ORO VALLEY
WESTWARD LOOK WYNDHAM GRAND RESORT AND SPA
HILTON EL CONQUISTADOR
Oro Valley at 50 Years From Bedrooms to Business
By Dave Perry
When Oro Valley was incorporated 50 years ago, it was envisioned as a bedroom community, cozy and low-key. The town had about 1,200 residents within 2½ square miles.
In 2024, it’s estimated more than 48,000 people reside on 36 square miles of scenic desert generally west of Oracle Road, north of Ina Road and east of I-10.
It is an evolving town that is clean, proud of its public safety, and populated by highly educated residents with disposable income. Winter visitors add to the economic pie. Oro Valley has the full menu of services and shopping. It has trails, bike paths and a new, $20 million investment in Naranja Park.
It takes care of its roads and is home to highperforming schools. There is public art everywhere, and views of the Catalinas out every door, all of which help make it a place to live, work and play.
Oro Valley is home to two industry-leading, home-grown companies. Roche Tissue Diagnostics employs more than 1,700 people dedicated to improving the lives of people afflicted with cancer. Simpleview’s 160 employees are part of a worldwide team serving 1,000 destination marketing organizations with digital solutions.
“There’s no place I’d rather be than here in Oro Valley,” says Simpleview CEO Ryan George, who grew up in the community, and is raising his family here.
George believes the Oro Valley story fits into a circle identified by Maura Gast, then the CEO of Visit Irving Texas.
“If you build a place where people want to visit, you’ll build a place where people want to live,” Gast once said. “If you build a place where people want to live, you’ll build a place where people want to work. If you build a place where people want to work, you’ll build a place where business wants to be. And, if you build a place where business wants to be, we’ll be back to building a place where people want to visit.”
“It all starts with the visit,” Gast said.
In Oro Valley, a visit can lead to so much more.
Oro Valley’s front door is long-tenured El Conquistador Tucson, A Hilton Resort. Each year, El Conquistador Tucson attracts thousands of guests to its 428-room property for meetings and conventions, weddings, celebrations and relaxation.
In 2021, Oro Valley went around the corner of the Catalinas to annex a second resort, the Southwest classic Westward Look Wyndham Grand Resort and Spa on Ina Road east of Oracle Road. Its 241 rooms bring the town’s total to 1,085 guest rooms.
The year 2023 was “record-setting” for the El Conquistador, general manager Shelby Francom said. That’s good for town government. El Conquistador Tucson generates on the order of $1.8 million a year in combined bed tax and sales tax revenues, helping to pay for roads, parks and prized public safety.
Retired Oro Valley Police Chief Danny Sharp put a community policing model in place that has been continued by his successor, Chief Kara Riley. In Oro Valley, you call a cop, you get a cop. The Town of Oro Valley commits onethird of its general fund to police because, officials say, a safe place attracts retirees and affluent residents. The median household income is $92,548. Those residents attract businesses of all sizes.
“We drive more economic development value in our community than Amazon ever will,” says Crispin Jeffrey-Franco, who opened Stacks Book Club with his wife Lizzy a year ago in Oro Valley Marketplace.
The Complete Package
Oro Valley Hospital and its related Northwest Healthcare system facilities employ 776 people in Oro Valley. The hospital’s 2023 payroll was $70.5 million.
“Having a hospital is really important, critical in fact, from an economic development
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BizMILESTONE
perspective,” said Brian Sinotte, market CEO for Northwest Healthcare. “New employers ask ‘How’s the healthcare, what’s it like?’ It’s excellent,” Sinotte asserts, buttressed by Oro Valley Hospital’s regional affiliations through Northwest Healthcare.
The senior living industry knows as much. It is a vital leg on Oro Valley’s economic stool. The town’s largest current building project is La Posada at Pusch Ridge, a $140 million state-ofthe-art senior living community rising east of First Avenue above the Cañada del Oro Wash. It’s due to open in spring 2025.
“We couldn’t find a more beautiful spot in the world to maximize the well-being of seniors,” La Posada President and CEO Joni Condit said at its groundbreaking.
And then there’s the beauty of the region. It has helped attract snowbirds and seniors who live their best lives at Splendido at Rancho Vistoso, Fairwinds Desert Point, All Seasons Oro Valley, The Watermark at Oro Valley, and a number of other properties.
Paul Melcher, Oro Valley community and economic development director, and Margie Adler, the town’s economic development specialist, point to an educated workforce, many of whom commute to the University of Arizona and Raytheon.
