Election '99 --Phoenix Voters Approve Coyotes Arena

Election '99: Arizona Voters Approve New Arena for Coyotes

Scottsdale, two other towns, show broad support for project, with no new taxes

Phoenix, Arizona, November 5, 1999 -- By wide margins, voters in three cities outside of Phoenix approved a $535 million redevelopment plan including a new arena for the Coyotes.

The tallies in Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Guadalupe, showed major support. The development measure passed with a 58 percent approval in Scottsdale, 65 percent in Fountain Hills and a whopping 81 percent in Guadalupe. The project will be built with at least $200 million in public subsidies, "half of it from Scottsdale, but none of it new taxes," according to the Arizona Republic and the Sports Business Daily.

The approval allows the developer Ellman and the Coyotes to use nearly $100 million in state sales tax income over ten years to finance parts of the project. The city is required by state law to match the state contribution. Additional funds will come from the sale of the arena's naming rights. The team hopes to begin playing at the new arena when their lease at the America West Arena expires in 2001.

A commentary in the newspaper noted that the Coyotes "pulled it off. Done the impossible. They came to town as a novelty ... and in the space of three years, they skate off with a new arena." It added: "Had there been tax dollars at stake, the [Los Arcos] project would've gone up in flames. By creating a self-contained, sales-tax mechanism where the dollars flow in a circular motion and never leave the building, the founders of the project avoided certain defeat."

Given the success, this kind of construction and financing project may be in the cards for other cities.

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