Via Arizona Coyotes Facebook
By Renata Cló | Arizona Republic
Glendale City Manager Kevin Phelps, who has been an outspoken critic of how the Arizona Coyoteshandled its tenure at the Westgate Entertainment District, told The Arizona Republic he thought Tempe voters would have approved the deal for a new arena and entertainment district there but the project would have never been built.
“I want to acknowledge that I come from a position of bias and a position of experience. I’ve always questioned the ability for the team that was put in place, the development team, to deliver on such a complex, high intensity-development, especially as the financial market changed dramatically,” he said Wednesday.
Phelps and other Glendale city officials reacted to the news that Tempe voters rejected three ballot items Tuesday that would have allowed the professional hockey team to build its project near Tempe Town Lake.
The voters’ decision comes almost two years after the Coyotes submitted its new arena proposal, and Glendale announced it wouldn’t renew the team’s lease at what was known as Gila River Arena at the time.
The National Hockey League team and Glendale had a tumultuous 20-plus-year relationship that ended on a bad note when the team’s lease expired last summer.
