Tempe lands HQ for USA Basketball
Major project slated for Mill Ave.
Officials with USA Basketball, the national governing body responsible for choosing the U.S. Olympic teams, will announce today that they are relocating their headquarters to Tempe as part of an Arizona State University development project that includes a conference center and hotel.
The Arizona Republic reported in June that the basketball organization planned to move from Colorado Springs, Colo., to Tempe, although officials wouldn’t confirm the move at the time.
The $350 million project called USA Place is expected to break ground later this year and to be largely complete by the end of 2015. It will be developed on 10.5 acres at Mill Avenue and University Drive, land owned by ASU. The project will be built with private money. The complex could draw more than 300,000 peo-
ple to Tempe annually, developers said.
In addition to the Olympic teams, USA Basketball chooses rosters for the world championships and other international competitions and holds tryouts and training camps for national teams of various ages.
“This is a big-time move for USA Basketball, one that I personally have been dreaming about for some time,” said Jerry Colangelo, USA Basketball chairman and former Phoenix Suns chairman/CEO.
“All of amateur basketball will flow through our facility. It’s going to make its mark on the game that I feel so passionate about.”
Colangelo said the men’s and women’s National senior teams, made up of NBA and WNBA players, will use the Tempe facilities at times. The men’s team has an ongoing training arrangement in Las Vegas.
Plans call for a 330room, luxury hotel connected to a 30,000-squarefoot conference center, both operated by Omni Hotels & Resorts.
The developer, USA Place LLC, also plans 500 luxury apartments and office and retail space for the site.
The basketball facility will include five full courts and two halfcourts for national team tryouts and training camps.
The courts can be configured to seat 4,500 for public scrimmages and for Arizona Interscholastic Association playoffs in a variety of sports.
A Chili’s restaurant, parking lots and a former shopping center are on the property now. The project is separate from ASU’s planned athletic facilities district.
“In a lot of ways, we think this will invite even more development to happen in Tempe. I think it is very synergistic,” said Susan Eastridge, CEO of Concord Eastridge Inc., an Arizona company that has partnered with Future Cities to form USA Place LLC.
Tempe officials have said the project will be a boost to the downtown, bringing additional visitors who need food and lodging.
Tempe spokeswoman Nikki Ripley said various aspects are still being negotiated. “When the City Council is presented with specific agreements, then we’ll be able to elaborate,” she said.
In June, the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state universities, gave ASU permission to enter into a leaseoption agreement for up to 99 years with a private corporation, USA Place LLC.
That agreement is still being finalized, said Morgan Olsen, ASU’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.
The financial terms haven’t been completed, but Eastridge indicated ASU would receive revenue from the hotel and rebate a portion of that up to $800,000 annually to the conference center for 20 years.
At the end of that time, ownership of the conference center would revert to the university.
Tempe will collect bed taxes and other taxes from the hotel and rebate a portion up to $800,000 annually to the conference center during the same time frame.
This is the second time USA Basketball has chosen to relocate to the Valley
A plan to move to Glendale in 2008, with a private developer building a $53.8 million training campus as part of a larger development near Camelback Ranch, fell through because the developer could not complete financing during the economic downturn.
At the Tempe site, Colangelo envisions a Hall of Fame component celebrating USA Basketball’s world dominance in the sport.
U.S. men have won 14 Olympic gold medals and U.S. women seven.
“This is the first of a new breed of these kinds of facilities,” said architect Michael Hallmark of Future Cities. The ASU graduate has worked with Colangelo on such projects as US Airways Center and Chase Field.
“You’ve got a university with excess real estate and aspirations for what to do with it,” Hallmark said. “Then, training centers, which have a lot of star power but are generally isolated and cut off from communities. This is exciting. We’re able to make up a whole new animal of all these parts.”
USA Basketball has been based in Colorado Springs, headquarters of the U.S. Olympic Committee, since 1993. It shares facilities with other sports at the U.S. Olympic Training Center.
“These new facilities will be a tremendous upgrade,” Colangelo said. “We’re talking about state-of the-art new facilities that will be extraordinary.”
ASU basketball coaches are ecstatic at the prospect of the top junior players in the country coming to Tempe for USA Basketball camps in what amounts to free recruiting.
Almost every kid who is recruited has a dream to play USA Basketball, said ASU women’s coach Charli Turner Thorne, who directed the 2009 USA Basketball World University Games team and was on the 2007 U21 World Championships team staff.
“Everything we do is in terms of recruiting the best players to our program, and this will help us do that. This is a huge victory for our community in the name of worldclass basketball,” she said.
Colangelo has worked with USA Basketball since 2005, first as managing director of the men’s National senior team. The U.S. men are 62-1 during Colangelo’s tenure, winning gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics and 2010 World Championships.
“It’s a tremendous testament to Jerry Colangelo, (ASU President) Dr. (Michael) Crow and (ASU Vice President for Athletics) Steve Patterson,” ASU men’s basketball coach Herb Sendek said. “If you look at the leadership those three are providing on their respective fronts, it’s not a coincidence this facility is going up on Mill Avenue.
“It makes sense on so many different levels. It really is exciting for the economics of the area and potential job growth. It’s a win-win on every level.”
The long-term lease agreement on the property could go to the regents for approval as early as August.
Conference centers and hotels have become increasingly popular on college campuses.
Universities often lease the land to private developers. In 2008, the High Country Conference Center opened on Northern Arizona University’s Flagstaff campus with a Drury Inn & Suites next to it.