Developers along Marana Road claim $12M in damages

Developers want $12 million from Marana after the town realigned Marana Road, directing traffic away from their projects.

The Town Council was briefed on two notices of claim at an executive session Wednesday. Notices of claim often are precursors to lawsuits.

Mayor Ed Honea said he does not expect the town to act on the claims.

The council in April approved new alignments for Marana Road and Tangerine Farms Road west of Interstate 10, changing an alignment set in 2007 back to a previous alignment.

“We feel it’s going to be better for the whole area, including their projects,” said Town Manager Gilbert Davidson.

The alignment helps create a downtown Marana with a sense of place, better distributes traffic in the downtown area and helps the town with its plan to create a loop road, he said.

Devco, which owns 39 acres of land near I-10 and Marana Road, planned a Walmart-anchored shopping center called Marana Mercantile.

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The company went through rezoning, development agreement and planning processes with the town using the 2007 road plans.

The company “raised vehement objection” to realigning the roads when the town first considered the changes in 2013, according to Devco’s notice of claim. Once the council acted on the realignment, Walmart pulled out.

Devco estimated damages at $8.9 million but offered to settle with the town for $5.5 million.

A group of nine companies, invested in a related development project, filed a notice of claim for damages of $8 million but said it would settle for $6.5 million.

It owns 208 acres of land near Marana Road and Sanders Road and planned to develop 80 acres as a commercial center called Uptown. The group made “vociferous objections” to the road realignment, the claim says.

The development plans approved by the town, which included donations to help build the roads, now are unusable, the claim says.

“The entire development was premised on the fact that there was a direct connection from I-10 to Marana Road, which ran directly south of and adjacent to the property,” the claim says. A traffic study showed that by 2030, up to 57,000 vehicle would drive by the property each day.