Note: As a partner with the New Mexico Economic Development Department the City of Las Cruces shares this information with the public.
A company that is planning to make New Mexico one of its first locations for a chain of specialized refrigerated warehouses has been awarded economic assistance from the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) job-creation fun, state Economic Development Department Cabinet Secretary Alicia J. Keyes announced Wednesday, Jan. 12, 2022.
Artico Cold Management was formed in 2021 and is planning several projects across the United States, with future plans to expand into Mexico and Latin America. The company specializes in the management of temperature-controlled warehouses to help agricultural producers, food manufacturers, distributors and retailers fortify the supply chain.
Artico Cold New Mexico, a limited liability company, has been awarded $600,000 from the LEDA to help with its 120,000-square foot, $30 million cold storage facility at the Las Cruces Innovation and Industrial Park. The project will take 12 to 18 months to complete with an expected opening in September 2023. The company has pledged to hire as many as 60 employees.
The City of Las Cruces is also pledging $281,400 in economic assistance.
Cabinet Secretary Keyes said the project is one of several LEDA investments in the past two years, undertaken to bolster the local infrastructure so farmers and growers can have more options to store and process their products year-round.
“New Mexico’s small producers don’t have the resources to build or maintain cold-storage or processing operations,” Keyes said. “We need this infrastructure in the state to sustain a robust agricultural economy so we can grow and process more food closer to home.”
The company chose southern New Mexico and Las Cruces because of its robust agricultural economy, proximity to Mexico and the international border, and the state’s business climate, including the workforce and incentives.
Artico is seeing the needs for more cold storage, as consumers demand more fresh and healthy foods, and the newly formed company is working to develop several storage facilities to meet increasing demand. Richard Tavaras, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, said New Mexico will be one of the first projects.
“Cold storage is in short supply across the United States, and we see the need in New Mexico for more capacity – there are significant opportunities to help producers of chiles, dairy, pecans, meats, (and) vegetables,” Taveras said. “This is an attractive opportunity, and the LEDA investment is critical – the State and City support gets this moving and helps us get over the finish line.”
City Manager Ifo Pili said, “We are very fortunate to have Artico locating at the Las Cruces Innovation and Industrial Park, and this will be the first new business with construction activity out there since 2017. A lot of time and effort has been put in by the City’s Economic Development Department and our partners to get here and we’ll soon see that this is the start of something big for the industrial park.
“We could not ask for a better business to take that first step with us because of the amount of investment and amazing job opportunities they will be creating for Las Cruces.”
In addition to the LEDA support from New Mexico and the City, $100,000 from the El Paso Electric New Mexico Economic Development Fund has been pledged to support the project. The fund, which is administered by the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance (MVEDA) and the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, was established by El Paso Electric in connection with the corporate sale of the Utility to Infrastructure Investments Fund.
The City and MVEDA worked together to recruit the company to Las Cruces.
“Artico is not only making a significant capital investment in new facilities in the Las Cruces Innovation and Industrial Park, but the operation itself will also serve as supporting infrastructure to our rich agricultural region and will also assist in attracting future value-added agricultural interests,” said Davin Lopez, MVEDA President and CEO.