Harvey says his ownership group is covering the cost of extending the city waterline to its property, which it is calling City View Business Park, and then the city will set up a special improvement district to pay for the extension of the line to the rest of the Apex land it annexed. Given that, Harvey says his ownership group will have a solid 18-month head start on development.

Furthering the development advantage is the joint effort by Harvey's group and the City to obtain Foreign Trade Zone status for Harvey's property. Such a designation would allow those within the zone to import raw goods directly to the property and then add value without paying duties. After that, the product may be exported back out of the US without paying any duties at all or may enter US commerce at a reduced duty rate. It could also help casino companies, which could avoid paying duties on warehoused slot machines until they are actually sent to a casino.

"We have had very detailed conversations with the licensee of the Foreign Trade Zone as well as the management company and will be working with Harvey to make application," Majewski says. "All parties are very excited about moving forward with it; nothing is done until it's done but it appears to be a case of when, not if."

In addition to being closest to existing utilities, having views of the valley and likely Foreign Trade Zone status, Majewski says Harvey's group's property also benefits from proximity to rail. "It's just a great piece of property," he says. "It has the [Union Pacific] main line running through the property, which means building rail spurs to different development sites will be easy," he says.

Harvey says the current conceptual plan calls for 5 million sf but the rail design is being revised to allow for an additional 1 million sf of development. As for the type of development, Harvey anticipates developing three-story office/R&D building on the land adjacent to Interstate 15 with the best Valley views and, beyond that, heavier industrial uses. Site work is still a few months out but once it begins completion of the first buildings could happen inside 18 months.

Waiting in line for city water behind Harvey's group is Kapex LLC, which two years ago paid $69 million for a 3,250-acre chunk of Apex Industrial Park with visions of a 30 million-sf big-box warehouse and distribution center rising on the property over the next 10 years. The face of the group is Adam Titus, most recently with VesCorp., the company that created the industrial park and still owns 6,000 acres of it.

Kapex acquired its land from Kerr-McGee, which acquired the property in 1989 and shuttered its operations there in 2001. Titus says Kapex will focus initially on developing 400 acres that the seller, Kerr McGee Corp., was actively using. The plan is to prepare lots for sale to developers and also engage in some speculative development of its own.