FADING FORTUNES Alex Meruelo's dream of building a hockey complex in Phoenix ended up as a desert mirage

FADING FORTUNES: Alex Meruelo's dream of building a hockey complex in Phoenix ended up as a desert mirage

By: Brandon Brown

For 27 seasons – only three of which produced winning records – the Arizona Coyotes brought professional hockey to the Valley. Just like that, the team is gone and there is little chance of an National Hockey League franchise returning.

Alex Meruelo, the owner of the recently deactivated Arizona Coyotes NHL franchise, gave up on bringing professional hockey back to the Phoenix metro after the cancellation of a June 27 Arizona State Land Department auction for land on which he had said he wanted to build an arena and entertainment complex.

Multiple reports citing unidentified sources said the remaining Coyotes staffers were informed June 24 that Meruelo had no plans to further pursue arena options and bring a team back to the Valley. Meruelo did not make the announcement in person, but rather his son Alex Meruelo Jr. told employees, the Associated Press reported.

The NHL forced Meruelo to sell the Coyotes in April after he was unable to come up with a permanent arena solution for the team. The team was moved to Utah where Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz, paid $1.2 billion to start a franchise.

The league had made a deal with Meruelo that he could bring a team back to Arizona if he could build an NHL-style arena in the Phoenix area. The Coyotes played the past two seasons in Mullett Arena, Arizona State University's college hockey venue that only had a capacity of 4,500 for NHL games.

Happier Days: From left are then-Arizona Coyotes president and CEO Aaron Cohen, team majority owner, chairman and governor Alex Meruelo and John Chayka, president of hockey operations and general manager, at the 2019 press conference in Glendale when Meruelo was introduced as the team's new owner.

While the Coyotes' franchise had struggled for years to find a permanent arena solution and be a profitable business, the final nail in the coffin of the Valley's NHL franchise was when the Arizona State Land Department announced on June 21 it would no longer be holding an auction for around 100 acres of state trust land at the northwest corner of the Loop 101 freeway and Scottsdale Road that the Coyotes ownership applied to buy at auction.

Zoning issues hold up auction

Meruelo proposed building an entertainment district on the land with an NHL-sized arena, a practice facility, offices, live music theater, 400,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space and 1,900 luxury residential units. The Coyotes were eyeing that land after having been forced out of its former home in Glendale and then losing a ballot initiative to be able to build a similar arena and entertainment district in Tempe.

The Land Department said that it became clear that the zoning on the land would not allow for a major sports arena to be built on the property as it currently sits.

"ASLD recently confirmed that the proposed arena use will require a Special Use Permit, and as a result we are requesting that the applicant file for and receive a Special Use Permit prior to the auction," ASLD said in a statement. "This affords the applicant and ASLD certainty that the applicant can build what it intends to build for its anchor tenant. It is not uncommon for ASLD to require applicants to secure zoning/use permits prior to auction."

Phoenix City Councilman Jim Waring confirmed to multiple news outlets in the Valley that the Coyotes' ownership did not have a zoning attorney working on the case.

The Coyotes organization said it was taken by surprise by the ASLD announcement and even suggested possible legal action against the state agency. Days later, Meruelo backed away from the project altogether.

He still owns the Tucson Roadrunners, the minor league hockey team affiliated with the Utah franchise. At one point Meruelo said he wanted to relocate the Roadrunners to the Phoenix area and make the team's home Mullett Arena, but after receiving financial incentives from the city of Tucson, the team was going to play all but six home games in Tucson, with a half dozen games being played at Mullett in Tempe. Following the decision to cancel the auction, the Coyotes announced all Roadrunner games would be played in Tucson in the upcoming season.

Even though Meruelo was not able to build his dream entertainment district in the Valley, he does intend to build one around a basketball arena in Reno, Nevada. In September 2023, Meruelo unveiled his $1 billion entertainment district and arena in that city.

