(upbeat music) - [Lorraine] Growth in Southern Arizona during the pandemic.

- We've seen activity pickup since last May, and it really hasn't slowed down.

- [Lorraine] Challenges with supporting more residents in a sustainable way.

- How and where and what sources of water are we going to use?

- [Lorraine] Plus the County where vaccine eligibility has garnered national attention.

- We decided we were gonna fill our clinics and we just needed to get shots in arms.

(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Arizona 360, I'm Lorraine Rivera, thanks so much for joining us.

Before the pandemic, Arizona was one of the fastest growing states in the country.

And as we've reported, that continues in Southern Arizona.

This week we explore interest in this region and how it has endured over the last year.

Sun Corridor plays a key role in bringing new companies to Pima County.

Our discussions kicked off with Susan Dumon, vice president of economic development.

- So Sun Corridor is regional economic development organization, and we work to attract primary employers to our region.

So by primary employers, we mean employers that are exporting a product or service outside of the state or region, typically outside of the state.

And I just like to add that we work to bring in new employers but we also work with existing primary employers to help them expand their operations as well.

- Would it be fair to say that right now the Sun Corridor is seeing a volume of businesses that are coming here or existing businesses that would like to expand?

- You know, I think about today, it's been just a year since the pandemic started, early on, it was slow, it was very quiet, as everyone was trying to sort out and figure out what their next step was.

That said, we've seen activity pickup since last May and it really hasn't slowed down.

We look at our activity year over year, we are on peace with what we were in the prior year before the pandemic began.

We've seen about 70 total active projects in our pipeline.

Most of the manufacturing related projects are in consumer products, as well as the life sciences, bio-science.

And then in transportation and logistics as you can imagine, we've seen a tremendous amount of activity in e-commerce.

I think everyone over the past year has gotten familiar with e-commerce.

If you work before the pandemic, you certainly are now.

- What do you attribute this growth to?

I mean, the pandemic has presented all sorts of challenges, one of the last things that many of us would think about is growth or development in Southern Arizona.

- We were positioned well prior to the pandemic, and I think that we are just continuing to grow on those strengths.

So some of those strengths are that, you know, we have less density than other large urban areas.

We have a lack of natural disasters which is important for continuity of operations.

And we also have a climate that's conducive to outdoor activity which was really attractive during the pandemic, and last but not least, we remain an affordable area.

And those are just a few of the things that I think are positioning us as a region to be strong coming out of the pandemic.

- None of those things they were necessarily new, or we just recently discovered?

- I think there's a few things that put us at this tipping point, you know, in the last several years our population has exceeded a million, and when you go through the site selection process with companies, they're often looking for, you know, kind of, you know, key points, key boxes to check if you will and sometimes those factors can get you more attention.

Additionally, what I would say is that we've received a lot of national attention for our growth particularly in the tech sector, over the last several years, CBRE named us, you know, the number one up and coming tech talent region.

And then just recently, Pima County was was named the number one county in the United States for tech talent growth over the last five years.

- One of the things that has been said is that these people are not moving here for jobs, they're bringing their jobs with them.

This advent of remote working has really taken off but as the pandemic hopefully winds down, where will that take this industry that you're describing in the near future?

- I think the jury is still out on what the future of work is going to look like as it relates to remote working and work from home as employees try to onboard, you know, new members of their team and get them involved in the company and the culture, they're still trying to figure it out.

So we haven't seen on the ground how this is all gonna play out.

We think it's gonna take a little bit more time and as far as activity in the region, we haven't seen a lot of office related projects because companies are still trying to sort this out.

Although they do know they're gonna have some sort of physical presence, they're just not sure exactly what that footprint is gonna look like.

- This sort of activity draws enthusiasm from places like Sun Corridor, what does that tell you about the near future, six months a year, perhaps?

- So in the near future, I think we're going to continue to see the manufacturing sector as well as transportation and logistics specifically, e-commerce demonstrate an interest in our region and likely select our region.

We have a couple of exciting projects on the horizon that we hope we'll make a decision soon and make a location announcement soon.

And we also believe that, you know, over the next six months to a year, that we're gonna continue to see you know, inbound, attraction of talent, individuals that want to live in this region, it was already a popular place for people to to choose to live and we think that that is going to continue which will put us in a great position because the number one thing that companies are looking for when they come to us is talent.

Do we have what they need today?

Do we have a talent pipeline of K-12 community college and universities?

And do we have the workforce programs in place that work with businesses to provide them the kind of training they're gonna need in the future?

- Thank you for your insight Susan Dumon, vice president of economic development for Sun Corridor.

As more people relocate to Pima County, developers are taking note.

