Contents

Welcome 6

About the Tempe Chamber 8

Tempe Chamber Foundation 10

Culdesac: A Cool Place in the Desert 12

Tempe Town Lake: 25 Years Later 16

Salt River Project:
A Trusted Leader in the Valley 20

Four Peaks Brewing:
Sustainability is Always on Tap 24

SRP: Balancing Decarbonization with
Providing Power 28

Tempe Style 30

East Valley Business

Volume 1 | Issue 2 | 2024

1438 W Broadway Road, #213

Tempe, AZ 85283

480-967-7891 | tempechamber.org

Contributing Writer | Matthew Beardmore

Photos courtesy of SRP, Tempe Tourism

Welcome

Water is indispensable to businesses in Arizona, playing a critical role across various sectors. This emphasizes the need for businesses to adopt sustainable practices, including water recycling and efficient irrigation methods, to mitigate the impact on local ecosystems. Additionally, the state’s growing population further intensifies the demand for water, emphasizing the connection between water availability and economic development. As you will see in this issue, industries such as manufacturing rely on water for production processes, cooling and sanitation, driving economic growth and employment opportunities. Additionally, the tourism sector, a significant contributor to Arizona’s economy, depends on water for recreational activities, hospitality services and maintaining natural attractions like Tempe Town Lake. However, water scarcity and management challenges in Arizona have provoked our businesses to adopt sustainable practices, including water conservation, recycling and efficient technologies, to ensure long-term viability and growing demand. As businesses recognize the importance of water stewardship, they contribute not only to their own resilience but also to the overall sustainability and prosperity of Arizona’s economy.

Onward & upward,

Colin Diaz, ACE, IOM
President & CEO | Tempe Chamber of Commerce

About the
Tempe Chamber

Since 1908, the Tempe Chamber of Commerce has built an environment that enhances the economic vitality of our membership and the business community. We provide the tools, resources and education needed for businesses to achieve success at every level of their enterprises. We foster a strong local economy that positively impacts the community, including job creation, increased business opportunities, and improved quality of life for residents.

Our strength is derived from our members. Membership in the Tempe Chamber is an investment in the future of our business community. Those who invest in the community through membership support initiatives in education and workforce development, public policy, and business development. Together, we provide a unified voice for business and support a stronger economy and an improved quality of life. We are dedicated to helping businesses achieve their goals through many avenues including advocacy, connection, and development.

ADVOCACY AND LEGISLATIVE LOBBYING

The Tempe Chamber is the city’s recognized voice of business. We make a bottom-line impact for the community by advocating for a favorable business climate through interactive public policy engagement and providing ongoing representation in government at local, state and federal levels. It is important that we take positions on legislation affecting the business environment so that policy can encourage economic growth, not hinder it.

CONNECTION

Through more than 65 annual events and programs attended by more than 8,000 business professionals, the Tempe Chamber provides a place for you to connect with other business leaders and the community. We facilitate network development among our members through business education, mentorship, committees, mixers and conferences. Our programs and events build relationships and develop leadership skills, for many while also serving the greater community. By creating active and engaged leaders, we ensure that Tempe has a bright future.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

The chamber offers business education and development programs to enhance the skills and knowledge of our members. These programs cover a wide range of topics relevant to business success, including marketing, leadership, human resources and business operations.

By providing these services and resources, the Tempe Chamber of Commerce plays a vital role in promoting economic growth, entrepreneurship, and the overall health of the business community. As we continue to represent and promote our membership and the community, the Tempe Chamber invites you to share our excitement in celebrating our long business heritage and promising future.

Tempe Chamber
Foundation

The Tempe Chamber Foundation carries out the charitable and education objectives of the Tempe Chamber that positively impact Tempe’s quality of life. Tempe Leadership is a program of the Tempe Chamber Foundation, and more than 850 dedicated individuals have participated since its inception in 1985. Tempe Leadership also offers the Tempe Youth Leadership program and Tempe Cares.

In addition, the Career Ready Tempe youth workforce initiative in partnership with the City of Tempe aims to help prepare and develop Tempe youth to participate in the future workforce by connecting youth to college and career readiness support and partnering with Tempe employers to provide paid internship opportunities in fields that are in-demand.

The Tempe Chamber Foundation supports the workforce development and D.E.I. initiatives of the Chamber and raises funding to address timely needs of our business and collective community.  Among those focal areas are our recently established BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) Micro-Manufacturing Grant – in partnership with the City of Tempe and Congressman Greg Stanton’s Office, our Minority Women in Business Supportive Grant – in partnership with Wells Fargo, the Tempe Workforce Skills Accelerator - in partnership with Rio Salado College and Amazon, and Career Ready Tempe - in partnership with the City of Tempe, Tempe Union, and Kyrene School Districts.

