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WATER SUPPLY PROBLEMS, INCREASING TRAFFIC CONGESTION AND A SHORTAGE OF housing are among the quality-of-life challenges the Phoenix area is coping with as its population continues to surge. Another current issue in Arizona's state capital city is the location of a proposed new $331
million stadium for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. The 67,000-seat facility would feature a roll-out natural-grass playing field (sheltered from the desert sun when not in use), a retractable dome and 88 luxury suites. The stadium would replace aging Sun Devil Stadium on the Arizona State University campus as the home of the Cardinals and of college football's annual Fiesta Bowl game. However, the stadium proposal has become tangled in a web of political and local wrangling that could take some time to unravel.
Several communities in the Valley of the Sun are battling over the location of the proposed stadium, since the winning community will stand to gain a significant economic stimulus. Meanwhile, the state Tourism and Sports Authority, the agency authorized to oversee the stadium project, is also facing a legal challenge by a prominent West Phoenix developer over funding concerns.
The sparring over the new football stadium has had a domino effect on other pending sports projects in the area, including a new youth and amateur facility and a $48 million spring training complex in suburban Surprise, Ariz., for Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers. Both of those American League clubs will abandon their former spring training sites in Florida for new warm-up homes in the Phoenix area in spring 2003, moves that are expected to generate considerable new tourism and vacation dollars for the region.
Meanwhile, the West Valley city of Glendale has agreed to contribute $180 million toward the cost of a new arena for the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes, who will move in fall 2003 from their current home in Scottsdale on the east side. The new 17,500seat arena, under construction at freeway Loop 101 and Glendale Avenue, will be surrounded by a 220-acre retail complex that the city hopes will generate sufficient tax revenue to pay off its investment in the team.
All of the new sports projects could also bring a financial windfall for the market's local media, which stand...