Life Coach in Queen Creek, AZ

Thompson Thrift, a full-service nationally recognized real estate company, announced today that it has started construction on the first phase of the 1-million-square-foot Germann Commerce Center in Queen Creek, a thriving suburb southeast of Phoenix.

"Queen Creek is one of the fastest-growing cities in Arizona and has emerged as a preeminent industrial submarket," said Ashlee Boyd, managing partner for Thompson Thrift Commercial. "We value the relationship our company has established with the city of Queen Creek over the years, and we are excited to bring another great project to this dynamic community. With strong demand from industries such as electric vehicle manufacturing, distribution, aerospace and defense, and pharmaceutical users we expect that the Germann Commerce Center will be a welcome addition to this dynamic region."

Located on the southwest corner of Germann and Meridian Roads, the first phase of Germann Commerce Center will consist of approximately 400,000 square feet of speculative light industrial space in five standalone buildings spread across approximately 26 acres. The buildings will offer front-park/rear-load industrial, with clear heights from 28 to 32 feet and frontage on East Germann Road.

READ ALSO: Here is the Phoenix commercial real estate outlook for 2023

With easy access to the Phoenix-Mesa Gateway airport, Loop 202 and State Road 24, the development is well-positioned to take advantage of the many benefits of the area, including its skilled workforce, strong industrial demand and close proximity to residential housing.

"We are very pleased to break ground on the first phase of the Germann Commerce Center," said Chris Alexander, senior vice president of industrial development. "With global brands like Google, Apple, Amazon, Meta, and LG basing operations in the Southeast Valley, Queen Creek is emerging as the next high-tech manufacturing and distribution location in the Valley due to its convenient access to SR 24 and a talented labor pool."

Alexander continued, "When you combine a competitive Arizona corporate income tax rate, reliable electric service, strong regional higher education institutions, and an established advanced manufacturing employer base, Queen Creek is an attractive solution for industrial users looking for the infrastructure to support their growth plans."

The Germann Commerce Center is a multi-phase industrial development project for Thompson Thrift. At full buildout, the project can provide up to 1 million square feet of warehouse, distribution, light assembly and manufacturing space, covering approximately 68 acres. Thompson Thrift expects the first phase to be complete in the first quarter of 2024 with build-to-suit and for-sale options in phase two available immediately.

Thompson Thrift is a full-service real estate development company focused on ground-up commercial and mixed-use development across the Midwest, Southeast and Southwest. Since its founding more than 30 years ago, Thompson Thrift has invested more than $4 billion into local communities and has become known as a trusted partner committed to developing high-quality, attractive commercial and multifamily communities.

Thompson Thrift is well-established throughout Arizona with more than 20 retail, multifamily and industrial projects in development, with an estimated volume of more than $1.5 billion. This is their second industrial development currently underway in Phoenix's Southeast Valley.

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QUEEN CREEK, AZ — Nearly 2,000 side-by-side owners will roll through Queen Creek Saturday night.

Their rigs will be decked out in decorations and their hearts with our troops serving all over the world.

“Let’s put a couple over there,” said Nick Masse on Friday.

Nick and his team of volunteers are placing signage throughout Queen Creek in preparation for an annual Christmas parade benefiting a cause close to his heart.

“My son tells me all the horror stories, they don’t have any supplies, so it makes me want to do more,” said Nick.

Nick’s son Jaeden joined the Navy in 2020 and is expressing the need for care packages of snacks, hygiene supplies, and even socks, items that can be tough to come by during deployment.

“They love seeing the care packages, seeing the notes and the letters in there, it just makes them feel like hey we appreciate what you’re doing there,” said Nick.

Over the past four years, he and his wife have teamed up with UTV owners across the Valley. Putting on a unique Christmas event to show those serving overseas they’re not forgotten.

“Right here is everything that has already been donated for care packages that have been dropped off at my home,” said Jennifer Masse while pointing at stacks of donations.

Thanks to the amazing hearts of the community and businesses across the state, the Masse’s will soon pack and send out hundreds of care packages to the brave men and women serving our country.

“Just absolutely heartwarming and just chills, like seriously chills from everybody willing to give back to them,” said Jennifer. "The first year of the parade we had about 35 side by side, now we're going to have a few thousand."