Support of the Tempe Chamber Foundation is aligning with our commitment to ensure economic vitality, a strong workforce pipeline, and installing and sustaining the elements to keep Tempe a great place to live, play, and do business.

We are excited by the work that lies ahead and the huge impact that our foundation will play in it and invite you to join us in these efforts.

Onward & Upward,

Colin Diaz, ACE, IOM
President & CEO | Tempe Chamber of Commerce & Tempe Chamber Foundation

A COOL PLACE IN THE DESERT
Culdesac

Imagine a community where none of the residents have a car and where biking, walking and transit access are prioritized. Where more than half the neighborhood is open space and where “varied regional and climate-appropriate landscape” not only help embrace the community’s “home on the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert,” but also help create a sense of community for residents.

As “the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch in the U.S.,” Culdesac Tempe truly is “a community unlike any other.”

Created in 2018 by Arizona natives Ryan Johnson and Jeff Berens, Culdesac, a 17-acre development two miles east of Arizona State University, has already made quite a name for itself as 100 residents have moved in and it pushes toward a 2025 completion date. When finished, there are expected to be 760 residential units available (studios, one- two and three bedrooms), with room for approximately 1,000 residents. There is also 16,000 square feet of retail onsite at the rental apartment community, said Erin Boyd, Culdesac government & external affairs lead, including a market, restaurant and bar, bicycle shop, candle company, coffee shop and other businesses.

Those who make their home at Culdesac – which is the real estate developer and property manager – can benefit from the community’s comprehensive mobility offerings, Boyd said. The first 200 residents receive free electric bikes and free rides on the Valley Metro Light Rail (which runs alongside Culdesac), they are provided with a 15% discount on all Lyft rides, discounts on car sharing rates, and have access to more than 1,000 bike parking spots within the development.

With the only car parking lots at Culdesac for guests, deliveries, retail and mobility partners, there was a large, open canvas to work with in December 2018 when the Culdesac team brought in Phoenix-based landscape design firm Floor Associates, “an industry leader in the design of sustainable arid region landscape architecture,” to start envisioning how Culdesac could create a warm, welcoming environment within a sunny, desert climate.

Bringing in Kristina Floor, a founding partner of Floor Associates, her husband Christopher Brown, a partner at Floor Associates, and their team was the perfect choice, as Kristina and Christopher are known for their expertise in native landscape, having participated in developing the methods for revegetation since the early 80s.

“I was interested in being part of something game-changing in Arizona,” said Kristina Floor, a Phoenix native. “Probably one of my favorite parts of the Culdesac project was creating something that was totally different from any other development. We weren’t hindered by parking lots and having to worry about how we’re going to fit all those parking stalls.”

Without having to plan for cars, “the buildings could be laid out to provide different orientations, which allowed for a variety of courtyard spaces shaded by the buildings that surrounded them,” Floor said.

What has been created – and what is still in the works as the design of Culdesac’s final phase is ongoing – is simply remarkable. Microclimates have been produced in the development’s courtyards, where Boyd said temperatures can be 30 degrees cooler than the asphalt of traditional streets. The proximity and placement of the buildings as well as carefully selected trees – you will not see palm trees at Culdesac as they provide little shade and require significant water usage – offer Culdesac residents and guests alike with significant shade coverage. Light-colored paints are used to reflect sunlight, and there is no asphalt used on site. For example, the parking stalls at Culdesac are made of stabilized, decomposed granite, which “reduces the urban heat island effect,” Floor said.

With water conservation always top of mind in the valley, low water use, drought resistant plant material was used throughout the development, including Desert Museum Palo Verde trees, Winter Blaze Emu bushes, and Rio Bravo Sage evergreen shrubs. The landscaping is all on a drip system, Floor said, which results in improved efficiency, a reduction in maintenance, and water conservation.

“This site has been so successful,” Floor said. “Being in a part of Tempe that hadn’t been developed, Culdesac has been the activator for the rest of Apache Boulevard and helping bring about a change in the economy and making a community that is more about the neighborhood.”

25 YEARS LATER
Tempe Town Lake

Tempe Town Lake’s Impact on the Community is as Strong as Ever

At Neil Giuliano’s campaign kickoff at Moeur Park in October 1993, the backdrop for the Tempe mayoral hopeful’s event was the dry riverbed of the Salt River.

Just six years later, as Mayor of Tempe, Giuliano stood proudly before a crowd of 30,000-plus people at the Tempe Town Lake Festival to celebrate the opening of a two-mile-long stretch of the Salt River, known as Tempe Town Lake, that has not only just changed how the city lives, works and plays, it has transformed how those outside the city view Tempe as a tourist destination.

