Contract laboratory giant Covance will no longer have to face the threat of a voter referendum or even win a City Council vote before the company builds a facility in Chandler.
Covance officials announced Tuesday that they have changed sites for a planned drug-testing facility from a 38-acre parcel off Price Road to a 50-acre spot at Gilbert and Ryan roads in southeast Chandler.
The new site comes with the required zoning for industrial development and therefore beyond the reach of a threatened voter referendum. The Price Road site, currently zoned for agricultural uses, would have required City Council approval for rezoning, which could have been challenged by a public vote.
Covance opponents, largely made up of animal rights activists critical of the company's use of animals in federally required clinical trials on drugs, had vowed to seek a referendum if the council approved rezoning for the original site.
But the change in location had nothing to do with avoiding a referendum promised by opponents, said Wendell Barr, a Covance senior vice president overseeing the company's plans in Chandler. Rather, the new site allows Covance to have more room for future expansion, he said.
"The first phase of this facility will be about 300,000 square feet," Barr said. "But the potential is very unlimited."
The project's first phase is expected to be constructed within two years and bring 300 to 500 new jobs to Chandler, he said.
The finished facility will employ about 2,000, Barr said. The company has not released a target date for completion.
Tuesday's announcement was met by applause at an invitation-only news conference in downtown Chandler.
Chandler Mayor Boyd Dunn, backed by fellow City Council members Bob Caccamo, Trinity Donovan, Jeff Weninger and Lowell Huggins, praised the company's decision to build in Chandler.
Two councilmen, Matt Orlando and Martin Sepulveda, were out of town. But Dunn said Tuesday that both were fully behind Covance's project.
The company has met fierce opposition from local residents and activists since announcing last year it was coming to Chandler. Opponents have flooded city e-mail boxes and staged several public protests already, and the opposition isn't likely to go away.
"We think Covance took this step because they realized how strong neighborhood opposition was at the old site," said Patrick Sullivan, spokesman for Washington, D.C.-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a national animal rights group that has helped organize local opposition to Covance's plans.
Most recently, the Physicians Committee distributed 23,000 copies of a video reportedly shot undercover at Covance facilities in Germany and Virginia showing examples of alleged animal cruelty.
Jan McClellan, who heads Citizens Against Covance, a local group formed to oppose the company's plans, said she wasn't surprised by the announcement.
"They've stolen this decision from the people by going behind closed doors, making a sweetheart deal with city officials," McClellan said. "They couldn't take the heat."
She said her group will start looking for other ways to fight the project.
"They want the people out of the decision-making, but up until now, it was all about Covance," McClellan said. "Now the seed is twofold. Are the people of Chandler going to put up with city officials hijacking the city and taking decisions away from the people?"
Covance will still need city staff approval on site plans, which will revolve mainly on making sure the project follows city building codes, Dave Bigos, a Chandler spokesman, said.
But Barr promised Tuesday to form a residents advisory committee as well as hold public meetings on the project. Neither is required.
"There's nothing for us to hide," he said.
Covance, headquartered in New Jersey, employs about 8,000 people in 20 countries.
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