The town also has “great school choice for families,” said Adler. Among Oro Valley’s top-performing faith-based and charter schools, BASIS Oro Valley
is a nationally regarded high school. Six of eight Amphitheater Public Schools in Oro Valley earned “A” grades as “excelling” schools in 2023, Superintendent Todd Jaeger reports. Pima Community College’s Northwest Campus, just south of the community, is designated as Pima’s Center for Excellence in STEM – science, technology, engineering and math. The emphasis on education bodes well for Oro Valley employers who have demand for people with those skills.
Retail has thrived from Oro Valley’s southern terminus at Ina and Oracle. At less-dense Oracle and Tangerine, Oro Valley Marketplace has struggled to keep large retailers, but change is afoot. Two hotels and two major apartment communities have been approved by the town council. Ground is being broken on a four-story Hampton Inn & Suites this summer.
“This center is hopefully coming of age,” said Jim Horvath, chairman and founder of Town West Companies which owns Oro Valley Marketplace. “We’re bringing it to life.”
Within Oro Valley’s southern edge resides a gem, Tohono Chul, ranked as one of the world’s 10 best botanical gardens by Travel + Leisure Magazine. Since 2023, Children’s Museum Oro Valley has resided at Tohono Chul. Both have thrived, together; other gardens and museums seek to emulate the model.
At Oro Valley’s northern end, the Western National Parks Association serves parks and monuments across the West with books, puzzles and other ma-
terials as well as educational programming. Its National Parks Store is wondrously unique to greater Tucson.
In between Tohono Chul and the National Parks Store, the University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine occupies two buildings in the Foothills Business Park.
It is a paradigm-changing institution and economic driver. Dean Julie Funk reports the vet school is a $23 million annual enterprise with more than 140 faculty and staff serving 330 students who are educated year-round for three intensive years. The vet school had more than 2,500 applicants for its most recent class of 110.
Changing Perception
Melcher draws a distinction between Oro Valley’s public review and permitting processes.
“Navigating the entitlements process can sometimes lead to frustration,” he acknowledges. Oro Valley prides itself in giving voice to its citizens. But that can slow things down.
Once entitlements are in hand, “we’re customer-service-focused,”Melcher said. “We get you through the system.”
“The perception was ‘It’s going to be hard,’ ” said Hector Martinez, who opened The Hoppy Vine with his wife Marnel. “That was definitely not our experience. The Town was extremely helpful every step of the way.”
Martinez summed it up: “I would not hesitate to tell people ‘Yeah, Oro Valley is a great spot to open.’ ”
Biz
Kristen Sharp President & CEO
Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce
PHOTO: JD FITZGERALD
Tested by Fire Oro Valley Chamber Perseveres After
Office is Destroyed
By Dave Perry
The Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce can say it has been tested by fire since last year.
In March 2023, the Chamber’s office at 7435 N. Oracle Road caught fire. Most of the contents were lost, and the space was rendered unoccupiable.
Kristen Sharp, who became Chamber president and CEO in November 2022, led her staff in working remotely while trying to figure out an office solution. With the blessing of the Chamber board, she found a new space within Oro Valley’s Innovation Park. For the first time in its 30-plus year history, the Oro Valley Chamber now owns office space, with a conference room and flexible use area, at 1822 E. Innovation Park Drive.
“The most difficult part after the fire was navigating the immediate chaos and uncertainty,” Sharp said. “At the same time, it allowed us to reassess our priorities and focus on what’s important − our members and community. Ultimately, it led us to a new location that better suits our needs and future growth.”
With that new office settled, Sharp and her team are fully focused on serving members and community alike.
“Our reason for existing is to support business,” Sharp said. The Chamber does that with promotions, continuing education, networking, and major events, as well as 1-on-1 “connections to help members grow their businesses. We’re the voice of the business community, and advocates for the best interests of business.”
Sharp believes each chamber in the Tucson region “has strengths in different areas.”
“We focus on the greater Oro Valley community,” Sharp said. “Our strengths lie in our relationships with our members, and with government and community organizations. We are leveraging those relationships for the best interests of the business community.”
The Chamber and the Town of Oro Valley are in the midst of their “50 Businesses for 50 Years” promotion, a year-long marketing effort to highlight 50 Oro Valley businesses in honor of the town’s 50th anniversary.
This and other Chamber promotions such as its “Locals Eat Local” summertime restaurant promotion, and its holiday gift guide, are intended “to promote shopping local,” Sharp said.
