By Mark Carlisle
Mail | X: @mwcarlisle

Later this year, the University of Arizona will break ground on a new $290 million center in downtown Phoenix aimed at developing strategies to diagnose, prevent and treat diseases.

A Phoenix subcommittee last week voted to enter into a lease with the university, pledging to pay $16.5 million dollars toward the project and give the Wildcats free rent for the 30-year lease,

The University of Arizona’s Center for Advanced Molecular and Immunological Therapies will be built as part of the Phoenix Bioscience Core — a 30-acre life sciences campus in downtown Phoenix where health care companies and the state’s three public universities all collaborate on bioscience innovations.

“These partnerships are wonderful, and we will all be better served by the success of these efforts,” said Councilman Kevin Robinson, chair of the Economic Development and Housing Subcommittee, about the new center joining the Bioscience Core.

The center, which the university refers to as CAMI, will bring between $3.9 billion and 4.8 billion in economic activity to the state, a 2022 University of Arizona study forecasted. It will also generate $430 million in new state tax revenue, $140 million in local tax revenue and attract more than 150 companies to the Valley, creating at least 7,500 new bioscience-related jobs and 13,000 supporting jobs.

“To hear some of the advancements that are happening here in Phoenix is very exciting, and I think CAMI will be a great part of that,” Phoenix Councilmember Kesha Hodge Washington said during last week’s subcommittee meeting.

A 2.5-acre parking lot at the southwest corner of Seventh and Fillmore streets will be repurposed to for the center.

The center’s focus will be to find ways to strengthen the body’s ability to fight off disease through cell- and gene-based therapeutical options, “building on the idea that the most effective defense against health issues is the body’s natural immune system,” the university’s website reads.

Phase 1 of development, starting this year, will create 200,000 square feet of mixed-use research space and bring 500 jobs. Phase 2, which does not yet have a planned date, will expand the center to 450,000 square feet.

The city typically charges tenants in its Bioscience Core a rental rate of $1.85 per square foot of land and go toward a special bioscience fund for the city. At 2.5 acres, the property is around 108,900 square feet. However, staff recommended an abatement of the rent for CAMI to help fund the project “and get it moving forward,” said Phoenix Community & Economic Development Director Christine Mackay.

Mackay said this type of lease agreement is similar to investments the city made in three Arizona State University campuses — the law school, the Thunderbird School of Global Management and the Health Futures Center.

As with other properties in the Bioscience Core, at the end of the 30-year lease, the property will transfer ownership to the University of Arizona “so that they can continue their great work there,” Mackay said.

We’d like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org. Mark Carlisle can be reached at mcarlisle@iniusa.org.

Mark Carlisle
Associate Editor | Daily Independent

mcarlisle@iniusa.org

Mark is passionate about accurately informing his readers to what is happening in their community. He also loves reading and writing about sports. Mark has worked for Independent Newsmedia for five years. He married his high school sweetheart, adopted a boxer mix, and awaits his first child.