In the wake of the crushing May 16 voter rejection of the Arizona Coyotes’ deal with Tempe, other East Valley communities are bubbling up in discussions about the hockey team’s future home.
On May 16, Tempe voters’ rejected a plan for a hockey arena and entertainment district on 46 acres of city-owned land that was once a landfill near the Salt River and Priest Drive.
As speculation began about where the team might try to land, Coyotes President/CEO Xavier Gutierrez would only say the team has started “re-engaging with local officials and sites” and is “committed to Arizona.”
The team fanned those conjectures about a home in a different East Valley community when it created an online poll asking whether the Coyotes should move to Scottsdale, Mesa, Chandler or Gilbert.
Scottsdale was far and away the top choice among the 100,000 votes cast, followed by Mesa.
But few, if any, East Valley communities have spoken with the Coyotes as of last week.
Chandler and Gilbert officials said they have not been contacted by the Coyotes. A spokesperson for the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community said the tribe is not talking with the Coyotes.
Mesa declined to confirm reports the Coyotes had reached out to city staff about the closed Fiesta Mall site in West Mesa.
Mesa Mayor John Giles said he has not spoken to anybody from the team, but thought his city – and specifically the Fiesta mall site – is worth consideration.
John Lewis, the former Gilbert mayor and president/CEO of the PHX East Valley Partnership noted that the Coyotes are members of his organization, which represents a broad swatch of business, nonprofit and and government leaders in the region.
“We are anxious to help them in any way possible,” Lewis said. “Our regional advocacy role is to work with our local city/town leaders to support them as they take the lead in discussions with the Coyotes.”
Lewis said that while Gutierrez in March gave a full presentation of the Tempe proposal to his board, “We have not had specific discussions with the Coyotes since the announcement of the election results.”
But while some East Valley communities are open to receiving a proposal from the Coyotes, they were cool to the idea of government incentives and public-private partnerships.
Skepticism of tax incentives could be significant for the Coyotes’ future plans, as opponents of the Tempe arena successfully targeted the tax breaks that were part of the doomed deal.
The hockey team will have some time to prepare another proposal, as it will play its next season at Arizona State University’s Mullet Center, where it played this season following Glendale’s termination of its arena lease with the team.
Lewis said, “We are in full support of the Coyotes finding a home in the East Valley and Arizona. We felt like they provided a proposal to Tempe voters in ‘good faith’ to offer a long-term win-win proposition.”
But he added, “We are not currently involved in direct discussions with the Coyotes or East Valley city and town leaders, but we will continue to advocate for the Coyotes finding a new location in the East Valley.”
East Valley tribal communities
Hockey fans have speculated that the Coyotes might look to the tribal communities in the Phoenix metro area to strike a deal on an arena.
The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community is centrally located between Scottsdale and Mesa, and is currently home to Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, the spring training venue for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies.
Bernice Cota-Gann, director of community relations for the community, said the tribe is not exploring an arena.
“We are always open to new ideas that can expand development that will enhance the quality of life for our members, community and the state, but at this time, there are no conversations about sports facility development within the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community,” she said.
The Gila River Indian Community, south of Chandler, did not respond to an inquiry about whether the community had been contacted by the hockey team.
GRIC held the naming rights to Glendale’s venue when the hockey team resided there. The GRIC was to be home to the Phoenix Rising FC soccer team but the team chose Phoenix instead.
Chandler
Chandler said in a statement it was not pursuing an arena and has not been contacted by the team.
If the team wished to build in Chandler, the city said, “it would be up to private development to assemble the privately owned parcels necessary to accommodate a sports and entertainment venue of this magnitude.”
“Chandler is 93% built out,” it continued, “and the majority of the remaining unbuilt parcels are dedicated for employment uses.
“Our focus continues to be on attracting and retaining high quality development and employment uses that generate high paying jobs among target industries, including technology, business and health care sectors.”
Mayor Kevin Hartke said the team would be welcome in Chandler, but “we would say ‘you’re welcome to come to Chandler as a private entity.’ We’re not interested in doing a public-private partnership.”