A Tempe City Councilman from 1990-94 and the city’s Vice Mayor from 1992-94, Giuliano became Tempe’s youngest-ever mayor when, still five months shy of his 38th birthday, he earned 53.5% of the vote in the 1994 Tempe General Election.

Following Harry Mitchell, who served as Tempe’s Mayor from 1978-1994, Giuliano made it one of his administration’s priorities to push forward with the Tempe Town Lake project that had been discussed for decades. In 1966, a group of architecture students at Arizona State University first came up with the idea of transforming the Salt River (the Rio Salado) into “a major asset for the town of Tempe.” The Rio Salado once flowed through the area, but when the Roosevelt Dam – located approximately 60 miles to the east – was completed in 1911, “over time water was completely redirected away from the Rio Salado to be used for agricultural, industrial, and domestic purposes.” What was left was a dry, desolate riverbed.

In 1987, Maricopa County voters “defeated a property tax increase to finance a valley-wide green-belt version of the Rio Salado Project,” according to the City of Tempe, but the voters of Tempe “supported the concept, and Mayor Harry Mitchell announced the City’s commitment to bring the vision into reality.” In the years that followed, the City of Tempe worked internally with numerous state and federal agencies to determine how this massive project – which would create a man-made lake “by damming a portion of the dry Salt River and adding water” – could become a reality.

“They had been talking about it since the mid-80s,” Giuliano said. “Let’s figure out a way to do something or stop talking about it.”

Understanding the environmental and economic benefits the lake could deliver to Tempe, Giuliano willingly put his burgeoning political career at risk by supporting construction of the lake, which started in 1997 and was completed two years later. In a Nov. 10, 2019, Arizona Republic op-ed to mark the 20-year anniversary of the Tempe Town Lake opening, Giuliano wrote this when discussing how supporting the project did not come without political risk: “Though value of the project was carefully articulated and support was significant, two councilmembers lost re-election in 1998 in large part because of votes advancing lake construction.”

“The financial future of the city and having the capacity to take care of residents in the long term was more important than whether I stayed mayor or not,” said Giuliano, who served as Tempe’s Mayor for a decade before leaving politics. “The revenue and success that is brought into Tempe now by the Rio Salado development has kept taxes lower in Tempe, provided a sense of place for the City of Tempe, and solidifies Tempe as a tourist destination. By just about every metric, it was all worth it.”

The numbers support that. According to the City of Tempe, each year more than 2.4 million people spend time at Tempe Town Lake, as residents and visitors alike can enjoy a variety of activities, including kayaking, fishing, picnicking, paddleboarding, walking, running and biking on the seven-mile loop around the lake. There is also North Shore Beach, Tempe Beach Park, the Tempe Center for the Arts, public art on display, and a lakefront park that spans the Mill Avenue Bridge and the Rural Road Bridge named “Neil Giuliano Park” to honor the former mayor’s role in making Tempe Town Lake a reality.

There are also more than 40 special events at Tempe Town Lake annually, and more than 40,000 people work at businesses that surround the lake. It is estimated that the economic impact of Tempe Town Lake since opening to the public on Nov. 7, 1999 is more than $2 billion.

“So many things have been made possible because of the lake,” said Michael Martin, CEO and president of Tempe Tourism. “It’s hard to imagine Tempe without it.”

Martin, though, like Giuliano, understands that the Tempe Town Lake project did not come without plenty of risk.

“The lake could have been a big flop,” said Martin, an East Valley native who has worked for Tempe Tourism for the last 31 years. “The park may not have attracted very many events, and there was a risk of the residents not being happy with it and people may not have come. But after it was built, I haven’t seen any of that. Instead of it being a flop, it has been a boon. It ended up being a risk worth taking because the lake has been a huge benefit for Tempe.”

Photos courtesy of Tempe Tourism

A TRUSTED LEADER IN THE VALLEY
Salt River Project

With a history that dates back more than 120 years – nearly a decade before Arizona achieved statehood – Salt River Project (SRP) continues to provide “reliable, affordable and sustainable water and energy” to millions in the Grand Canyon State.

While the community-based, non-for-profit’s reservoirs are near or at capacity, SRP, as a “trusted water leader,” is taking an aggressive approach to implementing infrastructure improvements and water conservation efforts in hopes of benefitting all Arizona residents.

