Developers break ground on hotel, the 1st project on ASU’s Novus Innovation Corridor

Crews will break ground Tuesday on a new hotel on Arizona State University’s Tempe campus.

The 151,000-square-foot hotel is the first project to go up in ASU’s athletic district in the Tempe Novus Innovation Corridor, developers said.

Once completed, the 350-acre Novus Corridor will include 3.9 million square feet of office space, nearly 4,000 homes and 300,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. Money generated from the district, created in 2010 by the Arizona Legislature, will go toward building and renovating ASU athletic facilities.

The first phase of the project, just north of the light rail station at University Drive and Rural Road, will also include a new luxury apartment complex and office building.

The hotel is being developed by Catellus Development Corp., ASU’s private partner on Novus, and Mortenson Construction. The hotel will be marketed under two Hyatt brands, Hyatt Place and Hyatt House.

Construction is expected to be completed in summer 2020.

Catering to visitors, sports enthusiasts

The eight-story hotel, on the northeast corner of Veterans Way and Sixth Street across from Wells Fargo Arena, is geared toward visitors attending ASU sporting events and other events in the area, developers said.

“This hotel will provide guests a welcoming place to stay, gather and enjoy downtown Tempe with immediate access to ASU’s largest sporting venues and the Novus Place retail and hospitality amenities,” said George Forristall, director of real estate development at Mortenson. “It’s an ideal step in the transformative development of the Novus Innovation Corridor into a world-class, mixed-use urban community.”

The project’s estimated cost was not immediately available, Forristall said.

The hotel will feature:

Novus Corridor

The Novus Corridor is expected to generate as much as $500 million for ASU athletics over the next two decades, ASU said.

The athletic facilities districts allow universities to capitalize on one of their major assets — land.

Universities can allow a private developer to sign a 99-year lease and build on school land within the designated district. University land is exempt from property taxes under the Arizona Constitution.

Developers in the district will pay rent for the ground and be charged assessments that will be paid to ASU, instead of property taxes.

The money must be used for building or maintaining athletic facilities, according to state law.

Unlike the controversial Omni hotel project, also being built on ASU land in Tempe, the city did not give developers of the Hyatt hotel any tax breaks.

Reach reporter Paulina Pineda at [email protected] or 602-444-8130. Follow her on Twitter: @paulinapineda22.

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