VAI Resort is aiming to transform Arizona tourism
Arizona Republic
| USA TODAY NETWORK
The face of Kurt Cobain, the late lead singer of ’90s alternative band Nirvana, stares at guests meandering through the beige-painted hallway of VAI Resort’s Amphitheater Tower, bearing words of advice from a poster print on the wall: “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of who you are.” ● When guests unlock the door to their room in the music-centric hotel, they step inside what feels like their own personal Hard Rock Cafe, where the décor includes a guitar above the bed and photos of musicians performing. ● By the end of this year, the view from the balcony should look less like a construction site and more like the stage of an outdoor concert venue. ● If VAI Resort CEO and Arizona native Grant Fisher’s vision comes to pass, people from Phoenix will choose VAI for a weekend getaway instead of Las Vegas.
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What will VAI Resort in Glendale have?
VAI Resort, scheduled to open in late 2024 on Cardinals Way across from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, is a new kind of hotel for metro Phoenix. Its 11,000-capacity concert venue is designed to compete with Las Vegas for A-list artist residencies.
The resort, which the Glendale City Council approved in 2020 when it was called Crystal Lagoons, will include sandy beaches with 5 acres of temperature-controlled water.
It will be adjacent to Mattel Adventure Park, which will include a Barbie Beach House and Hot Wheelsthemed roller coasters. This aims to make Phoenix competitive with Southern California for beach getaways and family theme park trips.
“The traditional hotel in Arizona is golf and spa oriented. Why do people leave Arizona? It’s to go to these mega entertainment destinations. So, what I really wanted to do was bring that to the heart of Phoenix.”
VAI Resort CEO
The resort will also have a spa and wellness center, luxury boutiques and 12 restaurants anchored by a steakhouse that offers stage views.
“VAI is undoubtedly breaking the mold with experiential hospitality, as every aspect is designed to treat guests to incredible entertainment, cuisine and luxury,” Fisher said in a statement.
What makes VAI different from other Phoenix-area hotels?
In addition to the concert venue, man-made beaches and Mattel Adventure Park, VAI will have a 50,000square-foot, European-inspired “party island” called Konos Island and tethered hot-air balloon rides where passengers can view desert and mountain vistas from 400 feet above ground.
Fisher envisions VAI competing with Las Vegas for vacationers.
“The traditional hotel in Arizona is golf and spa oriented,” Fisher, 28, told The Arizona Republic in December 2022. “Why do people leave Arizona? It’s to go to these mega entertainment destinations. So, what I really wanted to do was bring that to the heart of Phoenix.”
It’s rare for a “mega entertainment destination” to be developed outside of Las Vegas, said Emmy Hise, senior director of hospitality analytics with CoStar Group, which owns the global hospitality data company STR.
She said bringing such a concept to reality requires a large amount of land and access to major highways and airports. The VAI location has these attributes.
“I think any time you add something new to a market, especially this type of hotel, people are attracted to it,” Hise said. “The fact it’s a little further west from downtown Phoenix and Scottsdale, there’s more land to develop and it can make it a different type of destination.”
The rarity of hotels like VAI in the U.S. is not lost on Kim Grace Sabow, president and CEO of the Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association. She said Arizona is “witnessing the emergence of a true game changer” for entertainment and luxury hospitality statewide.
“VAI Resort transcends the boundaries of traditional hotels, offering a complete and unparalleled resort destination that sets it apart from the rest,” she said.
The only parallels to VAI Resort outside of Las Vegas that Hise could think of were the Gaylord Hotels, large convention-focused resorts with features like water parks, riverboat rides and animal encounters.
Gaylord’s flagship hotel, the 2,888room Gaylord Opryland in Nashville, Tennessee, offers live music. Kelly Clarkson, Sheryl Crow and Paramore performed there, and it hosted Christmas residencies from country artists like Larry Gatlin and the Oak Ridge Boys, according to Setlist.fm.
How big is the VAI Resort?
VAI is on 60 acres south of State Farm Stadium and will have 1,100 rooms and suites across four towers: Amphitheater Tower: 318 rooms. Rhythm Tower: 311 rooms. Cadence Tower: 299 rooms. VAI Villas: 155 rooms.
