Pinal County gets 2 foreign-trade zones

The approved zones are the Sunshine Industrial Park, located at Interstate 10 and Sunshine Boulevard in Eloy, and the Red Rock Industrial Park near Red Rock.

“It’s a very competitive environment out there for industrial but we think this is very helpful for us,” said Eloy City Manager Harvey Krauss. “We’re well located, have easy access to Southern California and Mexico, we’re close to Phoenix and there’s plenty of good industrial land with rail access.”

A qualifying company operating in a foreign-trade zone may defer or avoid payment of duties or taxes, take advantage of streamlined customs procedures and receive a more than 70 percent reduction in property taxes.

There are seven foreign-trade zones in Arizona, including ones in Nogales, Tucson, Yuma and the Phoenix area.

The designation in Pinal County was years in the making, officials said.

After an unsuccessful application to the Foreign Trade Zone Board, Eloy sought help from Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities, which administers the Pima County foreign-trade zone.

“When Eloy approached us we thought it made eminent sense, as did our partners down here in Pima County and the other zones that we have,” said David Welsh, executive vice president of TREO.

“We have always been about the regional approach to economic development and this only builds on that.”

TREO amended its application to include four proposed Pinal Cunty sites. Earlier this month they were notified the Sunshine and Red Rock sites had been approved.

As the country emerges from the recession, Welsh said, the region as a whole needs to be prepared for new businesses, as well as existing companies looking for opportunities to expand or relocate.

“Having these tools to help us attract those firms is going to be important,” he said. “Any success that we have there is going to have a spillover effect.”

Officials said they already received some inquiries from firms looking at the sites.

“We’ve had several prospects looking at Sunshine Industrial Park,” Krauss said. “We’ve got one coming later this month to look at it from out of town. There’s been a lot of interest.”