In search of a more reliable water supply to help the region grow, farmers and ranchers in the Valley created the Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association in 1903, and “offered up their land as collateral for federal funds to build the Theodore Roosevelt Dam,” in order to “tame the raging waters of the Salt River.” Construction of the dam, located approximately 76 miles northeast of Phoenix, was completed in 1911 – a year before Arizona became the 48th state in the Union.

Salt River Valley Water Users’ Association took over the management and operation of Salt River Project in 1917 in an agreement with the U.S. Reclamation Service that also provided the United States with “title to the dams, canals and hydropower plants.”

“This contract continues to govern SRP’s relationship with the federal government,” according to the SRP.

Today, Tempe-based SRP serves 1.1 million residents in the Phoenix metro area with power, and provides water – approximately 244 billion gallons annually – to 2.5 million people within 10 municipalities in the Valley: Avondale, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Goodyear, Mesa, Peoria, Phoenix, Scottsdale and Tempe.

“How dependent you are on SRP depends on the city you’re in,” said Patty Garcia-Likens, SRP senior media relations representative. “Tempe gets a lot of water from the Salt River and the Verde River watersheds, and SRP and, therefore, is less reliant on the Colorado River. Tempe is in good shape because of that. Other cities depend on the Colorado River more or less. Every city is different, and every portfolio is different.”

SRP reservoirs were at capacity at the end of fiscal year 2023, but the private utility company – which provides more than half the water supply to the Phoenix metro area through its water system – communicated an “urgent need for infrastructure improvements” in its 2023 Annual Report. Last spring, SRP had to “spill approximately 730,000 acre-feet (of water) from reservoirs” on the Verde and Salt River systems for an extended period due to intense runoff from snowmelt and rain.

To increase short-term storage capacity, there is a proposal to raise Bartlett Dam – the first dam built on the Verde River (in 1939) – by approximately 100 feet. While this could increase the reservoir’s storage capacity by approximately 350,000 acre-feet of water, feasibility studies need to be completed and the U.S. Congress would need to approve the project before construction moves forward.

Another critical infrastructure project in the planning stages is the SRP/CAP (Central Arizona Project) Interconnection Facility (SCIF). CAP delivers water from the Colorado River, the area’s second-largest water supply, but the U.S. Reclamation Service announced last October that the Colorado River Basin’s reservoirs and its two largest storage reservoirs, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, were at “historically low levels.”

“There would be a new pipeline and pumping station, allowing for water stored in SRP reservoirs to be delivered into the CAP canal system,” Leeann Yacuel, SRP senior water planning analyst, said of the SCIF. “Now we have the opposite – CAP water can come into SRP, but not vice versa. This could be a huge lift off the Colorado River.”

Other ways SRP collaborates with cities in the Valley on water conservation efforts include the Commercial, Institutional & Industrial Water Audit Training program, which provides water auditing fundamentals and hands-on field experience for Arizona water efficiency professionals, and the SRP’s annual Water Expo where SRP and community members join to “celebrate water in the Valley and discover ways to conserve at home.”

SUSTAINABILITY IS ALWAYS ON TAP
Four Peaks Brewing Co.

Four Peaks Brewing Co.’s Randy Schultz believes there will be enough water for Arizonans in the years ahead, but he also understands that for that to happen, steps need to be taken now to protect this scarce natural resource.

The popular Tempe-based craft brewery he co-founded 28 years ago is helping to do just that as part of its overall sustainability efforts.

Since opening in an old creamery building (now the 8th Street Brewery) near Arizona State University in 1996, Four Peaks Brewing Co. has grown beyond any of the four co-founders’ wildest dreams. Known for its flagship brew, Kilt Lifter Scottish-style Ale, this Tempe mainstay expanded in 2012 to the Wilson Street Brewery and Wilson Taproom event space – the largest production brewery in Arizona — allowing Four Peaks to produce with more than 100,000 total barrels annually. A year later, they opened a licensed location at Sky Harbor International Airport.

Four Peaks Brewing Co. has expanded its reach even further in Arizona and throughout the country since being purchased by Anheuser-Busch, the country’s largest brewer, in December 2015.

While business continues to boom for the Grand Canyon State’s largest craft brewery, the Four Peaks team understands it has a responsibility to develop a strategy that includes sustainability initiatives and reduces the environmental impact of its facilities.

“We have always taken sustainability seriously,” Schultz said. “Our Wilson brewery creates solar energy for a lot of different uses, and we’ve changed our practices over the years when it comes to just how we use water throughout the brewing process. Our improved processes use new technology to become more efficient and reclaim as much of that water as possible for reuse.”

Being under the Anheuser-Busch umbrella has provided Four Peaks Brewing Co. with additional resources to help achieve its sustainability objectives. Anheuser-Busch has ambitious sustainability goals across the supply chain, including water efficiency efforts and investing in a new wastewater treatment plant.

