Frustrated for not being able to find a location where they can test some technology, a company called Pegasus Global Holdings has decided to build their own ghost town to play with.
Set in Lea County, New Mexico, this 20 square miles of land will transform into a full-blown city complete with houses, office buildings, and roads to simulate any other normal city found all over the world. The only difference: no one will be living in it.
Yep, this new city will be a ghost town in essence as the only people would be found in an underground facility which will monitor activities all over the town. Sounds like science fiction? Think, reality. Pegasus calls this project CITE, Center for Innovation, Testing and Evaluation, and has scoured the entire country in search for a perfect location for their smart ghost city. Finally, they have chosen Lea County with its 20 miles of land isolated enough from other communities to allow research and testing without disrupting anyone else.
Why a ghost town? you say. The company’s plan is to create a place where researchers and developers can test their technology in a real life setting without having to interfere with people’s everyday life. The ghost town planned to use the real city of Rock Hill, NC as its template in designing and planning. Sources say that even the houses will look real and lived-in with working appliances, plumbing, and electricity.
Researching in the city will include testing self-driving cars, smart technologies on old grids, as well as next generation energy systems and other technology which are designed to help a city grow. The underground facility will be run by researchers and scientists hired by Pegasus to monitor the city and whatever current experiments are being conducted. Pegasus MD Robert Brumley has told our sources that after the project has gone public in September, there were a lot of big companies who expressed interest in their project, including some 200 Fortune 500 companies.
CITE will also be a big help to Lea County as it will bring around 350 permanent jobs as well as around 3,500 temporary jobs to the town. New Mexico Governor Susan Martinez has revealed that Pegasus did not ask for any tax breaks from the state but only for guidance.
The CITE project is still on its early stages with the breaking ground set to happen on June 30th. The initial estimated cost for this ghost city is $ 400 million but the company expects the overall investment in the project will exceed $ 1 billion. The project will take years to finish, with its first phase estimated to be complete by 2015.
(source)
