Initial Approval Secured for Construction of Big Sports Arena in Tempe

A plan to build a new sports arena with a 5,000-seat capacity in Tempe has secured an important green light.

Members of an Arizona State University Board of Regents committee have given their final approval to a project that will provide a spacious home to the Sun Devils Ice Hockey team.
The $15 million project has been in the discussion stage for several years, with ASU officials wanting to build the facility on a section of the school’s Tempe campus that has seen a significant amount of new mixed-use development.

That area is off South Packard Drive, to the east of the 14,000-seat Desert Financial Arena.

The new arena, which will also host gymnastics, volleyball, and wrestling team competitions, still awaits the final approval of the full Board of Regents in a vote scheduled for November 18.

Earlier this year, ASU officials scrapped the idea of building a new arena that would be attached to the Desert Financial Arena, proceeding instead with a project focused only on a single multi-purpose arena.

It was thought that construction would start on the attached Desert Financial Arena by this fall.

Now it is expected that work on the hockey stadium, which will feature two ice surfaces, and an overlaid wood floor allowing for the facility to be used for other events, will begin sometime early next year, with a late 2022 completion date.
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Launched in 2014, the Sun Devils have played their home games at the nearly 50 year-old Oceanside Ice Arena, also in Tempe.

​By Garry Boulard

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