Mesa’s electorate rejected a voting proposal to build a youth sports mega-community in Arizona’s third-largest city, making a personal investment organization an even bigger project.
Legacy Cares, Inc., an Arizona-based nonprofit, last week signed with Ziegler, a $250 million investment bank to build a circle of family sports and entertainment complexes in southeast Mesa.
Legacy Sports Park will cover 320 acres at Ellsworth and Pecos, east of Mesa Gateway Airport, in the former General Motors control field. The resort is 50 acres larger than the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Florida, where the NBA is recently meeting to host its playoffs for the coronavirus pandemic.
An innovative rite is scheduled for mid-September with the park, which will be controlled through California-based Oak View Group and scheduled to open in January 2022. Oak View Group’s recent projects come with the progression of the NHL Arena for New York Islanders and the expansion of Seattle Kraken and the University of Texas into a new basketball stadium.
Legacy Sports Park, pending a naming association negotiated through Oak View Group, will come with 24 football fields (one in a multi-purpose stadium), 8 baseball/softball fields (one with a stadium), 20 sand volleyball courts, 40 short pickleball courses, a sporty indoor construction with 62 volleyball courts, 16 basketball courts, an Esports Arena and a 50-acre domain with a multipurpose amphitheater for concerts and other events.
Miller said Legacy teamed up with Manchester United, the English Premier League footballer, to expand a football field.
A gymnastics, joy and dance center, a sports function center, a gym, a sports bar/restaurant, food courts and sportswear department stores are also planned.
“This will be the largest personal circle of family gaming entertainment parks in the country,” said Chad Miller, managing director of Legacy Sports. “The original vision and concept came here more than 20 years ago from my father (Randy Miller, founder/president of Legacy Sports). That way before your time. The installation in this region has been delayed a lot, here on the west coast, there is nothing like it.
“We seek to make sure that we are not only a sports complex, we are an entertainment destination”, to host not only concerts, but also festivals, exhibitions, fairs, conventions and similar events.
Kevin Thompson, a member of the Mesa City Council, said Legacy Sports Park’s expanded vision, to be built in his district, differs from proposals that were unsuccessful in the 2016 election and were rejected in 2018.
“Voters showed at the time that they didn’t want their taxes paid in a resort like the tournament-oriented one,” Thompson said. “The inheritance is one hundred cents consistent with the penny financed through the consonal consistent sector, that is the past aspect of it. We don’t want to move on to citizenship and ask for a consistent authorization to build something like this other than annexation and zoning (open to public debate).”
Thompson said he had “gotten used” to the allocation, as it expanded to include parts that would generate a sales tax for Mesa, which does not have a tax on the number one assets.
“It’s for the region,” Thompson said. “This stimulates economic progression in this immediate domain,” near where Mesa Gateway Airport is expanding. “We will see this domain take off as it is built (the national road) 24. It will be the catalyst that will generate much more economic progression for our communities.”
Chad Miller said Legacy Sports Park will be built on leased land for 40 years (with two five-year extensions authorized) to Pacific Proving LLC, owned by Bill Levine and Arte Moreno. “They wanted something like this to happen in this area,” Miller said.
Funding for this was received through economic progression bonds issued through the Arizona Industrial Development Authority, which culminated in the Ziegler final on August 20.
Waltz Tempe Construction hired as general contractor for the project.
“We had a very artistic banking spouse in Ziegler,” Miller said. “They like to think outdoors. Your banker at the moment on assignment (Tyler Simon) is local and can tell you how much this market needed something like this. They were the ones who structured the financing, sold the bonds and brought this task to fruition.”
An NHL dating thread connects Legacy Sports with Oak View Group.
Doug Moss, president/chief operating officer of the Arizona Coyotes from 2003 to 2010, is now CHIEF Executive Officer of Legacy Cares. Tim Leiweke, founder and president of Oak View Group, was president and ceo of the teams that own the Los Angeles Kings and Toronto Maple Leafs. Peter Luukko, president of OVG Facilities, was in the past president of the Philadelphia Flyers and executive chairman of the Florida Panthers.
“They’ve known others for decades,” said Doug Higgons, ovG’s senior vice president of facilities. “Doug got in touch with Peter and they took us to the concept. Our eyes lit up and we sought to get involved. From the beginning, we’ve done everything we can to help cross the finish line.”
With Legacy Sports Park, Oak View Group is launching into youth sports, valued at $19 billion in youth sports according to WinterGreen Research.
“They approached us through so many similar assignments in the past, and it just wasn’t the right assignment,” Higgons said. “This assignment based on size, scope and location, the relationships we have with principles was certainly the right time and place. We’re so in the lead, it’s probably an assignment that we’re looking to be interested in. Nothing like that in this aspect of the country.”
ESPN Wide World of Sports attracts approximately two million athletes, coaches and spectators a year. Miller believes Legacy Sports Park will at some point have r$3 million, which would represent about a portion of the Grand Canyon’s annual visitors.
“When you think about some of the most important tournaments, leagues, camps and entertainment events, it builds up very quickly,” Miller said. “Some of our partners organize occasions where tens of thousands of people gather on a given day. Many of these organizations have already committed to moving. I can assure you that we will definitely be one of the top tourist attractions in the state of Arizona, with traffic, we will pass through our door.”
Jon Solomon has written about the megacomplexes of young people and the so-called tournaments in his paintings as editorial director of the society program and the Aspen Project Play Institute.
“Normally, you might see it work,” Solomon said of an assignment as large as Legacy Sports Park. “This thirst and preference for competitive tournaments and the occasions to show off has diminished. X is COVID. What does it look like to move forward? Play.
“The challenge I have with those megacomplexes is that they are built largely for tourist purposes and continue to increase the amount of games you have to play. You have to fill out those services or you’ll lose cash. Going back to what has already been a challenge with youth games, that is, many young people are too specialized and focus on a singles game at a very young age and play it all year round. And there’s a lot of cash for parents, and they feel they have to keep doing this because it’s this arms race and they don’t know they have to leave.”
Oak View Group cares about the NBA and NHL in managing its bubble sites this summer in Orlando, Toronto and Edmonton. If something similar is needed in the future, Legacy Sports Park can be a viable site.
“It’s such a wise idea, that’s why we have to be part of this project,” Higgons said. “We have the ability to light each area separately or do a giant event in the park.”
Legacy Sports Park can also better position the Phoenix Metro to host Olympic education and sporting events. Dan O’Brien, an Olympic gold medalist at the decathlon in 1996, will be the director of functional education at Legacy Park.
Arizona Republic reporter Bob McManaman contributed to the report.
Contact the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.