“It’s not just small business, it’s all local businesses,” she continued. “When you shop local, your dollars stay in the community.”
Chamber dollars stay in the community, too. As part of Locals Eat Local, the Chamber buys $50 gift cards at local restaurants and gives them away. In turn, those restaurants and small businesses “support the people who are living here” while giving back, Sharp said. As two examples, Chamber members Freytag Orthodontics focuses its giving on Oro Valley schools, and Fork + Fire Smokehouse and Taproom recently provided lunch to two shifts of nurses at Oro Valley Hospital.
“The Chamber has always done a great job working for its members,” said Josh Bishop, owner of Fork + Fire.
“Being involved with the Chamber is really important,” said State Farm Insurance agent Wendy Wise. “The Chamber has been great” in helping businesses feel “comfortable and welcomed in Oro Valley.” And it plays “a key role as a liaison with the town,” Wise said.
The Chamber works directly to grow business in the community. In May, it committed $10,000 to support CellMedics Inc., winner of a sponsored launch competition for occupancy at the University of Arizona Center for Innovation at Oro Valley.
CellMedics, currently based in Las Vegas, is moving to Oro Valley with a product it wants to commercialize − a patented, topical and transdermal drug delivery platform for hard-to-deliver molecules.
As part of the sponsored launch, CellMedics principals get to work with UACI staff, mentors and subjectmatter experts “to really focus on the business side,” said Casey Carrillo, director of strategic partnerships for UACI. The company also receives a year’s use of office and laboratory space, courtesy of the Chamber, as well as Chamber membership for a year.
Sharp’s favorite part of the job “is when somebody is helped by the Chamber, or by something the Chamber did,” she said. “That’s when I say ‘Yes, that’s why we do what we do.’ ”
She considers the Oro Valley Chamber to be relational in its dealings, with a “family feel.” Sharp and her husband Danny Sharp Jr., are raising their two children in Oro Valley. Other members of the Chamber staff live in or near Oro Valley.
“Our staff truly cares about our members and the Oro Valley community,” Sharp said. “We want it to be successful and vibrant, and we want our children to stick around.”
New Life for the ‘Marketplace’ Town West Investing in the Business Center
By Dave Perry
Reimagination of Oro Valley Marketplace is moving from concept to construction, with the first building activity in nearly 15 years about to begin.
“This center is hopefully coming of age,” said Jim Horvath, chairman and founder of Marketplace owner Town West Companies. “We’re bringing it to life.”
After years of negotiation and public review, Town West has secured permission to build as many as 560 apartments, two hotels, and up to 200,000 square feet of additional retail space at the Marketplace at North Oracle Road and Tangerine Road.
The first to rise will be a hotel, the fourstory Hampton Inn and Suites on land near Oracle Road close to the former Red Lobster restaurant. It is being built and managed by HSL Properties and its subsidiaries. Permits are in final review. Construction may begin in August; work should take about a year.
Soon after, Town West and its partners expect to start on two apartment communities with 472 total units. Both are slated for already-scraped ground, one property south of Tangerine Road across from Oro Valley Hospital, another west of Oracle and north of the former Red Lobster and Chase Bank buildings.
Horvath believes construction of the twoand three-story garden-style apartments can begin in December. It’ll take two years to be “fully done.”
Later, Town West is going to create a central park and events space. “We’re excited about getting that all done,” Horvath said. And, along with the investment, Town West
plans “a whole new rebranding of the center,” from Oro Valley Marketplace to Oro Valley Village Center.
The 114-acre Marketplace, with 800,000 square feet of retail space, has languished for years. While Walmart Supercenter remains its busy anchor, big-box retailers Best Buy and Dick’s Sporting Goods have closed. Horvath is pleased to see smaller retail and professional businesses come in. But the Marketplace, approved in 2006 and built from 2007 through 2010 at the height of recession has needed new concepts and energy.
“It has been on the town council’s radar for quite a while,” Horvath said. “They’ve been trying to reposition that property and work with the owner to bring it back to life. They’ve worked with us. It’s been hard. We’ve had to go through COVID, and that slowed things down.”
While Horvath recognizes there is an anti-growth segment to the town, he said he appreciates decision-makers who have “overcome that for this particular property and feel this is an area where development should occur.”
“Development, as well as housing, commercial and hotels, should thrive (at the center). That’s good for the town, good for the revenue of the town, good for us, and good for everybody.”
