Site Selection magazine named the $113 million sale of First Solar’s manufacturing plant in Mesa to Apple – a transaction brokered by Cushman & Wakefield – as its top deal of the year.

Two of America’s leading site selection magazines have now named the deal as their top transaction of the year. Business Facilities magazine awarded the sale its Gold Award in January for the Economic Development Deal of the Year.

Michael White and Jim Wilson of Cushman & Wakefield’s Phoenix office and Nathan Zoucha of C&W’s San Francisco office brokered the deal.

“To choose the top economic development deals of 2013, we evaluated, as we do every year, such factors as capital investment, job creation and regional economic impact among all corporate facility projects we tracked,” said Adam Bruns of Site Selection magazine.

Site Selection predicted an economic impact of $1.5 billion and 700 jobs.

Apple purchased the facility, adjacent to the DMB Associates’ 3,200-acre Eastmark development, for $113 million. The 1.2-million-square-foot plant will be used by Apple supplier GT Advanced Technologies to make sapphire glass and other Apple product components.