This year, Meritage Homes announced plans to break ground on housing communities in Marana unveil they will add more than 200 homes.

Regional president Jeff Grobstein discuss the company's interest here and how the pandemic challenges construction.

- You know, we're seeing a great variety of different buyer profiles that are coming to Tucson.

We see a lot of people that are moving out of urban areas such as the California coastal areas where it's just a very crowded and we're seeing people with wide open space but then, with the great interest rates that we're seeing, it is driving a tremendous amount of demand because it truly is a better opportunity to own than to rent.

So for the first time home buyer and what we call the first time mover buyer, the payments are so advantageous where a person can own a single family home that they don't have to rent and basically throw away their money.

- Can you give us an idea of how quickly you're building homes or what's been new for you on the business end?

- Yeah, on the business end, there are some challenges that we've obviously encountered with the duration of the building cycle time because there's this spike up in demand, it does create a little bit of a lag time due to labor as well as other COVID related shortages.

In terms of manufacturing, we're seeing quite a few delays in different types of the materials that are coming out.

- One of our crews visited a site that you have in the Marana area, has the pandemic, and I know you talk a bit about some of the delays, but has the pandemic shifted your work at all?

- Well, there's no question that we, you know, I wanna be much more safety conscientious in terms of our sites and people working on top of each other in the home, so that does account for a little bit more lag time because we want the employees of our trades our subcontractors and trade partners to be safe as well as our employees who manage the sites whether it be our Salesforce or our construction managers.

- I know that you do have homes for active adults but then you also have single family households, what are you hearing about why people are moving to Arizona right now?

- Well, first of all, the affordability of Arizona is excellent.

Okay, so we still have homes that are priced that you can get a brand new energy efficient home in Arizona, particularly Tucson area, different parts of Tucson during the low to mid 200's which is really unheard of, we are seeing those entry-level prices pretty bumped into the high 200's and low 300's.

So affordability is terrific as well as people being able to take advantage of markets.

The whole nation is in a situation where they're seeing a lot of growth in equity in their homes.

And I think people are trending, intending to enjoy a little bit more spread out.

They're not feeling like they're on top of each other, that's truly what Arizona has been known for for a long time is a little bit more spread out, and you don't have that urban type field.

- You have developments in various parts of the country, what do these current trends tell you about the near future and whether or not companies like yours will be able to keep up?

- I think we're gonna see a good future in the home building business.

Again, we're seeing a low inventory on the resale market, we're seeing those prices starting to rise quite a bit as well because of the low inventory.

I think as long as the interest rates continue to be historically low, we will see continued success.

We do need to be careful when we talk about affordability as commodity prices and interest rates may go up a little bit and that may have a slowing impact on the home building business.

But in general, if you look at historically what interest rates are have been over the last 20 years, even if interest rates go up a little bit, there's still going to be extremely favorable.

- Thank you, Jeff Grobstein, a region president for Meritage Homes.

- Thanks so much Lorraine, I really appreciate being on.

- Here in the Sonoran desert, the scarcity of water presents added challenges for growth.

For insight on how these two issues intersect, we learn more from Joanna Allhands, a digital opinions editor for the Arizona Republic whose work is focused on sustainability.

Joanna you've written a fair amount about the growth that Arizona is experiencing, but you're also perhaps waving the red flag and saying, hold on, we have to be sure our resources can keep up.

Where does Arizona's water future stand if growth continues at its current pace?

- Well, it really kind of depends on how we grow.

You know, growth in itself is not necessarily a bad thing for water because housing uses quite a bit less water than agriculture.

So if we grow smart, that's not to say that we can grow indefinitely, but we can continue to grow.

The big question is how and where and what sources of water are we going to use to do so?

- You referenced growing smart, and for most people they're sitting at home and wondering, what does that mean?

How do you grow smart?

Because the growth, as you just said is good.

- Yeah, and it's really making sure that we're growing in ways around the Metro areas, you know, in small towns where we have the resources.

I think probably what has raised concern for a lot of people is that, you know, a lot of development has sort of leapfrogged over some of the agriculture that we thought was going to be replaced.

And so we're, in some cases where, you know, building homes on land that hadn't had a use before, hadn't had a water use and, you know, in the rural areas, we're growing some of the agriculture in areas that hasn't been farmed previously.

So, you know, if you're adding onto without taking away, that's not necessarily growing smart.

- You often cover this very issue for the Arizona Republic, how would you rate the Colorado river at this point right now considering the current growth patterns?

- It's concerning, we are heading into an extremely dry year where we're headed is kinda of where we were in 2012 when there was a very much lower amount of water that came from Lake Powell into Lake Mead and eventually, you know, comes into Arizona from which we never recovered.