There are few retail centers in greater Tucson that rival the Marketplace for size, access to major roads, scenery, and proximity to employment. It “should be a central entertainment and lifestyle center for all of Oro Valley,” Horvath said. “It could be a
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really booming area, and it really needs the housing.”
“When you have 1,200 to 1,500 people living on site,” their daily lives bring “activity and excitement,” Horvath said. “They’re dining, shopping for groceries, going to the movie theater, buying furniture, exercising. It’s all within walking distance. It’s really a great amenity for the apartment dwellers, and vice versa, it’s great to have that activity for the retail.”
Prospective tenants are expressing “a lot of interest,” Horvath said. “We’re really thrilled about the demand for retail space.”
Dollar Tree has newly opened within an idle big-box space on the Marketplace’s east side. Surf-Thru Express Car Wash is going to build on 1½ acres close to In-N-Out near the Marketplace’s southern edge.
“Generally speaking, everyone’s doing well in Oro Valley,” Horvath said. “Our retailers are doing well.” But, he emphasizes, “there has to be enough demand. The population base and the
density have to catch up.”
Town West is “thrilled we’ve gotten it to this point, and we’re very excited about the future of this property, of Oro Valley in general, and the community out there, in every way,” Horvath said. “We really want to make a difference in the community, and have a positive in-
“This center is hopefully coming of age.”
–
Jim Horvath Chairman
Town West Companies
fluence, as we have always tried to do.”
Current tenants are excited
Hotels and apartments at the Marketplace are “going to really grow the whole community,” said Hector Martinez, who owns The Hoppy Vine with his wife Marnel. When they considered where to open their beer and wine busi-
ness, they looked at the Marketplace, and thought “let’s get into the ground floor, literally.”
On first look, the Marketplace “hadn’t seemed like a very exciting place to be,” said Crispin Jeffrey-Franco, who owns and operates Stacks Book Club with his wife Lizzy. But, when the couple learned of the impending reinvention of the Marketplace, “we liked the idea of being able to get in and grow our business along with the Marketplace’s growth.”
Jeffrey-Franco can draw “a direct line between traffic and revenue.” The more vehicles, the “more opportunity to convert those cars into paying customers.”
Hotel guests “are coming and looking and buying somewhere,” said longtime tenant Wendy Wise of Wendy Wise State Farm. “They are our future customers.”
When Josh Bishop left the relative security of managing The Keg to open Fork + Fire Smokehouse and Taproom, “I didn’t take that risk merely to survive,” he said. “I think this can come to fruition. It’s a leap of faith. I think the town of Oro Valley can do it.”
Roche Anchors Business in Oro Valley
Largest Employer Expanding its Footprint
By Dave Perry
Any conversation about business in Oro Valley must begin with Roche Tissue Diagnostics, according to town community and economic development director Paul Melcher.
Roche is Oro Valley’s largest employer with approximately 1,700 people working on its expansive – and expanding – 118-acre Innovation Park campus. Close to 200 more work at Roche’s newer facilities near I-10 in Marana. It is Greater Tucson’s largest bioscience company.
RTD is the acknowledged U.S. and world leader in cancer tissue diagnostics. Its instruments and companion diagnostic tests can be found in most reference laboratories and major hospital labs across the country. Technology, tools and tests imagined and created in Oro Valley and Marana affect the lives of millions of people across the planet each year. In fact, if you have ever had a biopsy, there is a high probability your results were determined using an instrument and test built by RTD.
The company’s global impact is not a secret, yet it’s little known in much of Tucson.
“When I encounter people in Tucson, they don’t really realize that the world’s number one cancer tissue diagnostic company is right here in their own backyard, full of scientists and manufacturing,” RTD head Jill German said in 2022, when Roche cut the ribbon on its innovative Forum space in Oro Valley. “There are all kinds of folks here contributing to the betterment of people with cancer.”
RTD’s origins in Southern Arizona date to the mid-1980s, when Dr. Thomas Grogan, a University of Arizona pathologist, started Ventana Medical Sys-
tems, Inc. His original idea to automate cancer testing grew exponentially when Roche acquired Ventana in 2008.
“Today, our Oro Valley site is now the global headquarters for the Roche Tissue Diagnostics business, which impacts the lives of over 38 million patients worldwide each year,” German said.
Roche Tissue Diagnostics has a clear mission – “to improve the lives of all patients afflicted with cancer.” In Oro Valley, more than 300 research and development staff are doing precisely that. They create “innovative pathology lab instruments, tissue-based clinical assays (tests), and software solutions that empower anatomical pathologists worldwide.”
