Tempe voters reject entertainment district proposal from the Arizona Coyotes
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Tempe voters on Tuesday rejected a set of ballot measures that would have created a new venue for the Arizona Coyotes.
City officials say the hockey arena and entertainment district will not move forward.
The propositions would have changed Tempe’s general plan, rezoned a landfill and green-lit a development deal with the Coyotes.
But the opposition group called Tempe 1st declared victory over the NHL team and those who pushed the project.
Leader Dawn Penich-Thacker said the results send a clear message to the Tempe City Council and would-be developers.
Hear Dawn Penich-Thacker on The Show with host Mark Brodie
“Residents really care about our community, and we want to have a say in how our city continues to grow,” she said.
Supporters of a multibillion-dollar proposal gathered a couple miles away from the Tempe 1st crowd. They heard briefly from Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez, who called the decision by voters disappointing.
“What is next for the franchise will be evaluated by our owner and the National Hockey League over the coming weeks,” he said.
Gutierrez did not take questions from reporters.
“The National Hockey League is terribly disappointed by the results of the public referendum regarding the Coyotes' arena project in Tempe,” NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “We are going to review with the Coyotes what the options might be going forward.”
Tempe Mayor Corey Woods says while the City Council approved the district, voters had their concerns.
"We had an incredible amount of turnout for a special election in May, and a lot of people voted, and obviously the voters spoke and spoke very loudly," Woods said.
Woods added that he has not spoken with the Coyotes since the vote, and it is up to the team to decide where to go next. He says the city will have to look at other ideas for the 46-acre lot.
Last month, Bettman said he did not want to think about what would happen if the ballot measures failed.
The Coyotes shared a downtown Phoenix arena with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns after relocating from Winnipeg in 1996, then moved to Glendale’s Gila River Arena in 2003. But the Coyotes had a troubled tenure in the Phoenix suburb.
Then-owner Jerry Moyes took the Coyotes into bankruptcy in 2009 and Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie put in a bid to purchase the team with the intention of moving it to Hamilton, Ontario.
The NHL, wanting to keep the team in Arizona, put in a counter bid and a Phoenix judge ruled the team could not be sold to Balsillie to circumvent the NHL’s relocation rules.
The league ran the Coyotes for four seasons, and the financial constraints took a toll — leading in part to a seven-year playoff drought.
A new ownership group brought new hope in 2013, but turmoil surfaced again in 2015, when the city of Glendale backed out of a long-term, multimillion-dollar lease agreement. The Coyotes leased the arena on an annual basis until Glendale announced it was terminating the contract after the 2021-22 season.
The franchise found a temporary solution, working out a deal to share Arizona State’s Mullett Arena for three seasons. The Mullett has a capacity of 5,000 and is by far the smallest home arena in the NHL.
The Coyotes submitted a bid to buy a tract of land in Tempe, and the Tempe City Council voted to begin negotiating on a new entertainment district. The City Council later voted to send the project to a public vote.
The Coyotes thought they were in good standing with the city of Phoenix and Sky Harbor before a legal filing in March sought to rescind Tempe’s recent zoning and land-use changes. It also asked to prohibit future residential considerations in an area the FAA says is incompatible with residential development due to its positioning under Sky Harbor flight paths.
The Coyotes countered by filing a $2.3 billion notice of claim against the city of Phoenix for alleged breach of contract.
KJZZ's Greg Hahne contributed to this report.
