PHOENIX — An upcoming auction for land sought by the Arizona Coyotes for a future arena has been canceled.
The Arizona Land Department announced Friday that the scheduled June 27 auction for land located near Scottsdale Road and the Loop 101 would not be held until the applicant, Miracle Development, LLC., receives a special use permit for the proposed arena.
"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," the land department wrote in a statement.
Once the permit is obtained, the land department will move forward with the auction.
12News is awaiting a response from the land department regarding the logistics and reasoning behind the permit requirement.
The Coyotes have been looking for a permanent home in the Valley since Tempe voters rejected a proposal in 2023 to build an entertainment district that would house the hockey team.
The team released a statement about the cancelation of the auction, which reads:
Today, after over a year of planning and meeting every obligation required under Arizona law, the Arizona State Land Department unilaterally canceled the auction that was scheduled to occur on June 27th for the site that has been identified as the future home of the Arizona Coyotes. This unprecedented action by the State of Arizona seriously jeopardizes the future of NHL hockey returning to the desert.
As was announced in an April press conference by Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo and NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, the site of North Scottsdale Road and the 101 was identified as ideally suited to build a 110-acre mixed use development anchored by a state-of-the-art arena to serve as the home of the Coyotes. It has been made very clear to the State of Arizona that the Coyotes are fully committed to building out the infrastructure, going through the necessary approvals and developing the site into a world class destination, yet the ASLD has canceled the auction despite the objections of the Coyotes less than a week before the scheduled auction date.
The organization has worked in good faith with the ASLD and has been on track to win the auction next week until the sudden reversal by ASLD today. By canceling the land auction, the state is forgoing millions, and potentially billions of dollars that would have gone directly to K-12 education. By investing in the infrastructure of this site, the Coyotes would have unlocked over 2,000 acres of state land for development that would have returned over $2 billion to Arizona schools, created thousands of construction and permanent jobs and created a new significant tax base to support the future growth of our state.
The Arizona Coyotes are exploring all of our legal options given this shortsighted decision by the State.
UP TO SPEED
How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.
The county was named after the Maricopa, or Piipaash, Native American Tribe.