Laboratory instruments are assembled in RTD’s Marana manufacturing building, which opened in late 2022. Upwards of 1,500 instruments are built by 170 employees each year.
Those instruments require test kits, composed of “reagents” that react with suspect tissue to identify potential cancers. The company produces 250 different tests for specific, cancer-related biomarkers. Literally millions of test kits are produced annually by more than 300 manufacturing employees on the Oro Valley campus.
In December, Roche expanded its Oro Valley footprint by purchasing the idled, 112,500-square-foot Sanofi/Icagen research and development facility next to the RTD campus.
Subcontractors are now on site, improving the facility to make it “more sustainable and fit to purpose,” the company said. Roche expects to move in during the fourth quarter of 2024.
The space is intended to help RTD “support the growth of the pathology
business,” German said. “While RTD won’t be immediately adding jobs” with the expansion, it does plan to locate teams there that are working to bring “high medical value solutions to patients by identifying personalized health care solutions.”
Roche also cares about the environment. In 2022, the company constructed a 9,000-square-foot central utility plant on its Oro Valley campus, providing low-impact cooling to all buildings. That investment, along with other environmental practices, landed Roche (globally) in the 2023 Dow Jones Top Three sustainability index.
RTD focuses on “innovations that will transform the practice of medicine,” the company said. Its instruments and tests can give pathologists an important answer: Does my patient have cancer?
When a positive cancer diagnosis is confirmed, RTD’s companion diagnostic tests can provide further information about specific cancers, and oncologists “can get a more targeted therapy prepared for their patients.” RTD works with more than 30 other pharmaceutical companies to develop new tests that pair with their targeted cancer therapies, intended “to get the right treatment for patients.”
Other specialized staining kits produced by RTD are used to identify bacteria and microorganisms that can lead to diseases like tuberculosis, leprosy, Barrett’s esophagus, amyloidosis, vascular diseases and more.
In a community where the sun and seniors are prevalent, having a company like Roche taking the fight to cancer right in Oro Valley seems like a perfect match.
Expanding Employers for the Community
By Dave Perry
Oro Valley’s largest employers –Roche Tissue Diagnostics, Simpleview, and Oro Valley Hospital – create several thousand jobs in the community.
Beyond those big companies, Paul Melcher, the town’s community and economic development director since January 2021, has learned there are “a lot more primary employers than we imagined” in Oro Valley.
Among them:
Parker Meggitt
Known locally as Securaplane, Parker Meggitt employs 130 people at its facility in the town’s aptly named center of industry, Innovation Park. Parker Meggitt is a leading supplier of airplane cameras, aircraft batteries, wireless aircraft systems, aircraft security systems, and lithium battery solutions installed in various aircraft manufactured by the world’s leading aircraft companies.
Miles Label Company
Miles Label Company uses highquality technology and production equipment to print everything from stickers on tomatoes to labels on health and beauty products.
Electronic Design and Development
Oro Valley is home to Electronic Design and Development, or ED2, which is “innovating the 5G market with our repeater and unique antenna technology.”
Sigma Technologies
PolyCharge, created by Sigma Technologies in Oro Valley, has been recognized as a Solutions Provider by the publication Semiconductor Review for its development of capacitor products for use in electric drive vehicles, renewable energy inverters, medical, aerospace, and industrial mobility applications.
Other companies are working to create products to meet market demands.
At the University of Arizona Center for Innovation at Oro Valley, the UArizona’s bioscience incubator, startup businesses like Reparvi, Pioneer Neurotech and Macula Vision Systems are being supported in their efforts to achieve marketable, job-creating products. In the fiscal year that begins July 1, the Town of Oro Valley has proposed to commit $30,000 toward UACI Oro Valley operations.
“We focus on economic development,” said Casey Carrillo, director of strategic partnerships for UACI, with the goal of “being able to have an impact for the Town of Oro Valley, and helping to provide guidance, innovation, and companies that want to thrive in Oro Valley.”
“Let’s grow them, let’s get the next Roche to develop here,” Melcher said.
University of Arizona College of Veterinary Medicine
Meggitt Securaplane
Oro Valley Hospital
Ryan George Co-founder & CEO
Simpleview
Home Sweet Home
Simpleview Thrives from Oro Valley Location
By Dave Perry
With 1,000 clients around the world using its unique tools, Oro Valley-based Simpleview considers itself the world leader in providing integrated technology solutions to destination marketing organizations.
