The Arizona State Land Department is poised to open the Valley's newest growth frontier, a swath of vacant land for sale that is more than half the size of Phoenix, stretching uninterrupted from Apache Junction to Florence.  Sometime next summer the first parcel, 1,650 acres just south of U.S. 60 in Apache Junction, will be the first land for sale in Arizona desert. But that's just the start. 

An additional 6,100 acres will be sold to complete the first master-planned residential properties and, after that, the Land Department will sell the rest of what it calls its crown jewel: the 275-square-mile Superstition Vistas, acreage land for sale which could be home to more than 1 million people within a few decades.

A Colorado-based development company, Lend Lease Communities, has been selected to help plan the first auction for the land for sale in Arizona. It's the first time the Land Department has enlisted an outside consultant to prepare the land for sale, an indication of the project's scope and complexity.

Over time, the department expects the Pinal County to generate as much as $10 billion with the land for sale, mostly for the benefit of Arizona's public schools. But opening so much land for development could also test the region's real estate market, as well as its ability to provide water, transportation and other infrastructure for so many people.

"This is a blank slate," State Land Commissioner Mark Winkleman said. "We could break this up into 300-acre subdivisions and sell it to home builders, but I think we have the opportunity to create some value."  So they are starting out with a big chunk of the land for sale that will bring a new identity for this area and set the stage to have orderly development.

The continued interest in land for sale in Arizona will likely force state officials to re-evaluate population projections for Pinal County, which was expected to grow from about 220,000 in 2004 to about 244,000 in 2025. Maricopa County is projected to grow from about 3.5 million today to nearly 5 million by 2025.

The land for sale is wedged between the developed edge of the southeast Valley and the burgeoning subdivisions of Pinal County. Developers there have leapfrogged over the land for sale to snap up private parcels.

Because the land for sale is as raw as it gets in Arizona, planning is critical. The Land

Department will require the winning bidder of the first 1,650 acres of "Lost Dutchman Heights" to put up money for planning of the remaining 6,100 acres.

Apache Junction has already included Lost Dutchman Heights in its planning and will work with the Land Department in coming months to prepare land for sale for the auction.

Part of that work is writing a law specific to master-planned communities, he said. The city recently completed a water resources plan that took the land for sale into account and is updating transportation needs and demands.  The trust land is a prime chunk of real estate that has been sitting there. It's a slow process, and it needs to be planned out.