from the city of Mesa, which originally acquired it in 1985 for the water rights.