To thank the public for their incredible generosity a parade of nearly 2,000 side-by-sides, covered top to bottom in lights and decorations will roll through Queen Creek Saturday.

It’s not a competition but let’s just say they take the decor seriously.

“I spent about three weekends doing my rig, it’s got about three thousand lights, about seventy feet of rope light,” said UTV owner Pete Mertens.

“There’s no doubt folks look over and say oh I like what they did, I’m gonna try and top that,” said Nick with a laugh.

The creativity will certainly be on full display but so will the pride of country by honoring those sacrificing their own holiday to make sure we enjoy ours.

Staging starts at 2 p.m. at ALA Applied Technologies (7729 E. Pecos Road) and then the parade will leave promptly at 6 p.m. through 14 different neighborhoods in Queen Creek.

Donations can be dropped off at the staging area prior to the parade.

The parade route goes through these Queen Creek neighborhoods this year:

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QUEEN CREEK, AZ — Despite a surge in student population, Queen Creek Unified School District is "fully staffed" this school year, according to district human resources director Keegan Bassett.

"This year, we were very excited to be one of the only schools in Arizona that was fully staffed for teachers at the beginning of this year," he said.

Bassett said they first used more common ways to draw in teachers, like an increase in pay, marketing campaigns for job openings, and networking at job fairs both in and out of state. From there, though, he said they had to get creative.

The newly announced program, Aspire2Teach, is one method they're hoping will be a successful solution to maintaining full staff.

Bassett described it as a "grow your own" type model.

"The Arizona State Board of Education just approved our classroom-based education preparation program," Bassett said. "We'll be able to target prospective teachers that are current classified employees, substitute teachers, and then community members that hold a bachelor's degree where we could consider them for positions where we would then provide them the education preparation program training for their careers."

Bassett also said QCUSD is planning at least two new schools within the next couple of years to help with a rise in student population.

Growth in the East Valley has not been slowing down. QCUSD has opened seven schools in the past six years, according to Bassett.

"Projections right now are we anticipate having another two elementary schools in our north region," Bassett said. "In addition to that, we're going to need to add on wings to Crismon High School and Eastmark High School as well to continue to absorb the student population that we anticipate receiving."

Silver Valley Elementary is in the district's north region. Bassett said it has roughly 1,100 students right now, which is why the district wants to open more schools in that area.

"Eleven-hundred kids as a former elementary school principal, that's probably on the upper echelon of the largest populated elementary schools in the state," Bassett said.

Bassett said the district is also fully staffed for bus drivers as of January, and no longer needed to use a third-party vendor to help with bus routes. He said that was due to a marketing campaign increase, an increase in hourly wage, a sign-on bonus, referral stipends, and a cross-department training program.

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Colorado River cuts are heading to cities across the Grand Canyon State, and will grow more stringent as the megadrought worsens. Here's who will see the cuts first.

ARIZONA, USA — Arizona kicked off 2023 parched.

The state only got around two-thirds of its usual Colorado River water allocation this year. The cut was part of a federal government effort to try and stop Lake Mead and Lake Powell from reaching critically low levels.

Farms throughout the state have the worst water woes; the first to feel the brunt of the water cuts. As the megadrought continues, some cities aren't too far behind.

Three Valley cities, specifically, will see the biggest negative changes in water access over the next five years, according to an Arizona State University (ASU) database. The reasons why are cemented in history, while the impact on city water supply can't fully be known until the future plays out.

The Arizona Colorado River Visualization Enterprise, or "AZ CuRVE," is the clever name ASU gave the database that allows people to visualize how the Colorado River Shortage will affect the state.

One piece of the dataset is how access will change for people, other water sources and cities.

By 2026, the top three Arizona cities that will see the largest water access reductions per person include:

Credit: ASU AZ CuRVE

A bit of good news: The water reductions won't affect tap water deliveries for residents in the three cities, at least not immediately.

Buckeye, Queen Creek and El Mirage don't use Colorado River water for tap water deliveries. AZ CuRVE shows that all three cities actually get 100% of their tap water from groundwater as of 2020.

The bad news, however, may jeopardize aquifers each city relies on.

