UA Tech Park Economic Impact Grew Last Year, Report Says
Arizona Daily Star
David Wichner
June 22, 2018
The University of Arizona Science and Technology Park had an overall economic impact of nearly $2 billion statewide in 2017 as it continued to recover after slumping during the last recession, according to a new report. The sprawling tech park on South Rita Road near Interstate 10 employed 5,870 people in 52 companies last year, with total direct output of $1.11 billion, according to a study by VP Research & Consulting.
Including jobs created outside of Pima County, the Tech Park was credited with 11,752 jobs and wages of $769 million statewide, for a total economic output including wages of $1.98 billion. The 1,345-acre Tech Park houses tenants including IBM Corp., which sold the property to the UA in 1994 after dropping manufacturing operations there; Raytheon Missile Systems; major customer-service call center operators Citi and OptumRx; and a number of smaller, tech-oriented companies.
With indirect and induced impacts such as 4,541 jobs supported by work at the Tech Park, the park had a total economic output of $1.7 billion in Pima County last year. That was up more than 13 percent from total output of $1.5 billion in 2015, the last year for which comparative figures were available, but it was still shy of the $2.3 billion counted in 2013 and output of $3 billion in 2008, at the onset of the Great Recession.
The report’s author is Vera Pavlakovich-Kochi, a longtime UA economist who now works as an independent consultant.
Other findings from the report:
- The Tech Park generated an additional 78 jobs in Pima County for every 100 direct jobs at tenant employers, while every dollar of the park’s output generated an additional 53 cents of economic activity elsewhere in the county.
- The count of 5,870 tech park employees last year was up more than 14 percent from 2015, compared with an increase of just 0.3 percent countywide.
- The park continues to be a center of higher-paying jobs, with the $74,028 average annual wage paid by tenants in 2017 handily topping the county average of $47,327. But that 2017 figure for park employees is down more than 10 percent from 2015.
- The Tech Park generated $51.5 million in state and local tax revenues in 2017, including $40 million in Pima County.
