This story originally aired on “Marketplace” on May 1.

One of the flagship projects in the U.S. government’s effort to rebuild the domestic supply chain for semiconductors lies 25 miles north of downtown Phoenix, on what was, until recently, undeveloped desert.

The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, first announced plans to build a chips factory in north Phoenix in May 2022 at a cost of $12 billion. In the years since the CHIPS and Science Act passed, TSMC has increased that planned investment to more than $65 billion and three factories.

But before construction began on TSMC’s 1,100 acres of desert land, the company had to deal with something else: the native plants that were there first.

“TSMC came here about three years ago, and we had daily calls to Taiwan to explain our system,” said Rob Kater, owner of Native Resources International, a plant relocation, nursery and landscape company. “It was difficult for [TSMC] to wrap their heads around why we have to save the trees.”

The Phoenix metropolitan area lies within the Sonoran Desert, which, according to the National Park Service, has more than 2,000 native plant species, including saguaro cactuses. Saguaros can live up to 200 years and are so synonymous with this area, they’re pictured on Arizona license plates.

In 1981, the city of Scottsdale passed an ordinance barring people from removing certain plants, including saguaros, without a permit. Phoenix and other surrounding cities followed suit, passing ordinances requiring developers to salvage native species and, in some cases, replant them back into the landscape.

Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

The inventory on Native Resources’ 8-acre grounds include pipe organ cactuses, the tallest above, and three smaller cactuses from the senita family, which are not native to the Sonoran Desert. | Photo credit: Maria Hollenhorst

Within those local laws, Rob Kater found a niche at the intersection of conservation and development.

“We’re able to monetize the whole program of saving native materials,” he said. Native Resources helps developers inventory plants on their land, identify which need to be preserved, and then salvage, store and replant them back into the landscape once construction is finished.

Kater said the company’s largest customer is a big housing development in an area northwest of Phoenix called Vistancia.

“In the Vistancia area, we’ll be doing about [3,000] to 4,000 trees and cacti,” he said. TSMC, recipient of $6.6 billion of federal funding through the CHIPS Act, was a smaller project — about 1,000 trees.

“What we have been able to do with developers is make them understand that not only is there an environmental advantage to saving the trees … there’s also a monetary advantage,” Kater said. “We look at each and every tree as being a living statue.”

Kater said you can’t buy some of these trees in nurseries because they grow too slowly.

Native Resources pulls in $10 million in annual revenue, Kater said.

On Native Resource’s 8-acre lot in north Phoenix, Kater showed Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal and The Washington Post’s Heather Long some of his inventory.

Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

Kater sells these young saguaro “spears” for about $35-$40 a foot. It can take 100 years or more for saguaros to grow an arm, he said.

“That tree is called an ironwood tree, it’s about 5 feet in diameter, and it [costs] about $8,000,” he said.

But with Phoenix’s rapid population growth, the value of land underneath those trees is going up.

“[This is] an area that 20 years ago was just a cotton farm, but now has been just fully developed,” Kater said.

Across the street from Native Resources, with its rows of ironwood trees and a small army of saguaro cactus spears, there is a Goodwill and a pet care center. Five minutes down the road, there is a big shopping center and a movie theater.

Would Kater consider selling some of his land?

“It is tempting,” he said. “We have actually lost three of our largest nurseries to development because of the numbers that were put in front of them. And that caused an incredible change in our market and our supply when these nurseries that we were all dependent upon turned over and sold to large-scale development.”

Phoenix has gained almost 200,000 new residents since 2020. Kater’s business is facilitating one small part of that change, but with the increased investment in semiconductor factories, more is coming.

“I think the idea is, if change is coming, we need to understand it and get society ready for it,” he said.

In future installments of our series “Breaking Ground,” Marketplace will also explore the implications of that change on workforce development, culture and the housing market.

Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

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Native Resources stores and transports trees and cactuses in large wooden boxes. Above, an ironwood, right, rests on the flatbed along with foothill palo verdes, the Arizona state tree.

Maria Hollenhorst/Marketplace

Kater points to some of his inventory, including the ironwood trees in front.

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As Chip Hale inquired with the home plate umpire about challenging an out call at first base that ended the bottom of the 8^th inning, Clark Candiotti didn’t wait to see if a review would happen or not. Nor did he check with pitching coach Kevin Vance about how short his leash might be.

He was on the mound within seconds of that play at first, getting ready to throw his final set of warmup pitches for what would be his second complete game of the season.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Candiotti said. “I just went out there and treated it like the first inning.”

The senior right-hander limited Stanford to five singles in a 5-0 win on Saturday night at Hi Corbett Field. Two of those hits came in the top of the 9^th, but after Arizona had scored two insurance runs in the bottom of the 8^th Candiotti was allowed to match his career high with 119 pitches.

