Editor’s note: The total population of the town of Marana, Arizona, was corrected to 63,000. 

Key Points:

• The Legislature rejected a proposal to sell the abandoned Marana prison to the federal government for $1 a year

• The prison was instead sold to its former owner, Utah-based Management and Training Corp. 

• Tucson legislators are upset they, nor local officials, were told of the deal 

Arizona has cut a deal to sell the shuttered private prison it owns north of Tucson to the Utah-based company that ran it until the state closed it at the end of 2023.

The development comes as the state House overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to lease the facility for $1 a year to the federal government to house people accused of immigration violations. 

The prison is being sold to Utah-based Management and Training Corp. for $15 million according to Timothy Tait, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Administration. There are no strings on how the company known as MTC could operate the prison.

An MTC spokesperson, Issa Arnita, confirmed it was buying the 500-bed facility to use as a detention facility, but declined to provide details, including when it would reopen and whether it would house federal prisoners or those from other states. 

The deal was signed on April 30, but Tait said he could not determine when escrow would close.

The former Arizona State Prison-Marana was operated by MTC since its construction in the mid-1990s as the first private prison in the state. Arizona bought the prison in 2013 for $150,000 under a contract provision that allowed it to buy it when contracts expired. 

MTC continued operating the minimum security facility until December 2023 when it was closed under a plan approved by Gov. Katie Hobbs to save money. The state no longer needed the beds to house a dipping prison population.

The closure was a hit for Marana, a town about 20 miles north of Tucson with a population of about 63,000. At the time it was closed it held less than half its capacity and employed about 100 guards and other staff.

Town Manager Terry Rozema said town officials had talked to two companies who were interested in the facility but was unaware on May 2 that a deal had been reached to sell it. Neither planned to use it to house federal immigration prisoners. 

The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry said it had no involvement with the sale and had no plans to again house state prisoners there.

The 48-10 vote rejecting the proposal to lease the prison to the federal government came on May 1 after the two lawmakers who represent the Marana area — one Democrat and one Republican — blasted the bill sponsored by Sen. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, during floor speeches.

Rep. Rachel Keshel, R-Tucson, said there was concern locally about housing criminal immigrants in the prison. And she criticized Kavanagh for failing to talk with her, Democratic Rep. Kevin Volk, D-Tucson, or town officials about his proposal.

“Now, I do agree that something needs to happen with it instead of it just sitting there. But why was I not consulted with?” Keshel asked. “Why wasn’t I able to go to the mayor, the vice mayor, the town council of Marana, and figure out what their desires were for their community?”

Senate Bill 1294 would have allowed the state to end any deal with the federal government if it found a buyer and gave one year’s notice.

During testimony in the Senate earlier in the session, Kavanagh said that with increased federal immigration-related detentions it made sense to make the facility available for immigration detainees. 

“As everyone knows, the federal government is ramping up the enforcement of our immigration laws, both at the border and internally, and consequentially there is an anticipated need for detention facilities,” he said. “The Marana prison is a vacant prison. Our (prison) population is down.”

Volk also wondered why town officials weren’t consulted but was also concerned that Kavanagh’s bill limited the use to only federal prisoners for a minimum price while the property was for sale. 

“This is political theater in the form of a bill that has not been done in consultation with the community, and it’s bad business,” Volk said.

Rozema, the town manager, said he and other town officials had received no information from Kavanagh on his plan. 

“Nobody’s reached out to us and said this is what the bill is about, here’s what it accomplishes and this is why it’s good for Marana,” he said.

The town does want to see the prison reopened, and Rozema said MTC was a good partner over the years. 

At full capacity, the prison employs more than 200 people, many of whom live there.

The town also gets increased state shared revenue because prisoners are counted as residents. And they also are used to do roadside cleanup and other projects that help keep the town “pristine,” he said.

“One of the big benefits for us was being able to utilize some of the folks there in our workforce, doing a lot of the landscaping along the freeways and along the big thoroughfares,” Rozema said.

“So having that again is something we’d really like to see,” he said. “Having it as an ICE facility, I don’t know if that’s even possible” to use the inmates because of the security level of the detainees.

MTC operates detention or correctional centers in the U.S. and abroad, plus Job Corps training centers and prison medical facilities. It also runs five Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency detention centers, one in California and four in Texas.