The Arizona Coyotes are staying in Arizona after all, pending an auction in June.
The team announced it is committed to winning a public land auction for 110 acres of state-owned land north of Arizona Loop 101 and west of N Scottsdale Road in north Phoenix, near TPC Scottsdale. The land is owned by the state, and the minimum bid is set at $68.5 million.
The land will be developed with a proposed arena and entertainment district, similar to the development that Tempe voters denied in 2023. The arena will have 17,000 seats for hockey games and room for 1,500 more for non-hockey events. The proposed area will also include a practice facility, a live music theater, and outdoor space with a 170,000-square-foot roof.
The development will also include office space and luxury residential units.
It will be fully privately funded, according to the new arena section of their website. The project will cost the team over $3 billion, according to the same website.
“My family and I are committed to winning this land auction and building a transformative entertainment district that will not require taxpayer funding for the first time in Arizona history,” Arizona Coyotes Chairman & Governor Alex Meruelo said in a press release. “We will buy this land, build this development and finish a project that will incur the cost of more than $100 million in infrastructure improvements with no burden placed on taxpayers.”
According to the team's press release, the proposed development would create 10,800 new permanent jobs and generate $15.5 billion in new spending over the next 30 years, as well as $581 million in new tax revenue for the City of Phoenix.
The Coyotes have played in ASU's Mullett Arena since the 2022-23 season and will remain there until the 2024-25 season. It has an option to stay in the arena for an extra year into 2025-26. They share the arena with the ASU men's hockey team.
"The revenue that we're getting from them is good, and if it goes away it goes away, but it wasn't built into our model." ASU president Michael Crow said in a meeting with The State Press in March.
Last year, Tempe residents rejected three amendments for a new development that would have kept the team in the city. The team applied for the land in north Phoenix in 2023.
The auction will take place on June 27 at 11:00 a.m. later this summer.
Edited by Walker Smith and Angelina Steel.
Reach the reporter at sbrenna5@asu.edu and follow @shanebrennan36 on X.
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Shane Brennan is the Editor-in-Chief at The State Press. He was a sports and politics reporter, before becoming the editor of the politics desk. He has covered local and state politics for the Arizona Capitol Times and Cronkite News.