The three cities primarily use Colorado River water to recharge their underground aquifers. In some cases, river water acts as only a small part of that recharge. Queen Creek, for example, will use 495 acre-feet of Colorado River water and 4,000 acre-feet of effluent water, or treated sewage water, to recharge its aquifers.

"[Queen Creek] is primarily using treated effluent to recharge the aquifer – we are working with developers to expand our treated effluent program and in the process of expanding our recharge facilities," the city's communications & marketing manager, Constance Halonen-Wilson, said.

"In addition, by 2026, the Town will have an additional 15,000-acre feet of water supplies to offset groundwater pumping."

The allocation may be small, but any cut could have large consequences for a city's aquifer, according to one of Arizona's top water researchers.

"The story of Colorado River shortage in central Arizona is going to be a story of groundwater depletion," said Kathryn Sorensen, ASU's Morrison Institute for Public Policy's research director and the architect of the AZ CuRVE tool.

The loss of that recharge would exacerbate aquifer collapse, along with residents' drinking water supply. This isn't just true for Buckeye, Queen Creek and El Mirage. It's also true for the vast majority of cities in the Valley.

"Cities will continue to provide that tap water in support of public health and safety, but the consequence of having less Colorado River water is that we won't be able to recharge the aquifers," she said.

Credit: AZ CuRVE

Roots are the commonality these three cities share.

Buckeye, Queen Creek and El Mirage are all located on the fringes of the Phoenix metro Valley. Their humble small-town histories make for good tales, but didn't set them up for high-priority water rights.

Both Queen Creek and El Mirage began as little agricultural communities in the early 1900s. Both were filled with residents unaware of the tens of thousands of people who would call the area home more than a century later.

The cities were given a very small, low-priority allocation of Colorado River water in the 1980s because of this humble beginning.

"Irrigation districts in central Arizona have their own allocation of water called "Non-Indian Agricultural water," Sorensen said. "Those irrigation districts ended up not being able to afford that water ... they basically gave up their long-term access to Colorado River water in exchange for subsidized temporary water."

The irrigation districts, in places like Queen Creek and El Mirage, received the benefits of this deal, which Sorensen estimates is around $500 million in benefits. But as Colorado River water levels worsen during the ongoing megadrought, the "temporary water" part of the deal is coming to fruition.

Buckeye is in a similar boat, getting its unofficial start with the construction of the Buckeye Canal in 1885. The canal drew water from the Agua Fria River for agricultural use.

"Twelve thousand inches of water was located and claimed by the locators and a right of way over the public domain forty feet wide to the Hassayampa creek on which to build their canal," the Buckeye Water Conservation and Drainage District's website said.

The original small size of the community and the unique water source set Buckeye up to also get a small, low-priority Colorado River allocation.

All three cities have eclipsed their small starts and are now booming. While Colorado River water may not have played an essential role in each communities' founding, losing their allocations could spell doom for their aquifer's future.

Water levels are dwindling across the Southwest as the megadrought continues. Here's how Arizona and local communities are being affected.

Queen Creek received a long-awaited green light from the Bureau of Reclamation to finalize a controversial plan to buy water directly from farmland along the Colorado River.

Driving the news: The Bureau of Reclamation on Friday issued a document known as a Finding of No Significant Impact for Queen Creek's plan.

Details: Queen Creek will pay GSC Farm LLC about $21 million for perpetual rights to 2,033 acre-feet of water per year.

Why it matters: The agreement will help ensure a water supply for Queen Creek as it continues its rapid growth. Its population went from 26,361 in 2010 to 59,519 a decade later.

Between the lines: If the water were used for new housing, it could supply about 6,000 homes, Gardner said.

Of note: The Colorado River basin, which includes Arizona, is in the midst of a 22-year megadrought that has led to several cuts to our state's allocation of water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP), which transports water from the river to other parts of the state.

The other side: Queen Creek's plan had plenty of detractors, including officials in La Paz, Mohave and Yuma counties along the river, and state Rep. Regina Cobb (R), who has spent much of her career in the legislature focused on water issues.

Cobb says she is worried about the effect that the water transfer will have on Cibola and is concerned that the bureau set a new precedent for similar deals in both Arizona and California.

What's next: There are still additional steps that must be completed before the plan becomes final, including executing agreements involving the town, GSC Farm, CAP and the bureau.