The resort originally planned 630 rooms when it was known as Crystal Lagoons.
It will be the largest hotel in Arizona, surpassing the 1,003-room Sheraton Phoenix Downtown.
It also will trounce the sizes of the West Valley’s and Westgate Entertainment District’s top hotels, with more than triple their capacity, Hise said.
The West Valley’s largest hotel is the 343-room Bluegreen Vacations Cibola Vista Resort and Spa near Lake Pleasant, about 20 miles northwest of VAI Resort. It will have 23 more rooms than the largest hotel at Westgate, the Renaissance Phoenix Glendale Hotel & Spa.
How much will it cost to stay at VAI Resort?
Room rates will range from $500 to $900 per night, Fisher said. He didn’t specify whether VAI Resort would charge a resort fee.
Reinventing Valley tourism
If Fisher’s ambitions to remake Arizona’s lodging landscape sound familiar, it’s because others have shared them.
They can be traced as far back as the 1913 debut of the San Marcos Hotel in Chandler. The city’s founder and namesake, Dr. Alexander J. Chandler, envisioned the hotel as a grand golf resort never before seen in Arizona that could compete with Pasadena, California, for wealthy tourists seeking winter escapes.
Fisher cites a more modern example: casino magnate Steve Wynn’s expansion of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s.
The Strip had been known for casino and entertainment resorts since the 1940s, when gangster Bugsy Siegel helped open the Flamingo resort. That same decade, the flamboyant entertainer Liberace pioneered the concert residency at another Strip destination, Hotel Last Frontier.
The mega-resorts came after Wynn opened the Mirage in 1989, leading to a major expansion of the Strip where massive resorts designed for several thousand guests were built in the 1990s and 2000s.
The vast majority of the nation’s hotels with the most rooms are in Las Vegas and were built during this boom. The largest, the Italian-inspired Venetian Resort, opened in 1999. It has more than 7,000 rooms between the original Venetian hotel and its sister property, Palazzo, which debuted in 2007.
In 1989, the Mirage’s opening year, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority recorded 18.1 million tourists in the city. By the end of the 1990s, that number nearly doubled to 33.8 million visitors.
How VAI will compete with Las Vegas for music fans
One of the reasons for that growth is what attracted Fisher to the VAI Resort project: music residencies.
Las Vegas, during its 1990s expansion, had a reputation for residencies dominated by washed-up artists. But Canadian superstar Celine Dion’s A New Day (2003-07) and Celine (2011-19) residencies at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace redefined the format. Her residencies collectively sold more than 4.5 million tickets and grossed more than $681 million, making it Vegas’ biggestselling music residency, according to Billboard.
Countless pop, rock, R&B and country superstars followed Dion’s lead. Elton John’s two Caesars Palace residencies were almost as successful as Dion’s. Britney Spears’ 2013-17 residency at Planet Hollywood made $138 million. Shania Twain ended a long hiatus from music in 2012 with a Caesars Palace residency. Usher’s residency at Park MGM went viral in part for its celebrity serenades; when the 2024 Super Bowl came to Vegas, he headlined the halftime show.
In developing the $50 million, 11,000seat VAI Amphitheater, Fisher understands he has little competition among Arizona hotels. Perhaps the closest similar hotel would be Talking Stick Resort in the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. But its concert ballroom seats 1,600, less than a quarter of what VAI expects to hold.
He instead sees VAI rivaling venues like Arizona Financial Theatre, the 5,000-seat downtown Phoenix theater where big names like Peso Pluma and Olivia Rodrigo have played to sold-out crowds.
Fisher also sees VAI competing with Vegas hotels where residencies take place. VAI Amphitheater would surpass the capacity of at least four of the biggest residency venues in Vegas:
Bakkt Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino, which has hosted Miranda Lambert and Keith Urban, lists a capacity of 7,000.
Dolby Live at Park MGM, which has hosted Usher, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, has a capacity of 5,200.
Resorts World Theatre, which has hosted Carrie Underwood, Katy Perry and Luke Bryan, holds 5,000 people.