“Undisputed,” CEO Ryan George says. He doesn’t think he’s bragging. George makes that claim because his company’s technology has helped revolutionize an industry for two decades. Simpleview’s 425 employees, 160 of whom live in greater Tucson, take exceptional care of clients from Malaysia to Panama, and beyond.
This global business – think Visit Tucson as a prototypical customer − could be anywhere. George has been to most of those places.
“I flew 275,000 miles last year,” he said from his Oracle Road office where Pusch Ridge is so close you could almost touch it. “Every place has its good qualities and its drawbacks.”
He is quick to say, “There’s no place I’d rather be than here in Oro Valley.”
OV Roots Span Generations
Ryan George grew up near Hardy Road in Oro Valley, when there was “nothing north of the CDO wash. It was the boondocks out here back then.”
His father, the late Michael George, was in Canyon del Oro High School’s first graduating class, in 1968. Ryan graduated from CDO in 1993. He and his wife, Kim Evans, are raising their three children in Oro Valley. Two are students at CDO, and a third attends Cross Middle School.
Oro Valley was “a phenomenal place to grow up, a great place to start and have a career, and an awesome place to raise our family,” he said. “It’s close to our roots, it’s close to our families.” And its proximity to the University of Ari-
zona, Tucson, and the great outdoors make Oro Valley “a good place for the business,” George adds.
“People have a perception of Tucson and Oro Valley that doesn’t match what they experience once they’re here. We have a place where people can live, work and play.”
‘Reeling’ from COVID
“The pandemic sent everybody reeling,” George said. COVID-19’s impact was a double whammy for Simpleview, which is fundamentally a travel and technology company.
Travel halted. Employees worked at home. Forced remote and subsequent hybrid work made the world “one big, competitive landscape” for talent, George said.
Today, “travel’s boomed back,” George said. Simpleview employees are back, too, returning vibrancy to the copper-accented building originally constructed for Pulte Homes.
Post-pandemic, employees who live within 30 miles of one of its two offices – Simpleview’s other office is in Liverpool, England – are required to be in the office at least three days a week. In Oro Valley, many choose office hours on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
This moment feels “normal,” George thinks, preferable to those reactionary days of the pandemic.
“We’ve made our way through it, and we’re stronger than ever before,” George said. “We’re back to putting one foot in front of the other, the way we always have.”
A Showplace for Southern Arizona
“As often as we can,” Simpleview loves to bring its remote workers and clients to Tucson and Oro Valley, George said.
Clients are “just in awe” at what they see and experience, he said. It’s greener than what they expect, and the mountains are breathtaking. “It’s an alien landscape to most people,” he said. And the dining is world-class.
Client meetings are held in a thirdfloor conference room dubbed Mountain View because Pusch Ridge fills a wall of windows. “We make sure the blinds are up” and guests sit on the tableside facing majesty.
They leave with “a little more energy, a little more excitement,” and the sense that Simpleview excels in part because Tucson and Oro Valley are destinations, too.
Working with the Town
“We had heard” Oro Valley was difficult to work with, George said, recalling when Simpleview set about remodeling its building.
“It was the opposite,” he said. “It was extremely easy to get the approvals we needed.”
George believes town government and the Oro Valley Chamber “work hard to promote business.”
While “nobody” in any community wants more traffic and bigger buildings, George believes communities “always need critical mass, and infrastructure,” to include housing. Assets such as roads and public safety cost money, which comes from economic activity. In turn, economic activity creates quality of life, and attracts families.
He’s hoping those families lead to more generations of CDO graduates who in turn can create businesses in the community he loves.
Small Businesses Thriving Affluent Customers Add Up to Good Business
Small business owners say business is good for them in Oro Valley.
“We are at various times of the day bursting at the seams, which is a good problem to have,” said Crispin JeffreyFranco, who opened Stacks Book Club with his wife, Lizzy, in Oro Valley Marketplace a year ago.
Marketplace entrepreneurs appreciate access to a relatively affluent community with disposable income.
“I love the demographic,” said Sangha Yoga’s Nicole Esposito. She enjoys helping “the young at heart” work on balance and strength. After Esposito closed a Tucson yoga studio during the
By Dave Perry
pandemic, she thought Oro Valley “felt right. And the view is awesome.”
“Our concept has been well-received,” said The Hoppy Vine’s Hector Martinez, who opened a wine and beer business in the Marketplace with his wife, Marnel. “People tell us ‘This community needed something like that.’ ”
And, Martinez notes, The Hoppy Vine needs “that economic base to have the buying power.” In Oro Valley, he said, “People have spendable money.”