If we are in that spot again this year where we only get a much reduced amount of water, it's going to send us into shortage.

Now, granted we have planned for these shortages, we know that they're coming, but we're not, it's not likely that we're gonna recover from them.

- The Arizona legislature, the governor, they all talk about this every single year, but some places like Phoenix, for example, are seeing tens of thousands of people move to the region every year, how much longer is all this sustainable for?

- That's the million dollar question.

And I think that is the one that there's so many variables in how we determine how long the water's going to last that it's almost unanswerable in the future or at least a lot of the way into the future.

Just because it depends on how dry it gets, how much water we use, can we find additional sources of water, you know, to augment what we do.

It's very difficult, even just talking about how much groundwater do we have left.

That's a hard question to answer because there may be a point where we reach the cheap achievable groundwater but there may still be groundwater left, it's just really expensive to use.

- Now, this is what you like to write about, you've heard from a variety of voices, is there a happy medium when it comes to people moving to the desert and being able to support their needs here?

- I think there is, you know, I am not one of those people that says let's get rid of all the agriculture, I'm not one of those people that says let's just stop all the growth.

I think it can happen, but it's gonna have to happen in a way where we're very mindful of the groundwater that we're using, and as the Colorado river becomes more scarce, we're only gonna need to use more groundwater.

It all is gonna work together.

- Thank you, Joanna Allhands, the digital opinions editor for the Arizona Republic.

- You're welcome.

(upbeat music) - Arizona marked a milestone this week with the announcement that more than a million residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

Most counties are vaccinating people ages 55 and up, but a few are ahead of the curve.

For example, Gila County, with a population of just over 50,000, adults 18 and up can sign up for a shot.

Tony Paniagua visited a recent vaccination event to learn more about the county's approach.

(tires screeching) - [Tony] Gila County is East of Phoenix and North of Tucson, relatively close to the majority of the state's population.

- We are the heart of Arizona.

Gila County is right smack in the middle of Arizona.

- [Tony] That slogan carried a special meaning the weekend of February 14th, the county offered more than a thousand people something special.

- We got our first shot in the Valentine days, so it was my gift.

(Valeska and Sasha laughing) - [Tony] Four weeks later, they're lining up again at High Desert Middle School in Globe for their second dose of Adonis COVID-19 vaccine.

Sasha Schuck lives in Tucson but works for a mining company in Gila County, so he and his wife qualify for the vaccine, both are in their early thirties.

- I hope that everybody with my same age can get the vaccine, yeah.

- [Tony] They will not be able to get the vaccine yet in many other places where eligibility is currently limited to groups that include healthcare workers, teachers, or those 55 and over.

- How are you doing today?

- I'm good, you're the same one I had left- - Whoa, awesome, there's your card back.

- [Tony] But in Gila County, residents or those who commute here for work and are 18 years old or older, can't get a shot.

- It's awesome actually, we're I don't know, just, it's been a long year, last year, we've had to work from home, pretty much every day and it changed the dynamic and it feels like it's going back to normal, maybe the new normal, but it's a good change.

- [Tony] Like other jurisdictions in Arizona, Gila County focused on older residents when vaccinations began in December but as more people, 65 and up got their shots and others did not register, the county noticed a decline in participation.

- So we decided we were gonna fill our clinics and we just needed to get shots in arms.

- Because you don't want the shots not to be used.

- No, and it is very much, you have a 10 dose multidose and you have to do 10 doses.

There are times when we actually get additional doses and those need to go out as well.

- [Tony] In addition to lowering the age requirement, Gila County also made it easier for residents to register by creating a locally staffed call center.

- So having enough phones, having enough people, people like human to human, so that's sort of what we have done, and it's been fantastic to see how many appointments we have filled.

- [Tony] The County says cooperative efforts and communication between different agencies and groups such as the national guard have also been pivotal.

- Are you on vaccine?

- [Lady] We could use another round of vaccines please.

- All, alright, I'll get you some.

- [Lady] Thank you.

- [Tony] Erica Lee lives in Tucson where she tried to volunteer at local drive through vaccination sites.

They had enough people, so Lee drove more than a hundred miles North to Globe to offer her assistance.

This is her third weekend day on the job at this pod, point of distribution for the COVID vaccine.

- I guess at 50 years old, you know, I don't feel like there's a whole lot of things in my life I've done that really contribute to kind of a generation.

It was an opportunity to just feel a part of something that hopefully brings us all back together, and then just wanting to see everybody hopefully could be able to get back to their lives.

So the sooner we can do that the better.

- We have seen a lot of death in Gila County unfortunately and it's touched everybody's lives.

And you know, if you can get a vaccine to prevent that you know, why wouldn't you do that?

