Arizona Land Play Bets on Data Centers and Entertainment to Draw Capital West
Arizona Land Consulting, led by CEO Anita Verma-Lallian, plans to build a $6 billion to $10 billion mixed-use development in Tonopah, Arizona, roughly an hour west of Phoenix. Maricopa County, Arizona supervisors this week approved rezoning for nearly 900 acres from rural to light industrial uses, clearing the way for the project. The development will combine a data center campus with a movie production studio, amusement park, hotels, retail, multifamily housing, and distribution facilities. Gensler produced renderings showing both outdoor and indoor theme park components. Financing will come from a mix of equity and debt, though the firm has not yet submitted a formal development plan to the county.
Arizona Land Consulting has assembled thousands of acres in the Tonopah area over recent years, focusing initially on data center entitlements. The firm now has two sites fully entitled for data center use, with a third in process. Verma-Lallian also runs Camelback Productions, a film company she founded in 2023 with two upcoming releases starring Owen Wilson and Cynthia Erivo. Neither film was shot in Arizona due to a lack of production infrastructure, despite state tax incentives that return 15% to 20% of qualified production expenses. A qualified facility must be at least 10,000 square feet and host more than half of a project’s production to trigger the rebate.
The site sits adjacent to nearly 20,000 acres purchased in 2017 by an investment firm tied to Bill Gates for a planned smart city. That acquisition, at $80 million, helped establish the West Valley corridor as a target for large-scale speculative development. Data center demand in the Phoenix metro has grown rapidly, driven by low power costs and available land, while film production has remained limited. Verma-Lallian described the project as a legacy investment for her family, which has a history of West Valley real estate activity.
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