Pima County has entered the space race.
The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved a $14.5 million economic development agreement with space exploration company World View Enterprises.
Supervisor Ally Miller cast the only vote against the plan. Supervisors Ray Carroll, Richard Elías, Sharon Bronson and Ramón Valadez voted in favor.
“We’re going to take a different direction because frankly, we need a different result,” Valadez said.
The plan has Pima County funding construction of a 120,000-square-foot facility and spaceport on a 28-acre county-owned parcel south of Tucson International Airport.
World View would then pay back the county’s $14.5 million investment over 20 years of lease payments totaling more than $23.6 million.
World View could purchase a portion of the property after 10 years, excluding the spaceport, which would be a public asset open for use by other operators.
Miller questioned why detailed company financial information was not included among the package of materials presented to the board.
“I’d like to look into your business plan on behalf of taxpayers,” Miller said. “I can’t just take your word.”
Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum from World View said the financial information was proprietary and unavailable for board inspection.
Following the vote, MacCallum told reporters the deal was a safe bet for the county.
“It’s not strictly an investment,” he said, noting the county will own the facilities and is not an investor in the company.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry also said the county does not carry a large risk in building the multimillion-dollar facility at Aerospace Parkway and Hughes Access Road, even if the company fails.
“We would then take the property back and market it to a similar company,” he said.
Miller said she thought the board did not have enough information on the deal to make a decision for such a substantial public investment.
“It appears this was all done with at least one board member not knowing about it,” Miller said.
Huckelberry said county staff have been working on the deal for several months, adding it was structured similarly to other economic development deals the county has entered.
Elías said Miller’s objections to the plan appeared to come out of a partisan “political playbook” and noted economic development deals with private industry have been commonplace in the county for decades.
“Certainly Raytheon and its predecessor Hughes Aircraft had the vision to do that with a lot of help from government,” he said.
Hughes came to Tucson in the early 1950s, in part on the promise of the county installing utility services to its manufacturing facilities.
Years later, the county built Hughes Access Road to provide an easier way for the company’s workers to get to and from work.
Even recently, Pima County has spent millions to purchase open space around the Raytheon facility to facilitate company expansion and the growth of compatible industry nearby.
Those purchases included the 28-acre parcel World View will use. The county bought it in 2011.
An economic impact report the county commissioned on the plan said the World View deal represents a $3.2 billion impact on the regional economy over 20 years.
In addition to the construction costs, the company plans to invest at least $40 million in equipment and hire more than 400 workers, most paid at least 150-percent of the average salary for the region.
Poynter said the company already has a $45 million contract with NASA and others with companies like Northrop Grumman and numerous universities to carry scientific payloads into near space.
She and MacCallum said the company’s business would likely be equally split between scientific payloads and space tourism for individuals interested in taking a $75,000 flight to near space.
The flights last five to six hours in a pressurized capsule set aloft with a helium-filled balloon.
The balloon ascends more than 100,000 feet, or nearly 20 miles, above the Earth.
The capsules are glided back to the surface under a parafoil.
World View has successfully tested the technology more than 40 times.
Construction on the facility could begin as soon as next month. Company officials plan to begin operations there in November.