Hartke said Chandler has two sites that might be perfect for the team.
The first is a 50-acre plot of undeveloped land on Arizona Avenue, just north of the Loop 202 San Tan Freeway.
That area had been approved by Council for a multi-use development that included retail, housing, a hotel and office space a few months ago.
However, construction has not started and Hartke said he didn’t know if they were having trouble with financing or second thoughts about going through with the project.
That area, which is the southwest corner of Arizona Avenue and Pecos Road, is about a mile from the heart of downtown Chandler.
The other site is smaller, but has better freeway access. The VanTrust property, which is east of Price Road and south of Chandler Boulevard is about 20 acres. It is, however, close to two freeways, Loops 101 and 202.
There’s an existing business to the south (JX Nippon Mining & Metals), but Hartke said if you consider that entire area north of Boston to Chandler Blvd., it’s about 40 acres.
That area is on the other side of the Loop 101 from the Chandler Fashion Center.
“It could work, but I think there are others ...,” Hartke said. “They got a lot of groundwork to cover.”
Gilbert
The Town said it has not been contacted by the Coyotes, and like Chandler, said the team would need to find private land.
“We do not currently own land that would be able to accommodate an arena-type facility,” it said. “They would need to look for private property opportunities in Gilbert if it were to be considered.”
“If we had the land it would be interesting,” Town Council member Chuck Bongiovanni said. “There’s no land available right now.”
Mesa
Some Mesa leaders expressed interest in the city hosting a Coyotes arena, and Mayor John Giles thinks there are multiple sites in Mesa that could be suitable for a project.
But like other leaders, he said a deal would need to involve private land because the city doesn’t own any parcels that would be appropriate for a project.
Councilman Scott Somers said a Coyotes arena “could really be something special in Mesa,” but added, “I’m not interested in throwing a lot of tax money at this thing.”
In the wake of the Tempe vote, there were reports that the Coyotes reached out to city staff about the possibility of an arena complex on the site of the shuttered Fiesta Mall.
Neither the city, the Coyotes nor the two current Fiesta Mall owners would comment on whether there have been communications about using the mall for an arena.
At 80 acres, the Fiesta Mall site is twice the size of the Tempe parcel where the Coyotes pitched the arena-anchored entertainment district.
Fiesta Mall sits near the Loop 101 and U.S. 60, providing an easier drive for East Valley fans than the Coyote’s previous arena in Glendale.
In March, the owner of one half of the mall submitted a plan to the city to level the old mall and construct a new mixed-use development with retail, offices and up to 4,000 residential units.
Its potential as an arena site is probably boosted by the city’s desire to see it redeveloped after watching the mall languish for years following declining foot traffic in the face of competition and online sales, and eventually closure in 2018.
A splashy project like a professional sports arena might help change the narrative for the Southern Avenue corridor, and a site Giles calls a “strategic piece of property.”
“We’re open to discussing what the city could do to assist in redeveloping Fiesta Mall,” including a Government Property Lease Excise Tax, or GPLET, a way for cities to reduce the property tax burden for commercial projects, Giles said.
Vice Mayor Francisco Heredia, whose district includes Fiesta Mall, declined to comment.
There are two hurdles for the mall to overcome if it were to see an arena proposal.
For one, Fiesta Mall still has two owners. There were rumors earlier this year that Carvana founder Ernie Garcia was about to buy out the other Fiesta Mall owner Jerry Tokoph, but there has not been a sale, and a purchase option agreement between Garcia and Tokoph expired in March.
Also, Mesa’s city charter requires that Mesa voters sign off on city support for “any amphitheater, sports complex, cultural or entertainment facility, arena, stadium, convention facility, or multi-purpose facility” in excess of $1,500,000 in value.
For a large project, that’s a low threshold, so if the Coyotes request a GPLET, it could set up another Tempe-style ballot fight with all its costs and potential heartbreak.
Giles said he’s not sure how a referendum of Mesa voters would fare, but he believes the city isn’t likely to “get involved” enough to trigger a vote.