And there are gonna be people that probably are not going to be receiving a vaccine and that's okay as long as we somehow get to herd immunity.

(tires screeching) - We've kind of walked against it for a while and when a couple of our close friends ended up getting the virus and stuff, we decided to quit playing around and decided to go ahead and get vaccinated.

- [Tony] Moving forward, the county is planning additional drive-thru events in other locations to vaccinate even more residents including with a single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

- [Lady] Gila County, Arizona, population 54,000, is a glimpse into America's vaccine future.

- [Tony] Gila's efforts have attracted state and national attention in recent weeks.

- I was born and raised here and to look at it from their perspective has been really, it kinda gives me goosebumps because I think about, you know, we have a lot to offer in rural Arizona and for people that maybe come out eventually (Paula laughing) maybe we'll get some tourists to come through and educate people on the importance of rural health.

- The CDC is tracking variants of the coronavirus that it considers concerning.

The variant traced to the UK is the most prevalent with over 4,600 known cases across the US that includes at least 39 cases in Arizona.

To find out how these variants evolve and whether the current vaccines are effective at protecting people from them, we got insight from University of Arizona, virologists, Felicia Goodrum.

- So the variants are a potential concern because they could result in increased transmission or increased disease and hospitalizations or death.

That's a major worry with the variants but they're also a big concern because now that we have vaccines, they possibly have the ability to get past those vaccines, and so they are a concern.

However, I would just qualify that with the fact that viruses as they replicate, they mutate, and so variants and mutations are to be expected that is not something that's unusual.

So the important thing right now is that we limit transmission as much as possible so that we can get people vaccinated before we have variants emerging that can get past the vaccine.

- How do variants evolve naturally?

- Okay, so as viruses replicate, they will accumulate small mutations in their genomes that results in a variant.

And so these small mutations what they do is change just slightly, for example, the spike protein, or any of the viral proteins that make up the coronavirus.

And so in changing the shape of that protein, that can change how it interacts with the cells in us that it's going to infect.

And so we have generated natural immunity to the viruses that we have encountered or immunity through the use of the vaccine that allows our immune system to recognize certain characteristics of the virus so that it can stop infection.

But what variants do is change the virus just ever so slightly to allow it to escape past that either natural immunity or vaccine induced immunity.

- And the current COVID-19 vaccine that many people across the state and across the country are receiving won't prevent against this particular variant or these variants that are emerging?

- There is good news there, and that so far, the vaccines are still effective against all the variants that have emerged.

Some of the vaccines may have slightly reduced efficacy but remember, in the case of the RNA vaccines, these vaccines are over 90% effective.

And so even a slight reduction still leaves us with an incredibly effective vaccine.

- Regardless of which vaccine you get, one of them should be able to mount a defense against whichever variant you might be exposed to.

- Yes, the vaccines are meant to prevent hospitalizations and deaths, and all of the vaccines are highly effective at doing that.

Essentially, a hundred percent effective at preventing hospitalizations and deaths and that is still the case against the variants.

- How does this complicate things moving forward when so many of us were thinking that there's light at the end of the tunnel and we'll be on the other side of this soon?

- There is light at the end of the tunnel and we are gonna get onto the other side of this, we just need to continue mitigating this virus and getting everybody vaccinated.

And so really it's an arms race that we're in right now to get as many people vaccinated as possible before variants emerge with any increased ability to get past the vaccine.

What the vaccines are designed to prevent against is hospitalizations and severe disease, and these vaccines are incredibly effective at doing that even against all the variants that we know to date.

And so it's very important that we continue tracking these variants.

The vaccines are also such that they can be very quickly modified to address any variants that arise.

And so I am really very hopeful that the efforts that have been made are really gonna pay off in ending this pandemic, or what we've accomplished over this past year and what science has brought to us, we just need to continue the efforts to mitigate and vaccinate.

- Tell me a bit about those efforts because it's the mask, it's the hand washing, is there anything new that could prevent further evolution of these viruses?

- No, that is just dead.

We need to continue distancing, masking, and hand-washing until we get vaccinated.

And then we need to continue these vaccination campaigns which are working at a really impressive rate to get as many people vaccinated as possible.

But viruses don't know borders so it's also important to remember that even though we're here, well hopefully as, the president has said to get everybody vaccinated or scheduled to be vaccinated by May 1st, as soon as people start traveling across the world then we create new risks, so that that effort has to continue until really the population globally is vaccinated.

- Okay, Dr. Felicia Goodrum from the University of Arizona, thank you.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - That's all for now, thanks for joining us.

To get in touch, visit us on social media or send an email to arizona360@azpm.org and let us know what you think.

We'll see you next week.

(upbeat music) (bright upbeat music)