Sierra Vista for entrepreneurs (Phoenix, Tucson: rent, insurance, home)

[Contentix]

I moved to Sierra Vista last year from a big city. It's what I could afford in regards to home price/property tax. I hoped for the best knowing that there wasn't much here.

So far, every stereotype I've read about the town I'm learning is true.

-Lack of competent medical professionals and/or facilities
-Lack of good dining
-Lack of competent service folks
-No community/arts/culture


All of these deficiencies seem to be incredible business opportunities.

I'm wondering why commercial development has been so slow here. Seems some savvy business folks can really make a good living here.

The prices for goods/services aren't any cheaper than Tucson. But the commercial rent is much lower. It shouldn't be heard to generate a good volume of traffic and you could probably make a nice profit even with lower traffic volume.

[jwiley]

As an entrepreneur nothing you posted entices me to want to put a business there. While I am certainly not a restaurant guy and with 2 of your bullet points being restaurant I am guessing that is what you meant but even still it is not highly attractive.

To me it is a military town with a lot of government employees, not very highly educated, unemployment is relatively low, and you are less than a hour from a large city.

While rent is cheap, insurance is not cheap in that area, minimum wage is higher than a lot of the mid-west.

With most analysts putting full employment at 3% or so and the last estimate putting regional unemployment at 2.8% that means you are either importing employees or competing for the people already there and working. So that leaves your employee base being semi-retired, or military spouses who will be moving on the next set of orders their spouse receives, or competing with local established companies forcing you to pay higher wages or have better than normal benefits to attract employees.

While Sierra Vista is beautiful area there is nothing to draw a more highly educated work force, as you say that there is no arts/ limited culture, and sports and live events mostly happen over 2 hours away in the Phoenix metro area.

So what would attract an entrepreneur to the area?

[Contentix]

I would think lack of competition would be appealing, considering Sierra Vista is sort of a midway point to other similarly dull Cochise county towns.

In regards to the employee base, I think the businesses have to come first to attract quality talent, kind of like how Microsoft built their campus in Redmond, Washington. Seattle, Washington was kind of a dump in the mid 80s before big tech came in. And Redmond was nothing but one traffic light.

Right now, Sierra Vista has so much open space, and really low population density.
Some entrepreneurs are making a killing. But I guess you will find one in any town.
For example, this one guy named Lawley bought up all the car dealers in Sierra Vista (except Toyota) and has a monopoly.

I agree, there is a very limited educated workforce here. I'd say 80% work on base. I would happily pay more property taxes if I didn't have to go to Tucson for anything half decent.

Even the McDonald's employees here seem to be lethargic meth heads. It's like every TV show cliché being realized.

It seems that local politics wants this place to be a retirement community. It's sad because the army base could be a springboard....not a tombstone (no pun intended).