“His last hitter was the pop-up before the last hitter, but then when he got to two outs we gave him one more hitter,” said UA coach Chip Hale, who recorded his 100^th win at his alma mater.

Candiotti (5-2) struck out seven and got nine ground ball outs, both of which were the result of his gameplan.

“I think it’s just a matter of getting ahead of hitters and just attacking, try to get them out in four pitches or less and let the defense do their work,” he said.

Of Stanford’s 31 plate appearances, 20 started 0-1 or the ball was put in play, and 17 of the batters Candiotti retired saw four or fewer pitches. He’s the first UA pitcher with multiple complete games in a season since Garrett Irvin in 2021, and the first two do so twice in Pac-12 play since Cameron Ming in 2017.

“Clark controlled the game,” Hale said. “Obviously he was missing barrels.”

Arizona (28-17, 16-7 Pac-12) had allowed 40 runs in the previous three games yet its ERA in the league is 3.45. The Wildcats have multiple shutouts in conference play for the first time since 2016, and combined with losses by Oregon State and Utah (twice) on Saturday have a 2-game lead in the loss column on those teams and Oregon with seven remaining.

As impressive as Candiotti was, Arizona’s approach at the plate was also on point. Despite facing a lefty, which has been the team’s nemesis this season, the Wildcats made Stanford freshman Christian Lim throw 110 pitches in five innings after Friday starter Matt Scott didn’t get out of the 5^th.

“I think we’ve just had a really good gameplan coming in,” said Garen Caulfield, who was 3 for 5 and was a home run short of the cycle.

Caulfield has batted third the last two games, moving behind Mason White. Hale said the move was partly due to the absence of Adonys Guzman, who had been batting cleanup but missed a second straight game—he’s expected to start Sunday’s finale—after taking a ball off the arm in practice.

The move could become permanent if Caulfield continues to produce. He is 5 for 9 with three RBI and five runs scored in the No. 3 hole.

“We know Garen’s a guy in this league that’s got a reputation, so if you don’t throw strikes to Mason you’re going to have to face Garen with guys on base,” Hale said.

Arizona scored twice in the bottom of the 1^st and added another in the 3^rd but then went cold in the middle innings before manufacturing offense in the 8^th for the second night in a row. On Friday it was a safety squeeze bunt to create a 4-run lead, this time it a sac bunt, a passed ball and a sacrifice fly all contributed to adding two runs.

“It depends on where we are in the order, who we have on the bases, who we have at the plate,” Hale said. “When we get the personnel in the right spots we can do a bunch of things.”

Arizona can go for its fifth sweep in the last six weekends Sunday at 12 p.m. PT, with righty Cam Walty (6-1, 2.64) on the mound.

What a few years ago had been history has now become the standard.

Arizona advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row and third time in four years on Saturday, sweeping Auburn 4-0 in the second round of the NCAA Men’s Tennis Tournament at the Lanelle Robson Tennis Center.

The ninth-seeded Wildcats (26-3) will visit No. 8 Columbia (22-3) next weekend in New York City, seeking the program’s first trip to the NCAA quarterfinals.

A day after sweeping Boise State, but admittedly not playing its best, Arizona made quick work of the Tigers by winning the doubles point without a tiebreaker and then taking a trio of singles in straight sets. Only one singles match got to a third set, a big difference from Friday when all three doubles teams needed to win in tiebreakers and half the singles matches went to three sets.

“I think this was a lot closer to our kind of standard, and what we expect from our team,” said junior Colton Smith, who clinched the match at No. 1 singles with a 7-5, 6-3 victory. “There’s still a lot more room for improvement.”

Added coach Clancy Shields: “We took an L yesterday, without taking an L.”

Shields felt his team didn’t play inspired in the first round, and while he was expecting a bit of a letdown after the Pac-12 Tournament win the previous weekend he was hoping they would put on a good performance for the crowd.

“This is the first time people paid to watch you play; give them a show,” Shields said.

Arizona’s other two wins were from a pair of seniors. Nick Lagaev won 7-5, 6-3 at No. 6 for his 95^th career singles victory, passing Filip Malbasic for the school record, and Herman Hoyeraal won 6-3, 6-4 at No. 4 and finished his match first.

“I’m just a big guy who plays big. Just big serves, big forehand, trying to finish points early,” said Hoyeraal, a native of Norway who had his father and two brothers in attendance for the final home match of his college career.

It will be on different courts, but Arizona’s matchup with Columbia will allow it to return to the scene of a huge moment in the 2023-24 season. In February the Wildcats took third in the ITA National Indoor Championship in Flushing, NY, beating ranked Texas and Texas A&M teams along the way.

“That was where we found out how good this team is,” Shields said.