2,500 Acres Near Phoenix TSMC to be Sold by State Land Department for ‘Science Park’

Article originally posted on AZ Central on January 29, 2024

Nearly 2,500 acres of land adjacent to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. campus in far north Phoenix are planned to be sold at auction in late May, which city economic development officials said will contribute to creating one of the largest employment corridors in the state.

Mack Real Estate Group, the developer of the nearby sites that were designated for TSMC suppliers, submitted an application to the state to buy the land, located on the northwest side of Loop 303 and Interstate 17. An entity of Mack, called Biscuit Flats Dev LLC, was the applicant listed on public documents.

The land is under the control of the Arizona State Land Department and is required to be sold at public auction. While Mack is the applicant, other entities are also allowed to bid. The minimum bid is $56.28 million. The auction is scheduled for May 29.

A representative from Mack declined to comment on the application and pending auction.

The site was part of a 3,500-acre zoning case in 2020, which created what the city calls the “Sonoran Oasis Science and Technology Park.” TSMC’s campus was also part of the 3,500 acres, it bought 1,128 acres there in late 2020.

The zoning case allowed for advanced manufacturing uses on most of the large site. The northwestern portion of the site was zoned for “technology park,” which allows for administration, design, manufacturing and other employment uses.

The portion along I-17 was zoned “freeway mixed-use,” which can allow employment uses, regional commercial, office, hospitality, multifamily development and other uses like restaurants.

The city has been working with the state land department for years about the site and has been having conversations with Mack about the development, Chris Mackay, community and economic development director for Phoenix said.

50,000 jobs could locate there

“The goal of bringing TSMC there was to make the science and tech park like (TSMC headquarters location) Hsinchu in Taiwan,” Mackay said.

The 3,500 acres, which includes TSMC’s campus, are expected to eventually include 50,000 jobs, Mackay said, creating one of the largest employment corridors in the state. Downtown and midtown Phoenix, the state’s largest employment corridor, has about 173,000 jobs based there.

Mackay said the city has been in contact with companies who are in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, as well as other advanced manufacturing companies in different industries, such as batteries and electric vehicles, that have been interested in locating in the tech park.

“By bringing in these jobs, we are changing the face of the economy in Phoenix,” Mackay said, adding that the average wage of the jobs the city is working on attracting is $83,000.

Mackay said she expects the 2,500 acres to take between 10 and 20 years to reach full buildout.

The 3,500-acre technology park site is part of a 12,000-acre site called Biscuit Flats, which is controlled by the Arizona State Land Department, Mackay said. The department could eventually sell parcels to developers in the future, she said.

Applicant is involved with other TSMC-related projects

Mack Real Estate Group has been very active in north Phoenix in the past few years. In 2021 it bought land in north Phoenix that the city had designated as “supplier sites” for TSMC’s facility near Seventh Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Road. The sites, now called the Mack Innovation Park, have room for about 3.5 million square feet of buildings.

The company has completed about 900,000 square feet of buildings on the sites so far and recently broke ground on an additional 400,000 square feet. Sunlit Chemical, one of the first semiconductor suppliers to come to the Valley after TSMC bought its land, bought the site for its plant from Mack.