The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, which has hosted Adele, Garth Brooks, Rod Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld, lists a capacity of “4,300+ seats” on its website.
How VAI will compete with Southern California for families
Hise said the current lodging market in the West Valley leans heavily on family-oriented extended stay brands like Hilton’s Hampton Inn and Home2 Suites.
She thinks VAI Resort and Mattel Adventure Park, Arizona’s first themed indoor/outdoor amusement park, will elevate that landscape.
“I think they’re trying, in my opinion, to make it a family-friendly destination that’s easier for people to stay at,” Hise said. “Phoenix has a lot of luxury. But (Glendale) is geared toward families with the cluster of resorts (and) the Mattel amusement park. I think it’s aiming for a family-friendly vacation.”
When Mattel Adventure Park opens, Glendale will enter a crowded themepark landscape.
In the West, Southern California dominates. The latest attendance report from Themed Entertainments Association and AECOM found that six of the top 20 most visited theme parks in North America in 2022 are in Southern California:
No. 2: Disneyland Park in Anaheim, 16.9 million visitors.
No. 8: Disney’s California Adventure Park in Anaheim, 9 million visitors.
No. 9: Universal Studios Hollywood in Universal City, 8.4 million visitors.
No. 11: Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park, 3.9 million visitors.
No. 14: SeaWorld San
Diego, 3.5 million visitors.
No. 16: Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, 2.9 million visitors.
At 9 acres, Mattel Adventure Park would be a fraction of the size of the competing parks. Disney’s California Adventure, the smallest Western theme park on the attendance list, is 72 acres.
But the VAI team is betting the Mattel park can prove as successful as Disney’s and Universal’s parks. Last summer offered a sign: “Barbie” was the highestgrossing movie of 2023.
And roller coaster fans will be drawn by the Hot Wheels Bone Shaker: the Ultimate Ride coaster, which climbs 84 feet and drops down a double helix track, and the Hot Wheels Twin Mill Racer, which will feature a double loop and two corkscrews.
Can VAI Resort live up to its ambitions?
Despite some controversies in the VAI development saga, such as environmental concerns regarding its plans to use 50 million gallons of water for its swimming lagoon, and activist and resident opposition to VAI receiving tax incentives, experts see its anticipated arrival as a positive.
Hise expects VAI will be a hit with Arizona staycationers and out-of-state travelers. As for whether it will fulfill Fisher’s vision of remaking Arizona into something on the scale of Las Vegas or Disney’s theme parks, Hise thinks it depends on something outside VAI’s control.
That’s whether Phoenix can attract more transatlantic and transpacific flights.
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport has two routes between Phoenix and Europe with three airlines. American Airlines and British Airways each fly a Phoenix-London route, while Condor Airlines flies a seasonal route to Frankfurt, Germany. In May, Sky Harbor will get a third route when Air France introduces nonstop service to Paris.
Unlike VAI’s competing destinations, the Phoenix airport has no nonstop flights to Asia. Las Vegas has one to Seoul, South Korea. San Diego has one to Tokyo. Los Angeles counts 10 nonstop routes to Asia.
These routes can be crucial in driving the success of a destination. Hise cited the Las Vegas-Seoul route for attracting international tourists to Las Vegas’ KPop music festival We Bridge in April 2023. A post from the festival organizers on X, formerly Twitter, said more than 15,000 people attended.
While not all of the traffic can be attributed to We Bridge, Korean Airlines’ Las Vegas-Seoul route drew 8,516 arriving and departing passengers in April 2023, according to Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.
Phoenix airport officials are optimistic that Sky Harbor will eventually secure a route to Asia, citing the charter flights between Phoenix and Taipei, Taiwan, that transported Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. workers for training; the company is building a 1,100-acre plant in north Phoenix.
Right now, Fisher is focused on bringing his vision of a transformative entertainment resort to reality, a place that would stand as a point of pride for a city he’s called home since he was 3 years old.
Michael Salerno is an award-winning journalist who’s covered travel and tourism since 2014. His work as The Arizona Republic’s consumer travel reporter aims to help readers navigate the stresses of traveling and get the best value for their money on their vacations. He can be reached at Michael.Salerno@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter: @salerno_phx.