“Significant” was the word of the day Tuesday.

Maricopa Chief Strategy Officer Rick Horst uttered the word at least seven times when he described a series of economic development updates to Maricopa City Council during its Aug. 20 meeting.

Focusing on three future business park sites in the city — the much-discussed Industrial Triangle, University of Arizona’s area of innovation and Murphy Park — Horst said “the opportunities are quite significant” for both job creation and tax revenue.

Technical difficulties disrupted his presentation, so here’s a quick rundown of what residents can expect over the coming months.

Industrial Triangle

The biggest news of the night centered on the coming industrial park along Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway and White and Parker Road.

After Maricopan voters approved Proposition 482 three weeks ago, the city awarded the 680-acre property bid to Rail Industrial Partners and Redevco Solutions for more than $66.6 million.

“At the end of the day, they will have a class A business park … [which] will constitute 6 million square feet and will be rail-served, meaning rail will go right to their buildings,” Horst said. “Emphasis on class A, so it will be a nice-looking, high-scale development park.”

He estimated the business park would bring at least 18,000 jobs to the area over time, though it could reach as many as 36,000.

The total investment in the park is estimated to be around $1.4 billion, which Horst said amounted to “the value of every residential neighborhood we have in the entire city, and then some.”

UofA’s ‘area of innovation’ campus

University of Arizona’s vision of an “area of innovation” on 900 unused acres at the Maricopa Agricultural Center emerged earlier this year. The plans include a tech park, UofA satellite campus, student housing and some commercial development.

Horst implied talks stalled recently but he said he felt encouraged by the recent announcement of Suresh Garimella to take the reins as the university’s president.

“We hope that will revitalize our efforts with the Area of Innovation at the UofA property,” Horst said in anticipation of a meeting next month.

At the time, MAC Director Malcolm Green said the investment could bring as much as $95 billion to Pinal County when complete.

Murphy Park to include commercial

Last fall, the Maricopa Planning and Zoning Commission approved rezoning the master-planned community at Steen and Murphy Roads for more creative land use.

Phoenix-based developer CVL Consultants kept details scant at the time, but updated land-use plans show roughly half of the community may be reserved for business park development. Horst said the designs would “cater to some smaller properties as well as larger” ones, depending on interest and need.

So far, the developer has not indicated how many homes will be built in the area. A staff report from December stated it could be as many as 10 units per acre, which translates to roughly 1,870 homes.