Mohave Today

City of Tempe issued the following announcement on July 22.

The City of Tempe has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a project incorporating a professional sports franchise and entertainment district for two parcels of city-owned land totaling 46 acres at the northeast corner of Priest Drive and Rio Salado Parkway. While the RFP is open, the city will not discuss the matter beyond providing this statement. The statement should be attributed to the City of Tempe as the sole official statement on this matter.

Any professional sports franchise or entity partnered with the franchise can respond to the RFP; it is open to all qualified organizations, locally and nationally. It is customary for cities or towns to issue RFPs in order to get specifics that can be analyzed and evaluated. On occasion, cities like Tempe issue RFPs after being approached with unsolicited, informal proposals; the RFP is a tool to solidify and examine such proposals as well as all other responsive proposals. In this instance, the city determined that this 46 acres of land is underutilized and desired to open up this RFP process.

After the RFP closes, the city will examine and evaluate all responsive proposals. That evaluation will include projected economic impacts, job creation, public benefit, neighborhood impacts, traffic impacts and more. There is no estimated time period for these analyses.

The Tempe City Council ultimately has the authority to accept or reject proposals for further work and negotiation. It is possible during any RFP process that no respondents are chosen to proceed.

Any eventual development agreement that results from any RFP must equate to the best deal possible for Tempe residents. The city exists to serve our residents and we take seriously our obligation to provide a safe, livable community in a fiscally responsible way. Any development agreement consideration process takes place in public at City Council meetings.

The two city parcels involved in this RFP represent an important area of our city, near Tempe Town Lake and the Tempe Center for the Arts, and adjacent to neighborhoods and employers. These people and places also will be top of mind during evaluations of RFP responses.   

Original source can be found here.