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Buckeye
set to annex 108 square miles By
Kelly Carr The
Arizona Republic
Buckeye
is a place where the best breakfast in town is right on Main
Street, where a man still feels comfortable leaving his car
running as he jets inside a corner store.
It's a place where you tell someone to meet you at "the
Sonic" because there's only one.
Signs, though, hint things soon will be sharply different for
a town that could someday be as large as
Phoenix
. The acres of empty land are filling up with plats for homes
that will make up more than 30 master-planned communities like
Verrado. Town Council meetings provide standing room only and
are filled with developers holding poster boards with more
plans for Buckeye's future. The numbers say the town could
have 1 million people by 2025, up from about 25,000 now.
The most current manifestation of the town's growth is
happening now as Buckeye prepares to annex 108 square miles,
which would increase the town's size by a third. It would be
one of the largest municipal annexations in
Arizona
's history.
But the vast land is not planned for bricks and mortar of
retail development. Instead, town leaders want to set it aside
for parks and recreation, filled with trails where horses can
roam and families can hike. The Federal Bureau of Land
Management owns most of the property, which includes the
town's entire southeastern planning area.
"I think the real meaning of this won't be known for a
number of years until we have everything where we want it and
people realize that we've lost the rest of the desert,"
new Mayor Bobby Bryant said. "Then, they will still have
this."
At 230 square miles now, Buckeye already is larger than
Tucson
,
Mesa
and
Seattle
. Even one of the town's planned communities, Douglas Ranch,
is 55 square miles, larger than
Tempe
.
The proposed annexation would put Buckeye closer to its
planning area of 600-plus square miles and further away from
its past as a sleepy, rural community.
"Most people don't have any idea how big Buckeye
is," said Bob Bushfield, its community development
director. "If we continue to annex all the property
around, we will be every bit as big as
Phoenix
."
Each land mass added into the town represents another piece of
the puzzle, in a game where the goal is to shape Buckeye into
a major Valley player.
It's a big job for a community that had about 8,000 residents
in 2000, a place trying to find medium ground between
preserving land and mom-and-pop businesses and luring big
corporations.
Bushfield knows the pressure.
He is responsible for crunching numbers for Buckeye's
population projections and for a staff handling projects
ranging from the town's first Wal-Mart to Tartesso, a minicity
that will include 40,000 homes and a town center.
Bushfield joined the town a year ago after working in the
community development department in
Scottsdale
. In Buckeye, his department helps decide where major shopping
corridors should land and what it will take to provide water,
sewer and transportation to someday serve a huge population.
Buckeye residents such as Karla Walters, who grew up in the
town, are along for the ride, fighting to preserve Buckeye's
roots as developments pour in.
On Saturday, Walters is leading an effort to move her
childhood historic home to
Main Street
, saving it from demolition.
"Buckeye has a lot of history and has been around so
long," she said. "With all the new development
coming in, that's so easily forgotten. We want to make sure
people can be part of a huge city but still have the hometown
atmosphere."
Town officials have no plans for development on the land to be
annexed. They say it would be a key spot where
Arizona
's history would be preserved for generations. More specific
plans for parkland will be made as annexation discussions
progress.
"I've been stating for several years that we have
beautiful recreation opportunities in the town of
Buckeye
," said Jeanine Guy, interim town manager. "When you
have new developments coming in, now is the time to make sure
we have those trails and connections rather than waiting for
later."
Many are watching the process of a small town planning its
future. Even a graduate class at
Arizona
State
University
is focusing on Buckeye's intense growth.
"The challenges are supreme for these individuals trying
to do the planning and development," said Mary Kihl, a
professor of planning at ASU who works with the class.
"You can't really wait for the housing development to
create the commercial. You really have to think about
everything simultaneously."
Build-out projections show Buckeye's population at 2 million,
a number close to
Phoenix
's, by 2030. Some spectators question the relevance of size.
"Two decades from now, the measure of a great city won't
be determined by square miles or population but by its ability
to sustain a good quality of life," Phoenix Mayor Phil
Gordon said. "
Phoenix
has already figured that out. That is why I have set a goal to
be Number 1 in sustainability, whether we're third, fourth or
10th in size."
Buckeye leaders are confident they're taking the right steps.
Next, they will take annexation plans to the town's
development board, which will make a recommendation to the
Town Council within two months.
Bushfield, like the rest of the swamped staff at the town's
headquarters, is working multiple 12-hours days to make sure
the annexation and other plans clear every hurdle.
"I don't think you could ever anticipate the kind of
growth going on here," he said. "It's one of those
jobs that you wish you were a lot younger, so you could see
more and more of this.
"I say to people, we may have a disagreement on how long
it will take to achieve the population, but eventually that's
what it will be. Those are just conservative estimates."
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