Insights and trends on developing and ongoing Tucson regional business news.

TI almost got away

One thing that makes local economic development people cringe, is when a company they’d like to keep decides to pack it up and move away. One company that was closer to leaving Tucson than many knew is Texas Instruments.

The company is in the final stages of shutting its chip manufacturing facilities near Tucson International Airport. As TI corporate types debated about what to do with the Tucson facility, the remaining engineers said they wanted to stay, though they weren’t real happy about the airport location.

Indeed the execs felt the same, including some who specifically mentioned the nearby Club Turbulence that has nude women dancers. Not exactly what you’d call classy but they don’t have a liquor license so they get away with it.

Fortuntely for TI, AOL was exiting its Williams Centre offices. The engineers get to move to a better address and Tucson gets to keep Texas Instruments.

Maricopa County firm picked to produce Pima County PSAs

Some Tucson video production companies are upset they were passed over by Pima County that decided to go with a Maricopa County company to produce its public service announcements.

As county contracts go, it wasn’t a big one, amounting to $25,000 worth of video production. The apparent winning bidder was Run With Dreams, based in Peoria, which bid $16,300. The lowest bid came from a Tucson company was $20,00 GEO Associates.