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Coyotes President and CEO Xavier A. Gutierrez told reporters Thursday that the Tempe City Council will vote on the team’s proposed arena and entertainment district on Nov. 29, but sources told PHNX that the council could also vote on Nov. 29. The proposal was put to a referendum in May, handing the vote to the citizens of Tempe.
While the November 29 vote will clarify the Council’s views on the Coyotes proposal — on the rights and master plan amendments — the referendum will be the final vote on whether the project will begin. The vote will be held in 2023, and no specific date has been set.
Any number of parties may also sue, including Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, the Goldwater Institute or local civic groups.
Either of these could delay the project’s construction schedule while both parties wait for the citizens’ verdict. There are two construction schedules to consider: the actual construction schedule for the project after the shovel is in the ground, and the 46-acre municipal waste site just cleaned up on the south bank of the Salt River. East of Pastor Avenue.
“It depends on what upgrades you want and what premium package you’re looking for, but we’ve been expecting to be around 23 to 24 months,” Gutierrez said of the construction timeline.
As for the cleanup schedule: “There’s a website next to it that gives us a lot of insight,” Gutierrez said. “We’ve also done quite a bit of [soil] Boring in the RFP process that the city allows us to do. So we think it’s between six and eight months.
“It’s not really that important given what we already know. Obviously, one of the things we keep telling people is: You have to support the levee. So, essentially, we’re going to build a bathtub, which starts from The foundation point of view is great, and we’re right next to Tempe Town Lake, so you have to support that levee.”
Coyotes has proposed a nearly $2 billion development that includes a hockey arena, hotel, about 1,600 apartments, retail, restaurants and a sports book. The team said the project will be privately funded, although it hopes to use some of the city’s sales tax revenue generated by the development to help cover an additional $200 million.
Coyotes will need to remove approximately 1.5 million tons of waste from the site. The team then needed to repair the site before construction began, at a cost of about $70 million. Under the original proposal, the team would pay $40 million for the Eastside cleanup and commit $8 million to repair the Westside, with the remainder paid through bonds. The bonds will also pay for infrastructure such as power lines, water lines, sewers, roads and a parking lot at the northeast corner of the property, which will be owned and operated by the city.
The project could generate $154 million in new taxes for the city over 30 years, $5.9 billion in direct spending for the city, and create 6,900 permanent jobs, the team said.
The proposal was reviewed by multiple media outlets last fall, but Coyotes also released a speech The main points of the proposal were outlined last summer.
The council voted 5-2 to negotiate with the Coyotes in June. Since those talks began, sources say the proposal has actually improved significantly for the city of Tempe based on more concessions from the Coyotes. With that in mind, the proposal appears to have majority support within the council.
While some citizen groups oppose the project, sources say two separate polls of Tempe citizens have been conducted, with more than 60 percent also supporting the project; a window into what the referendum might result in.
As for the threat of lawsuits, two legal sources said Goldwater and civic groups could only get involved if Tempe guaranteed the income bonds.Airport threatens to sue over construction of multi-dwelling units, saying it violates 1994 law intergovernmental agreement Between cities, but the agreement appears to exclude soundproofed apartments, such as those planned by the Coyotes; a point at which Coyotes lawyer Nick Wood drove home at a council meeting in June. Multiple legal sources believe there is no strong case for the airport, or even Phoenix.
In May, Sky Harbor threatened to sue the city of Tempe. Earlier this month, it sent out flyers to 100,000 households in Tempe, Scottsdale and Phoenix, warning residents that new condos could change flight paths and create new aircraft noise in those neighborhoods.
The flyers drew a backlash from Tempe Mayor Corey Woods.
“I reject this alarmist tactic,” he wrote Statement issued by the city government“Our region has a reputation for cooperation and responsible action. It’s unprecedented for neighboring cities to fill their mailboxes with comments on unapproved developments.”
The FAA is required to conduct an impact study on residents before changing flight paths, a move aviation sources say is highly unlikely.as PHNX previously reported, there are already multiple residences along the Rio Salado, and Sky Harbor has no problem with that.One Arizona Republic Survey It was found that the airport at least knew about Tempe’s 2013 Papago Park Center and had no objection.
Anyone who knows Woods knows how gentle his demeanor is, but he admits the flyer angered him.
“I’m really frustrated,” he said. “I’m always open to talking, but that’s not the way to do things.”
While the aforementioned polls show strong citizen support for the project, the project also appears to have support from business leaders.
“At first glance, you can see that there is a lot of opportunity for a project like this, but there are also stakeholders affected, there is potential displacement in terms of transportation and other things, so we formed a committee and met over eight weeks , think they will make recommendations to the board,” said Colin Diaz, president and CEO of the Tempe Chamber of Commerce. “As of Tuesday [last] For a week, we listened to that recommendation and put it to a formal vote. As a board, we support Coyotes in this process, and the city’s due diligence on this process. We know there’s still work to be done, and community meetings, but as a whole, from a tax perspective, from job creation to a lot of the programming they’re going to support, it checks a lot of boxes for us and makes a lot of sense. “
Diaz said other entities agreed, but the chamber wanted to learn more about the project.
“We have Tempe Downtown Authoritywho is also on my board, we Tempe Tourist Office This will also be affected. But we also met with developers, we met with airports, we reached out to cities, and obviously it was an active negotiation and couldn’t really share much. The idea is that we want to do as much due diligence as possible on all available projects to get an informed opinion.
“But if you just look at the financials, it’s obvious because it’s new revenue that doesn’t exist. You’re rehabilitating a piece of land in the city, and it’s going to cost about $40 million, and part of the reason it never gets rehabilitated is that it It’s going to cost $40 million. Now you’ve got a mix of housing and retail, theater components, and public space on ice.”
Diaz believes the project could have a knock-on effect.
“If you look at Tempe Town Lake, it’s the second-largest attraction in the state after the Grand Canyon, with about 2.5 million visitors a year,” he said. “This project is expected to be 3 million a year. Obviously, some of that will overlap, but there was a discussion a long time ago whether it would make sense to extend the lake westward. I think a project like this would mean it would make sense over time and then As you do the bookends activities on the east and west ends of the lake you start to see more emphasis on activating that space and that helps in a lot of ways. It helps keep people and money in the area longer , helps provide something for everyone and contributes to the vibrancy of the region.”
While city council discussions on a project of this size are often volatile, and while further public comment is planned for the November council meeting, it appears Coyotes and its fans will have clarity on the project’s next steps before the holidays, with Woods and A Timeline That Council Member Randy Keating All Wants When they spoke to PHNX Sports in June.
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