New Phoenix economic chief sees land as city's key asset
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Ryan Touhill is settling into his new job as Phoenix's community and economic development director. Photo: Jeremy Duda/Axios
Phoenix's new community and economic development director is still settling into the job, but the thing that's jumped out to him so far is the city's abundance of land.
The big picture: Ryan Touhill, who came to Arizona from Arlington, Virginia, replaces Chris Mackay, who oversaw the semiconductor boom before leaving to head up the Greater Phoenix Economic Council.
State of play: Touhill has been on the job for about two weeks and he's still familiarizing himself with the lay of the economic land.
- He sat down with Axios last week to discuss his plans and hopes in Phoenix.
🗺️ Land: Coming from a densely populated area with little open space, Touhill said "the resource that we have that is most exciting as an economic developer is land."
- "We have the ability to build out sites for industrial, for commercial, for hospitality, for office. That's a currency," he said.
💻 Major industries: The land that grabbed Touhill's attention could be especially important as he seeks to build on Phoenix's burgeoning semiconductor industry.
- There are many sites near the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) complex in north Phoenix, which is a huge plus as the city seeks to attract related businesses and industries to the area.
- Touhill also noted that Phoenix has a major bioscience sector and a growing "aerospace cluster" in the Deer Valley area.
📈 Startups: One area where Touhill felt he had a lot of success in Arlington was working with local startups, and he wants to look at doing the same in Phoenix.
- They were able to connect larger businesses and institutions with startups, "and that helps not just the big companies continue to push the envelope on innovation, but it helps the smaller companies get a foothold and continue to grow," he said.
🎒Workforce development: Touhill said he wants to ensure that Phoenix is "producing the workforce pipeline for the future."
- He recently attended the graduation for the first eight people to go through a TSMC apprenticeship program, which he called "an example of things we need to continue to do here."
- Universities are critical to that as well, Touhill said.
🏢 Office conversions: A major part of Touhill's work in Virginia was redeveloping an old office space for new uses.
- The fundamentals are the same in Phoenix, he said. Those projects are difficult architecturally, but if the government has the right processes in place, "those projects tend to make sense because then you're putting older buildings into higher and better uses."