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Morrison Ranch partner Scott Morrison points to a
photograph of his grandparents while telling a story in the
home once owned by his grandparents on the corner of what is
now Elliot and Higley roads in Gilbert.
Tim Hacker
Tribune |
 | |
| Embracing the future — with a nod to the
past |
| By Michael Grady, Tribune |
| October 19, 2005 |
| A picture of Scott Morrison’s
grandparents hangs near the hearth at his Gilbert office. "If the
fireplace in that picture looks familiar, it’s because it’s this
very hearth," says Morrison. |
|
"This office was one of our
family homes. My grandmother fixed us biscuits, gravy and venison in
this house." His grandparents, Howard and Leatha, were among the
farmers whose plows established the lines and rural character of
Gilbert in the 1930s. Seven decades later, as the town trades corn
rows for planned communities, their 51-year-old grandson is one of
those presiding over the change. "I was a cotton farmer here,
myself, for 10 years," says Morrison, looking out on the
developments. "So I get flashbacks daily."
Agriculture and
development seem to have an antagonistic relationship. Agriculture
makes land sustainable for civilization, which fosters development,
which drives the agriculture out. The irony isn’t lost on Morrison.
A partner in the Arizona Dairy Co. and an heir to one of the East
Valley’s oldest farming families, he appreciates the legacy of the
farmers and dairymen who preceded him. "As someone whose grandfather
got blisters on his hands clearing the desert around us for cotton
fields," he says, "I want their work and their part in our history
acknowledged."
But Morrison also sees, and embodies, the
future. As a managing partner of Morrison Ranch, he helps preside
over the 2,000-acre, four-phase master planned community anchoring
Higley and Elliot roads in Gilbert. "Our notion here is that we are
giving people a sense of place," he says. "Yes, we’re building
subdivisions. I have no illusions about that. But we can still form
the land in a way that drafts into the roots of this place."
"They really started with nothing," says Morrison of his
grandparents. "My grandfather had a team of horses and worked
clearing the land for others." Howard Morrison farmed his initial
160 acres on Gilbert’s west side with his brother-in-law through the
end of World War II before turning operations over to Morrison’s
father, Marvin, and uncle, Kenneth.
"They farmed
aggressively and did real well on Korean War cotton," he says. The
brothers established Arizona Dairy Co. in the early 1970s, and by
the end of the decade, the family’s land holdings topped out at
3,000 acres.
As longtime residents of Gilbert, the Morrison
family saw development coming.
"For us, the first hint of
the change were the several ranchette developments built adjacent to
our farm," says Morrison. "Then they built Val Vista Lakes and the
Islands, this was 1989 or ’90."
Rather than move with the
tide of agriculture, the Morrisons chose to embrace and direct the
change. "We essentially said, ‘People are building nice master
planned communities in Gilbert that don’t have anything to do with
Gilbert.’ We always thought we’d sell — either in pieces or one fell
swoop — but we wanted this area to grow with a sense of what Gilbert
was. But it wouldn’t happen if we didn’t control it."
Conversion began in their northwest corner with Higley
Groves, a 370-acre residential community, in 1995. The property was
zoned for a master planned community in 1998.
"We are
creating places with connectedness," he says, "with lakes and
greenbelts for families and shaded trails, where kids can go when
it’s not too hot. And people can walk to their neighbors or the
store. And we still farm about 1,500 acres here, as well as a family
farm near Gila Bend."
The cycling of farmland to urban
centers isn’t new, and Morrison says development would come, with or
without the Santan corridor. "It’s been that way for 40 years. We’ve
seen it happen to farmland all the way from S outhern (Avenue) and
44th Street. So I’m going to stop that?"
Attention, he says,
is better spent defining that change.
"My hometown, as I
knew it, is gone," he says. "My kids will know a different
community. So why not invest our energy making that community the
best it can be?" |
| Contact Michael Grady by email, or
phone (480) 898-6572 |
|
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