Good coffee and new books are “a luxury item for many people,” JeffreyFranco agreed. “We needed to be in a place where a more affluent customer
base was available. Oro Valley fit that requirement.”
Broadly, small businesspeople perceive town government and the Oro Valley Chamber to be helpful.
“My experience has been very positive doing business in Oro Valley,” said Fork & Fire Smokehouse + Taproom’s Josh Bishop.
“We’ve had zero friction” with the town “in any capacity on this project,” Stacks’ Jeffrey-Franco said.
“You will hear a lot of naysayers,” said Wendy Wise of Wendy Wise State Farm. “The town was very helpful to me.” She urges businesspeople to “go
The Oro Valley Chamber of Commerce staff from left – Leah Noreng, Operations Director; Leah Bahan, Business Development Director; Kristen Sharp, President and CEO; Joni Bates, Member Engagement Director; Makenna Markley, Events and Communications Director
“My experience has been very positive doing business in Oro Valley.”
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Josh Bishop, Co-Owner, Fork & Fire Smokehouse + Taproom
forth,” and “not let those type of people drive you backwards.”
Participation with the Oro Valley Chamber “is really important,” Wise continued. It has been “great” in helping businesses feel “comfortable and welcomed in Oro Valley.” And it plays “a key role ... as a liaison with the town.”
“The Chamber has always done a great job working for its members,” Bishop said.
“The support small businesses provide to each other is exceptional, and in the Marketplace especially,” JeffreyFranco said.
Employers ‘lucky’ with staff
Small businesses in Oro Valley have had success finding and keeping employees, despite housing costs. Employment – hiring and keeping employees − has been a difficult issue for employers since the COVID pandemic.
“We have a great team member who drives 45 minutes each way,” Wise said. Oro Valley home prices and rents are “really hard for some people.”
“Folks who are renting do not live in Oro Valley,” Jeffrey-Franco said. With tips, his book tenders earn from $19 to $23 an hour, “and still find it basically impossible to rent in Oro Valley.”
“You have to pay for people if you want to have quality people wherever you’re at,” Fork & Fire’s Bishop said. Commuting employees “certainly have options” before they reach the Marketplace. “They’re not going to take a minimum wage position. They can get that closer to home.”
How to reach the consumer
Sage Harmon manages a new business, 3 Degrees Infrared Sauna Studio.
“We’re doing pretty good for being open three months,” Harmon said. “I’ve noticed word-of-mouth here is very important.”
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Crispin Jeffrey-Franco Stacks Book Club
Josh Bishop Fork & Fire Smokehouse + Taproom
PHOTOS:
Wendy Wise
Wendy Wise State Farm
from page 139
Visibility confronts Sangha Yoga, 3 Degrees and Wendy Wise State Farm. “After 13 years, I still have people who walk in and say, ‘Did you just move here?’ ” Wise said.
“We have to learn to market towards our demographic,” Sangha Yoga’s Esposito said. “More mailing. Not a lot of social media.”
The Hoppy Vine is also “trying to find that fine line of email, and social media,” Martinez said.
Despite marketing and visibility concerns, Sangha Yoga is seeing “a lot of traffic, a lot of new people” enter the business, Esposito said. “Our job is to retain them.”
“You have to have a quality product” wrapped in “exceptional service,” to succeed, Stacks’ Jeffrey-Franco said. “If we’re not building a relationship,” people won’t return.
Stacks puts on a number of evening events. One of its biggest challenges is “teaching people there’s places to go in Oro Valley after 6 p.m.,” Jeffrey-Franco said. “Even though the sun’s down, there’s stuff to do.”
“You have to have caring hearts about the customer,” State Farm’s Wise said. Her staff sits 1-on-1 with customers to “look at what they need, what they’re protecting.” In Oro Valley, “there are lot of people who have a lot to protect.”
Bishop believes there is a growing opportunity to market to year-round residents, rather than rely upon winter visitors and snowbirds.
“Younger families don’t live in this town because they’re scraping by,” Bishop said. “If you don’t market to them, you don’t see them. It becomes self-perpetuating.”
The rising OV brand
Esposito believes Oro Valley is “up-and-coming and cool.” Others agree.
“Oro Valley as a brand has grown tremendously,” Martinez believes. “It’s not an afterthought. We’re not Tucson. We’re Oro Valley. We say ‘We’re where Oro Valley drinks.’ We tell our staff, every day, we get to make someone’s night.”