“We have had several conversations about what more we can be doing in terms of water conservation,” said Sean Snelling, Four Peaks 8th Street Pub’s general manager. “Anheuser-Busch has industry-leading sustainability efforts, and we benefit greatly from their expertise and resources.”

In October 2022, Four Peaks Brewing Co. and Scottsdale-based Goldwater Brewery Co. partnered to win Best-in-Show for a wet hop brew using recycled water from Scottsdale’s Advanced Water Treatment Facility, “one of the largest potable water purification facilities in the world.” The brew was then featured at the City of Scottsdale’s Canal Convergence Festival.

Four Peaks’ sustainability efforts also include a number of other conservation initiatives as its Peaks and Parks campaign “aims to promote the preservation and conservation of Arizona’s natural resources.”

At the 14th Annual Four Peaks Cleanup & Restoration Event last November, 213 volunteers removed nearly six tons of trash and two tires from the Four Peaks Mountains and Sugarloaf OHV (off highway vehicle areas).

A week later at the 4th Annual Save Our Saguaros Replanting Event, volunteers planted 100 1-foot saguaros – which are slow growing cacti – in the Tonto National Forest where, in July 2020, “the Bush Fire burned nearly 200,000 acres, including more than 80,000 saguaro cacti.” Four Peaks Brewing Co., along with Natural Restorations, the National Forest Foundation and Arizona Wholesale Growers “have been instrumental in sustaining restoration efforts in the Bush Fire burn area,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

Finally, Four Peaks will roll out new brand packaging of the portfolio in 2024, all of which will include detailed recycling information in partnership with CIRT (Can I Recycle This?).

So whether it is planting cacti, cleaning up the desert, promoting recycling, or finding ways to conserve energy and water in its processes, Four Peaks Brewing’s goal is the same: “We need to be kind to the environment and make sure we’re using natural resources in a sustainable way,” said Carter Nacke, Four Peaks 8th Street Pub’s assistant general manager. “Our goal is to do business in a way that leaves our planet and the community we serve better than we found them.”

BALANCING DECARBONIZATION
WITH PROVIDING POWER

SRP

How SRP Balances Decarbonization with Providing Power

By Bobby Olsen, Associate General Manager & Chief Planning, Strategy, and Sustainability Executive

On July 16, 2023, as the Valley baked in the throes of a record-breaking heatwave, the normally sunny sky clouded over, causing a multi-hour drop in solar power generation. This paired with the record-high summer demand from residents, companies and manufacturing plants could have caused a reliability incident. Instead, SRP operators turned on quick-start, flexible natural gas units that went to work for just over 15 hours to keep customers in power.

That’s why SRP’s long-term resource planning balances our goals for carbon reduction with our commitment to customers, and the reliability and affordability they desire.

We like to say that it’s reliability, affordability and sustainability — done responsibly.

We take it as our prime responsibility to keep our customers in power. Providing reliable water and power to 2 million people in America’s fifth-largest city is truly critical so customers can go about their daily lives, run their businesses and power our economy.

According to the Phoenix Business Journal, “approximately 70% of projects in the Arizona Commerce Authority pipeline are manufacturing-related... the state has become a destination for high-tech manufacturing operations in semiconductors, batteries, electric vehicles and biotechnology.”

Growth like this — not just homes and businesses but also large manufacturing plants — requires a lot more power to be generated by the state’s utilities. In fact, SRP’s service area is projected to have a dramatic 25% increase in power use by 2030, and we’ll need to roughly double our power grid in the next decade to keep up.

We’re hard at work researching and testing the renewable generation technology of tomorrow to meet this need — like pumped storage, hydrogen hubs and non-lithium, long-duration energy storage. We’re heavily investing in sustainable resources like wind and solar. But we are also balancing those investments with flexible natural gas additions, which acts as backup support and helps SRP to avoid high energy prices and the potential for rotating outages. With fast-ramping natural gas, we can ensure customers don’t lose power in summer and they don’t pay extra for large energy purchases from volatile energy markets, which have price spikes based on high demand.

This doesn’t mean we’re backing off of our commitment to sustainability. In fact, we’re taking proven steps to achieve ambitious climate goals. Despite growth larger than nearly every other utility in the United States, SRP has managed to reduce carbon emissions by generation since 2004.

But we’re not doing so at the expense of reliable, affordable power. Proven resources like quick-start, flexible natural gas keep Arizonans safe from power outages and higher bills while we transition to these renewable power sources. This helps keep our economy humming and our customers safe.

Scan the QR code to learn more about how we plan for the future.