Tempe voters reject arena deal for Arizona Coyotes
The Arizona Coyotes conceded defeat after Tempe voters rejected their proposed $2.1 billion development by a seemingly insurmountable margin, after all of the early ballots were counted Tuesday.
Maricopa County election officials said they counted some 29,153 ballots cast before Election Day. There were not enough same-day ballots left to count to overturn the losing margins.
Tuesday's unofficial tally shows similar trends among the three ballot items ― Propositions 301, 302 and 303 — all of which needed to receive a majority of "yes" votes in order for the Coyotes project to move forward. Each one was losing by a 56% to 44% margin, with the exception of Prop. 303, which was losing 57% to 43%.
The result, if confirmed, throws doubt over the future of the National Hockey League team, which had staked its future on a new arena and a related entertainment and residential project on the western fringe of Tempe Town Lake.
Local opponents of the plan were thrilled.
"This is a victory by Tempe for Tempe," wrote Tempe 1st, the opposition campaign, in a statement about the results. "Tonight, we want to say congratulations and thank you to our fellow Tempe residents."
But for the Coyotes, Tuesday was a bitter and expensive pill.
“We are very disappointed Tempe voters did not approve Propositions 301, 302, and 303. As Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said, it was the best sports deal in Arizona history," Coyotes President Xavier Gutierrez said in a statement. "What is next for the franchise will be evaluated by our owners and the National Hockey League over the coming weeks.”
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the league was "terribly disappointed" by Tuesday's news.
"The National Hockey League is terribly disappointed by the results of the public referenda regarding the Coyotes’ arena project in Tempe. We are going to review with the Coyotes what the options might be going forward," Bettman said in a statement.
Election workers at the Tempe History Museum said they saw a consistent flow of last-minute voters on Tuesday, with dozens continuing to show up even as storms rolled into Tempe later in the evening.
Former Tempe City Councilmember Lauren Kuby, a vocal opponent of the deal, said she saw hundreds of voters entering the polling location after she started camping outside of the building at noon.
All indications were that Tempe voters turned out in near-record numbers.
County elections officials have begun processing the Election Day ballots, but they won't be releasing any more results until Wednesday. They told The Arizona Republic that they expect a second and final batch to be released sometime Wednesday afternoon.
Regardless of how many Election Day votes were cast, the final turnout rate is on track to be the highest in any one of Tempe's elections over the past 13 years. About 32% of Tempe voters had already returned their ballots as of last week.
About the deal
The Arizona Coyotes submitted their proposal to Tempe in late 2021, which involved building nearly 2,000 apartments, an NHL arena and an entertainment district on 46 acres of land west of Tempe Town Lake. It became one of the biggest and most controversial developments in the city's history.
Tempe found itself in the middle of an intercity court battle because of the deal, and nearly every aspect of the proposal — ranging from its economic merits, to the tax breaks included, to claims made by the team about the property site — had been heavily scrutinized for more than a year.
Controversy was even the driving force behind Tuesday's election. Outside activist groups were expected to refer the deal to the ballot because they were upset about the project's lack of affordable housing, the tax breaks it was slated to receive, and the number of union workers it would employ.
That left Tempe and the Coyotes with just two choices: either put the deal on the ballot themselves or wait for someone else to do it. They opted for the former and called an election for May 16.
Since then, the campaign trail had been tense. On one side, opposition group Tempe 1st levied charges of corruption against Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo, arguing that the city was being ripped off. The campaign worked to see the deal defeated on a budget of just $35,000.
The Coyotes' Tempe Wins campaign, supporting the plan, raised roughly 35-times more cash than that — the vast majority of which came from Meruelo's development company. It spent more than $700,000.
The supporters also threatened legal action in response to the corruption allegations, contended the deal was a fiscal slam dunk for the city and promised to turn a "landfill into a landmark" at no cost to taxpayers.
Tuesday's election outcome has major ramifications for city coffers for generations to come. The project site is the "last bulk" of land that Tempe has left to develop, so the city had to make it count.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Coyotes arena deal rejected by Tempe voters