Based on Meruelo's failed attempts to build similar plans in Tempe and Phoenix, the project could seem on the surface to be a pipe dream as well, but Meruelo already owns the land on which it will be built, next to his Grand Sierra Resort. The University of Nevada's men's and women's basketball teams are already signed on to start playing there in 2026 and some reports suggest that Meruelo would move the Roadrunners to Reno once it is completed, which caught Tucson officials off guard.

Construction on the Reno project still hasn't started yet, but the groundbreaking is supposed to take place later this year.

Can NHL hockey come back to Arizona?

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed at a June 26 press conference that Meruelo terminated his right to reactivate the Arizona Coyotes franchise.

The deal Bettman and the NHL made with Meruelo indicates that there is a belief that hockey could be successful in the Valley and that Phoenix could possibly be an expansion market. When it comes to expansion, Bettman has said in the past that he looks at ownership, the viability of the arena in play and if the market would strengthen the league as a whole.

At the press conference, Bettman said placing a new team in Phoenix is not something the NHL is focused on right now.

“I think there are fans there, I think it’s a good market. But somebody, before we can even have this conversation, has to solve the arena problem, and that has been daunting,” Bettman said.

Phoenix joins a long list, including Quebec City, Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Omaha that are on the outside looking in but have a fan base hankering for an NHL franchise. To win, Phoenix would need an ownership group with something none of the Coyotes' previous owners had: the right amount of political and financial capital – and a place to play.

Arizona Coyotes, the Alex Meruelo years: A Timeline

• 2019: Cuban-American hotel and casino owner Alex Meruelo purchases the majority share of the Arizona Coyotes from Andrew Barroway for a reported $300 million. He becomes the first Latino owner of a National Hockey League team.

• 2020: Meruelo hires Xavier Gutierrez as the team's CEO, the first Hispanic chief executive in the NHL. The team promises it will have a permanent arena solution decided within a year.

• 2021: The city of Tempe issues an RFP for a sports stadium or arena and entertainment district to be built on a solid waste compost yard. The Coyotes were the only submission, but after the team displays an interest in the new site, and fails to make tax and rent payments on time, the city of Glendale does not renew the Coyotes' lease at the city-owned West Valley arena.

• 2022: The Coyotes find a temporary home at Mullett Arena, a newly constructed, 5,000-seat arena Arizona State University built for its hockey team, with room for only about 4,500 seats during NHL games. In November, Tempe City Council approves plans for the Coyotes to build a $2 billion-plus arena and entertainment district near the corner of Priest Road and Rio Salado Parkway, but mostly on the condition that the final outcome would be decided by a public referendum vote.

• May 2023: In a special election, 56% of Tempe voters shoot down measures that would have moved the arena deal forward. The Coyotes, and the NHL, were shocked by the results but said they were still committed to building a new arena in the Valley and looked at several locations.

• April 2024: In a deal forced by the NHL, and nearly a year after the failed Tempe vote, the Coyotes franchise was sold to the NHL and then in turn to Ryan Smith, the owner of the Utah Jazz, to begin play in Salt Lake City for the 2024-25 season. The move came just weeks after the Coyotes presented a plan to buy more than 110 acres of Arizona State Trust Land in north Phoenix at a public auction in June.

• June 2024: The new Utah Hockey Club franchise, made up of former Coyotes players and coaches, is overwhelmed by season ticket requests, getting 34,000 deposits for the team's 16,000-seat capacity Delta Center arena in Salt Lake City.

• June 21, 2024: The Arizona Land Trust cancels the planned land auction less than a week before it was scheduled, saying that it wanted to reset the deal and asked that Meruelo's group first file paperwork for a special-use permit for the land that would, in essence, ensure that any rezoning required for the project would be covered.

• June 24, 2024: Alex Meruelo Jr. informs the remaining Coyotes staff that the Meruelo family had no plans to further pursue arena options and bring a team back to the Valley.

• June 26, 2024: NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman confirmed in a press conference that Meruelo terminated his right to reactivate the Arizona Coyotes franchise.