Salt River Project has named longtime employee Jim Pratt as the company’s new general manager and CEO. Pratt will start his new job on May 5 to lead Arizona’s largest community-based, not-for-profit utility. Pratt succeeds CEO Mike Hummel, who is retiring. The Tempe-based company said that Pratt was selected from among a number of internal candidates.
Redmond, Washington-based tech giant Microsoft Corp. has agreed to switch its cooling system for future data centers in Goodyear and invest more than $40 million to expand the city’s wastewater capacity through an updated development agreement that the city that was approved last week.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport started off 2023 and the Valley’s tourism season with more passengers than it has seen in recent years. In January, Sky Harbor recorded a total of 3,851,648 passengers going through its terminals, which was a 28.1% increase from January 2022 and it is just slightly higher – 13,331 passengers – from January 2020, according to data released by the Phoenix Aviation Department. The 3.85 million count appears to be the most passengers ever in Sky Harbor in the month of January.
Gov. Katie Hobbs has made her stance on water clear as numerous bills related to water use and development are progressing through the Arizona Legislature this session. Water was one of the main talking points for Valley Partnership’s Q&A with the governor on Friday morning, where President and CEO Cheryl Lombard and Hobbs discussed her stances on priorities like transportation, education and development.
Amid a large investment in the Phoenix metro, EdgeCore Internet Real Estate has acquired nearly 15 acres of land in Mesa. The previous owner, California-based Meta Platforms Inc. (Nasdaq: META), the parent company of Facebook, sold the land to Denver-based EdgeCore for nearly $1.2 million, according to an affidavit of property value recorded in Maricopa County. The site has an address of 3856 S. Everton Terrace, near the intersection of Ellsworth and Elliot roads in Mesa, according to real estate database Vizzda.
Phoenix officials believe Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was the busiest airport in the entire world the day after Super Bowl LVII. While the airport, its airlines and the U.S. Department of Transportation have not done a full accounting of that day, an initial report issued Thursday showed that more than 200,000 people traveled through Sky Harbor on Feb. 13, the day following Super Bowl LVII, which was played in Glendale at State Farm Stadium. Even though the specific numbers aren’t in yet, city officials said that this will mark the busiest single day in Sky Harbor’s history.
The growth of electric vehicles in Arizona has created new opportunities for fuel retailers. No other industry has the locations, the amenities and the experience that drivers have come to expect when they make a pit stop on their journeys, and fuel retailers like Circle K are expanding services to include high-speed EV charging. This comes as a surprise to some people who assume traditional refueling stations view EV charging as a threat to our existence.
The Arizona Technology Council and SmartPower, two organizations long-committed to sustainability and clean energy innovation throughout Arizona and nationally, today announced a new partnership named Solarize at Work to help employees at Arizona’s leading technology companies go solar.
In November 2015, the five remaining state employees assigned to secure federal funds for energy efficiency on behalf of Arizonans were abruptly let go from their jobs and their roles were dissolved. It was another step in then-Gov. Doug Ducey’s process of dismantling what he saw as excess government. Over its 40-year history, the State Energy Program had secured hundreds of millions of federal dollars for energy-efficiency projects throughout Arizona, including $115 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and $715,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy in 2012, as reported by The Arizona Republic. But the Governor’s Office viewed the program as excessive and saw an opportunity to “cut down on the overhead.”
The Phoenix City Council on Wednesday voted unanimously to spend up to $230 million over the next five years to purchase low- and no-emission buses as part of the city’s plans to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. “We’re good on clean tech as a City Council,” Mayor Kate Gallego said after the vote. Phoenix has more than 500 buses that regularly travel 48 routes. While the current buses use alternative fuels that are considered cleaner than traditional gasoline, the City Council in December voted to transition to a zero-emission fleet by 2040.