After years of sitting mostly quiet behind demolition fencing, the former Motorola semiconductor campus in east Phoenix is finally shifting from teardown mode to active redevelopment, and public paperwork suggests a major chip player may be circling the site. Baker Development has been methodically stripping out obsolete buildings, coordinating environmental cleanup and pitching the property to large industrial and tech users, hoping to reboot a parcel that once employed thousands and has since been wrapped inside a long-running cleanup zone.
According to the Phoenix Business Journal, recent public filings with the city point to NXP Semiconductors as a potential tenant at the property, injecting fresh energy into Baker’s plans. The outlet reports that hints of a possible NXP lease surfaced in city planning submissions tied to the project.
Developer Aims For AZUL Campus
Baker Development is recasting the site as the "AZUL Campus," a flex industrial and office park the company says could ultimately accommodate about two million square feet of space. The developer describes the core piece of the property as roughly 62 acres and says it is already working on upgraded infrastructure, including a large-scale groundwater filtration system that treats and returns millions of gallons of water to the canal network. "Our expertise is redeveloping environmentally challenged sites," Daniel J. Slack, president and COO of Baker Development, said in a statement.
Cleanup and City Oversight
The campus sits inside the Motorola 52nd Street Superfund area and remains under long-term remediation overseen by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. ADEQ’s site overview highlights ongoing groundwater extraction and treatment systems along with recent effectiveness reports, and City of Phoenix planning files show a PUD application that would prohibit residential uses on the parcel. Those layers of regulation help explain why the transition has moved more slowly than a typical industrial conversion and why the developer has put so much emphasis on infrastructure and environmental controls.
What This Could Mean For Phoenix
Developers and city officials say that landing a confirmed lease with a major semiconductor company would deepen Phoenix’s growing chip cluster and could deliver high-paying advanced manufacturing jobs to the east side. Baker has pointed to the site’s proximity to Sky Harbor, Loop 202 and local talent pipelines as key selling points, arguing the location "checks every single box necessary to attract a world-class company." Local economic planners note that any large tenant would still need to work closely with regulators and nearby neighborhoods before new construction can move forward.
Next Steps
Baker and city records indicate demolition is nearly wrapped up, and the developer has previously said it expected to have a shovel-ready site by the second quarter of 2026. As the Phoenix Business Journal points out, future planning submissions and public documents will likely be the first place any formal lease shows up. For now, the prospect of NXP or another major semiconductor tenant is enough to keep the AZUL Campus redevelopment firmly in the spotlight.
