Historically, the city of Washington, Utah, has relied heavily on its more prominent neighbor, St. George, for goods, services and commerce—but in the last 30 years, Washington has experienced exponential residential growth. “We pay for that growth through economic development, and now, some of those seeds are starting to come to fruition,” explains Washington Mayor Kress Staheli.
One of the seeds Staheli is referring to is the ARA Southwest Logistics Center, a project led by Freeport West, a full-service real estate and development company that’s been around since 1963. Staheli says ARA will spur significant growth in Washington, yielding high-paying jobs that are not traditional in the sense of construction or professional services—a niche that’s been needed in Washington for some time.
Freeport West is acquiring about 300 acres (possibly more) within the Washington city boundary, with the ARA center expected to take about 15-20 years to complete. The development will be nestled between Southern Parkway (SR-7) and the St. George Regional Airport and will provide 5 million square feet of warehousing, distribution, manufacturing and processing space (think: Amazon) that will diversify and transform the local economy.“When you’re talking 5 million square feet, we anticipate our partners at Freeport West will have a capital investment of somewhere around $400 million in the buildout of buildings. We anticipate that within the next few months, they will start moving dirt and moving ground,” Staheli says.
Staheli calls the development’s location ideal because it will be located at the very southern end of Washington’s current border. Being adjacent to Southern Parkway, trucks will be kept off the local city streets. The big rigs will still be able to go north or south, but they’ll bypass local roads to get to the I-15 for ground shipping. They’ll be able to load right into the airport for airfreight, which is critical, Staheli explains.
Being two hours north of Las Vegas, six hours north of Southern California, near I-15 and adjacent to St. George Regional Airport, the ARA Southwest Logistics Center is in an excellent location for a manufacturing hub.
The project also has a tax incentive component known as Economic Development Tax Increment Finance (EDTIF), a public financing tool local municipalities use to incentivize private development. With EDTIF, financial incentives are available to local and out-of-state companies interested in expanding or relocating to Utah.
“Incentives are available to companies creating new, high-paying jobs that improve quality of life, increase the tax base, and help diversify state and local economies,” the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity says of EDTIF. “Since its 2005 inception, approximately two-thirds of the companies participating in the state’s tax-credit incentive program are Utah-based companies.”