Tuesday, May 08, 2012

On Pegasus & Monuments

Most are familiar with Pegasus Global Holdings' proposal to build a $1 billion unoccupied city they call the Center for Innovation, Testing & Evaluation (CITE).  According to Todd Dickson's article in the Bulletin they are looking at locating this facility near either Las Cruces or Hobbs.

The "ghost town" would be modeled as a "medium-sized American city, including its urban, suburban, and rural areas" and serve as a testing facility for all kinds of "next-generation innovations and technologies." Pegasus says the project would provide 350 full-time jobs and up to 3200 "indirect" jobs during construction.

Now let's pretend you're the CEO of Pegasus charged with selecting a site for this project. Dickson reports you want the land and regulatory issues resolved so you can start construction by the end of June.

On the one hand, you 1,000 acres of state land near Hobbs, with the rest being located on private property.

On the other, you have 15,000 acres of state land near Las Cruces, with the rest being federal lands.  And oh yes, some of those lands are in the 600,000 acre National Monument being proposed by the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance and backed by the Mayor, County Commissioners, the Green Chamber of Commerce and others.  The monument would be created by Presidential Proclamation and nobody knows what language would be in the proclamation, how that language would affect your project, or if or when the President would act.

Now, Mr. or Mrs. CEO, which site would you pick?

1 comment:

Robert Rhodes said...

And they selected Hobbs