San Manuel's Future Uncertain
Source: explorernews.com, by Brian P. Nanos
January 24, 2007
A week after BHP Copper Inc. demolished two 500-foot smoke stacks — the most visible representations of San Manuel’s pervious identity as a bustling mining town — the future of the town remains uncertain.
Before the demolition, BHP officials told a VIP reception, that the event was a new beginning for the town.
The company’s Director of Environmental and Community Affairs Jeff Parker told the crowd of former mine employees, BHP corporate officers and community members that the demolition was part of BHP’s attempts “to springboard San Manuel into a beautiful future.”
“San Manuel has another opportunity to rise over again,” BHP Copper President Ben Wichers added.
But, despite those optimistic remarks — not to mention the almost $130 million the company has spent making its properties suitable for future development — there was no word as to how or when that rise would begin, or what the “beautiful future” would look like.
In 1999, before the BHP’s mining facilities were shut down, the company employed 2,200 people in a town that, one year later would have a total work force of 2,570. The mine was the largest underground copper mine in county.
BHP’s San Manuel workforce was already depressed — down to 40 employees who were responsible for facility care and maintenance— when, in 2003, the company announced the plant’s permanent closure. The company had already announced the closure of the nearby mine a year earlier.
BHP now hopes that the site where the towers once stood will eventually provide the new employment base for the city.
According to Parker, the company plans to hold on to the space and eventually partner with a developer to bring businesses to the area.
“We want to have a say,” he said, “so all the stake holders, including us, can be proud of how it turns out.”
Parker said the site would be suited for “light commercial or industrial businesses.”
However, he said, the company’s progress in developing the land is slowed by the volatility of the real estate market and the absence of a local government with which to partner while planning. San Manuel is unincorporated, so BHP has formed its own 150-person community advisory group.
One of that group’s most active members, ex-mine worker John Dicus, believes the future of San Manuel is as a growing community full of incoming retirees.
“I’m not really crazy about it,” he said, referring to what he sees as incoming housing developments, “but it’s bound to happen. It’s too beautiful a community not to.”
Another former mine worker, Onofre Tafoya, said he, too, sees the area attracting retirees rather than families, because, “people who have families, they need to have a job.”
However, there are still a few hurdles the town must clear before the developers start moving in, said Steve Littler, a local real estate agent who shares office space with the town’s chamber of commerce, economic development department and visitor’s center.
Most of the land in the area is still owned by BHP, he said, which would be smart to hold of on selling it until the real estate market turns around. Even then, he said, many buyers and developers see Oracle as a more desirable location.
He points to the absence of land for sale in San Manuel. According to the Multiple Listing Service, there are currently 62 plots of land for sale in Oracle. In San Manuel, there are five.
Despite roadblocks faced by the town, BHP’s Parker believes the town will rebuild.
“Hopefully,” he said, “San Manuel will become a city.”
When, or what type of city, is anyone’s guess.
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