Pima County is set to approve an incentive package with a space-exploration and tourism company that wants to expand its operations to a new facility near Tucson International Airport.
Tucson-based World View Enterprises plans to construct a 120,000-square-foot corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility on Aerospace Parkway south of Raytheon Missile Systems and Tucson International Airport.
The company has about 25 workers but says it plans to expand to as many as 400 employees.
“It’s a charter member to our Sonoran Corridor project,” said Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll.
World View develops high-altitude balloons for manned near-space travel.
Company officials did not want to comment on the plan before the Board of Supervisors’ Jan. 19 vote on the deal.
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The incentive package before the board would have the county fund construction of the facility and spaceport launch site.
World View would pay back the county’s $14.5 million investment over 20 years of lease payments totaling more than $23.6 million.
World View would have the option to purchase a portion of the property after 10 years, excluding the spaceport.
Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the spaceport or launch site would be a public asset open for use by other companies with an interest in space exploration.
In the event World View isn’t successful in this venture, Huckelberry said the county would simply seek a new client for the facility.
“That’s the one risk in this,” he said.
Suborbital spaceflight
The company website notes: “With our proprietary high-altitude balloons, World View offers an accessible, affordable way to access near space. As a Voyager, you will enjoy a suborbital spaceflight unlike any other.”
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’s surface.
In addition to space tourism, the flights have been used to conduct scientific research for universities and private companies.
The cost for the experience stands at $75,000 per person.
The company was founded in 2013 by Jane Poynter and Taber MacCallum, both original crew members in the Biosphere 2 experiment.
Veteran NASA scientist Alan Stern and astronaut Mark Kelly also work for World View.
“I am absolutely ecstatic about having the only spaceport in the state of Arizona,” Pima County Supervisor Ramón Valadez said.
Valadez said the announcement shows the county’s efforts at economic development have worked.
“The plan is bearing fruit,” he said.
Sun Corridor Inc. (formerly known as TREO, or Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities) President and CEO Joe Snell, who worked with the county on the deal, said the possible expansion represented a victory for the region.
“This is a tremendous opportunity to land a sought-after space technology corporate headquarters, with growth plans for hundreds of high-wage jobs,” Snell said.
The announcement marks the inaugural location of a business in the newly realigned Aerospace Parkway, formerly the Hughes Access Road.
County leaders began purchasing property in the area in 2011 in preparation for the road realignment.
The plan to move the roadway south about a half mile was done at the request of Raytheon, which required a large buffer zone to its south.
Attracting industry
For regional leaders, World View’s announcement stands as a win for the Aerospace Parkway concept.
“It validates the concept,” Carroll said.
The idea has been to attract defense, aerospace, manufacturing and logistics companies to the region and especially the undeveloped areas south of the airport.
That effort coincides with a longer-term plan to build an adjacent highway connecting Interstates 10 and 19 in the hopes of attracting manufacturing and other large-scale employers.
The proposal, for the so-called Sonoran Corridor, has the backing of all the area municipalities, Arizona’s congressional delegation, state House officials representing the region and business organizations.
The plan recently was included on the federal transportation funding plan as a high-priority project.
Huckelberry estimates total construction costs could exceed $600 million for the 14-mile connection.
An attempt to add local funding to the project failed at the ballot in November. It was part of the bond election where voters rejected all seven questions included on the $815 million package.
Regional leaders have not given up the idea of local funding, however, openly debating a potential single-question bond to fund a portion of the plan to help connect the region’s major transportation networks — highway, rail and air.
“It’s an indication of the momentum that can build at the Sonoran Corridor,” Tucson City Councilman Steve Kozachik said.
Kozachik said expansion of World View into the Aerospace Parkway and Sonoran Corridor area aligned well with existing employers like Raytheon and at the UA Tech Park near I-10 and Rita Road.
“And World View potentially backstops millions of research dollars the state chiseled from the UA and the UA Tech Park. All of the private-sector development we see out there continues to send the message of just how key that area is to our long term financial health,” Kozachik said.
Tucson Mayor Jonathan Rothschild also was supportive of the proposed incentive plan.
“It’s compatible with what we want to do to expand our reputation as a technology center on the cutting edge,” Rothschild said.
The county could break ground on the project as soon as February.