After years of give-and-take, the town of Oro Valley and Marketplace owner Town West Companies have agreed on a redevelopment plan that is bringing hotels, apartments and a central recreation district to the property at Oracle Road and Tangerine Road.
“We’re stoked,” Jeffrey-Franco said. “From a business perspective, you can draw a direct line from traffic to revenue.”
“It’s going to really grow the whole community,” Esposito said.
On a recent Saturday, she saw people walking their dogs, getting coffee, picking up groceries, cycling on the nearby Loop. Activity creates a “sense of community, and what the future of the Marketplace looks like,” Wise said.
“I think this can come to fruition,” Bishop said. He is “really optimistic” as he enters a third year at Fork & Fire.
“Everyone should live here,” he continued, noting he and wife, Aleina, raised their two children in a community with good schools and exceptional public safety.
“It’s amazing. If you can handle Arizona, I truly don’t think there could be a better place.”
Hector Martinez
The Hoppy Vine
PHOTOS: BRENT
G. MATHIS
Winfield
Mayor
Oro Valley
Changing Perception Face-to-Face Strategy Designed to Be Welcoming
By Dave Perry
Most Mondays, Oro Valley Mayor Joe Winfield goes face-to-face with Oro Valley retailers and business leaders, learning “about their challenges, and their successes, and how we can better serve the businesses in our community.”
He’s typically accompanied by Margie Adler, the town’s economic development specialist, and Leah Bahan, the Oro Valley Chamber’s business development director.
The visits try to communicate to businesses “we are interested in them, we care about them, and they’re an important part of our community,” Winfield said.
When the mayor walks in, or a prospect learns of the one-on-one visits, “that blows them away,” said Adler. She’s nine years into her position and serves as a liaison between the town and its 688 storefronts. “Ask me, and I’ll help you,” she said.
“Our goal is to respond to any issues they have in three days,” Adler’s boss, community and economic development director Paul Melcher, said. “The town’s not just going out to shake a hand. Margie’s out there to solve problems” and “find some common solutions.’ ” The Town offers promotional, informational and development assistance services to businesses. It conducts an annual business survey. It has an online directory, continued on page 144 >>>
Joe
BizMILESTONE
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The Business Navigator, and a website ChooseOroValley.com that helps site selectors and others learn about available properties, key industries, demographics, quality of life, workforce, and “what we do to help people,” Melcher said.
“We help them from the day we hear from them,” Melcher said. “We want to have that relationship because we’re invested in your success.”
Melcher knows there are challenges to meet, and perceptions to overcome. The Town has “a special strategy to defuse” the perception Oro Valley is hard to deal with, he said. “We love hearing the stories of the Paul Tees of the world.”
Tees is chief credit officer at Southwest Heritage Bank, formerly Commerce Bank of Arizona, which remodeled a space at Oracle Road and Ina Road for its southern Arizona headquarters.
“He said, ‘We heard you were so difficult,’ ” Melcher recalled. Not so. “It was an amazing experience,” he said Tees told him.
Marketing, outreach, signage and hot summers “are always going to be a challenge,” Melcher knows. Businesses must understand “the changing dynamics of consumer habits,” as well as modernday pressures on brick-and-mortar lo-
“Businesses want to be here, and we welcome them.”
– Joe Winfield
Mayor Oro Valley
cations. Oro Valley has put in rules for “adaptive re-use” of vacant retail spaces for “second and third generation uses,” he said. “We’re starting to finally see that rebound.” The Van Gogh Experience continues to thrive in a former retail space at Oro Valley Marketplace. Sherwin Williams now occupies a onetime Pizza Hut.
Crispin Jeffrey-Franco, who operates Stacks Book Club with his wife Lizzy, understands the “particular challenge” faced by town government and its leaders over a no-growth segment of the community.
“How does Oro Valley continue to grow in a way that businesses like ours can be successful, but in a way that is inclusive and brings the community with it, and we’re not fighting with residents, especially longtime residents, for that growth?” Jeffrey-Franco asks.
Jeffrey-Franco feels supported by citizens, customers and government alike. He believes that if local businesses can become “more ingratiated” with residents, those people will come on board in “an environment that’s more hospitable to businesses.”
Winfield believes the heart of Oro Valley’s business backing is “focusing on what communities do best,” namely providing public safety, good roads, water, parks and amenities.
“Generally speaking, our businesses are doing well,” the mayor said. “Businesses want to be here, and we welcome them.” Biz
