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In a region growing as rapidly as Pima County, the town of Marana and private developers may be breaking new ground in a partnership agreement that demonstrates how major road-construction projects can be built without state funds.

A group of private developers agreed to finance roughly $40 million to design and build a major interchange at Interstate 10 north of the existing Tangerine Road exit. The new exit and accompanying loop road will provide access to a huge retail and commercial development planned for the area.

State money for such projects is scarce because construction costs have increased and too many road projects are competing for attention from the Arizona Department of Transportation's finite budget.

Rather than wait for the state to do anything about the Tangerine Road interchange, the developers and Marana agreed that the landowners would finance the estimated $40 million cost of the project up front and the town would reimburse them for a part of that expense from a portion of the sales taxes the project will generate once all the stores are built.

Marana Town Manager Michael A. Reuwsaat said the agreement stipulates that 45 percent of the sales taxes generated by the new development will be used to reimburse the property owners for the cost of "public infrastructure," meaning roads, water lines and drainage, among other utilities. He said that the town would eventually have to build these facilities to accommodate any other future expansion and that the agreement with the six landowners simply assures that it's done faster.

Reuwsaat said he expects the details of these deals to be approved by the Marana Town Council within the next six months.

Some critics will see Marana's decision as a needless subsidy of private development. The land along Interstate 10 is extremely valuable for retail trade, they will say, and businesses would be attracted to it with or without help from the town.

While there is some truth to that, it ignores a fundamental fact of life in Marana. A former agricultural town that's rapidly developing into a suburb of Tucson, Marana has 34,000 people, all of whom demand services but want no part of a property tax.

The town lives and dies on the strength of impact fees for new construction, and sales taxes. The huge development along I-10 near Tangerine Road, which will be much larger than the Arizona Pavilions shopping center at Cortaro Road and I-10, is expected to generate around $3 million a year in sales taxes.

The town gets to keep 100 percent of those sales taxes after its part of the infrastructure cost is paid off, in 15 years, Reuwsaat said.

For a town that's heavily dependent on sales taxes, making an accommodation for a new development that will include a large outdoor mall, possibly two hotels and an autoplex on some 1,500 acres is a wise long-term investment. By investing a portion of its sales taxes toward repaying the infrastructure costs today, it speeds up construction of a badly needed interchange at I-10 and opens a new cash flow to the town's general fund. Sales tax dollars are the blood in Marana's veins.

This is clearly a good deal for the developers, but it also benefits the town and the Arizona Department of Transportation since it relieves taxpayers in other parts of the state of any responsibility for improving I-10 in Marana.

This is a new approach in Pima County, though it has been done in Maricopa County at the new community of Anthem, north of Phoenix.

Such public-private financing agreements may well become the model for how such road improvements are handled in the future.