Proving sports-related development is a hot ticket in the Arizona development world, a near capacity crowd filled an event room at Skysong this week for the latest BEX Leading Market Series Event: “Game Changers: Building the Future of Sports and Hospitality.”
The event was sponsored by Mortenson Construction, and Mortenson Arizona Sports Market Lead Matt Avila served as moderator.
Joining Avila on the panel were:
- Billy Hilliard, regional VP of business development for The Sports Facilities Companies,
- Jay Silverberg, design principal, Gensler and
- Matt Slatus, president and general manager for Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago White Sox Spring Training.
Following a brief welcome from Avila, the panelists were each invited to give an overview of their companies’ roles and ongoing work in the Arizona sports development space.
Camelback Ranch – A Venue and a Destination
Slatus started by giving a brief overview of Camelback Ranch, the Dodgers and White Sox Spring Training area in Glendale. The site is operated as a public-private partnership in which the City of Glendale owns the site and the company holds a lease to operate the facility. Camelback Ranch serves the entire roster of the clubs’ major and minor league teams, as well as the administration and support staff, and offers 13 full-sized fields, including the stadium, and two half fields. The two core teams’ areas are divided by a five-acre lake in the middle of the property.
The lake is 100% reclaimed water and also serves as the sole source of irrigation for the fields, trees and landscaping on the property.
In addition to the direct sports facilities, the clubs purchased roughly 54 acres from Glendale in 2023 with plans to eventually build the equivalent of a “downtown” to support the ballpark.
Gensler’s Vision Integrates Utility and Destination
Silverberg was next to present. He began his address by noting, “What’s really interesting is, over the last 10-12 years, there’s been a really interesting insertion of sports venues into mixed-use developments.” He said one of Gensler’s focus points has been integrating those two types of large-scale design visions into cohesive and mutually beneficial offerings.
“We look at any sports venue district planning projects as single-project-use programs,” he said. “Sports-anchored districts have much more than just the sports venue itself. If you think about the synergy and the community pride you create with these projects, having the community use projects and the right program mix and the right (sense of) destination is something that’s really important.”
Silverberg later explained that, when designed and executed correctly, the venue becomes part of a larger local ecosystem.
Sports Facilities Companies’ End-to-End Operation
When it was Hilliard’s turn to speak, he described how The Sports Facilities Companies looks to provide advice and operational services across the entire development and lifecycle of sports destinations of all sizes, from local activity fields to major stadiums.
Youth sports tourism is a major focus for the company, and it works to provide an inclusive destination for players who use the sports venue and the families traveling with them. Hilliard noted 90 cents of every dollar spent on youth sports is spent outside the sports venue, providing a wealth of opportunities for operations looking to provide a full suite of supporting hospitality services.
As a result, SFC has three divisions—Advisory, Development and Management—to care for sports tourism facilities across all stages of planning and operations.
“We help cities select the right design and build teams, the right engineering firms—all the ingredients that make these projects so successful—and then we get to sit down at the table next to you all and help from an operational lens to show what we do best in the 140-plus venues we manage across the country.”
The company is currently planning to break ground this fall on a 100KSF-plus multiuse facility in Show Low that will be able to host sports and public events.
Q&A: The Vision and Benefits of Building to Sports Culture
Following the panelists’ introductions and overviews, Avila turned to the question-and-answer portion of the program.
Responding to the question of why some clubs have taken over operations from the cities and other jurisdictions that own the sites, Slatus explained Camelback Ranch was the first Cactus League facility to take over its own day-to-day operations. He explained the situation works better for the teams by enabling 24/7 access for player development and also gives the public greater access outside of sport-centric events.
He added there is no right or wrong way to handle operations, and Camelback Ranch still goes through the City of Glendale’s procurement processes for facility projects but has the benefit of being able to arrange and manage its own handle use projects as well.
Most municipalities that have shifted operations to the sports partner, he added, have appreciated the expanded public access to amenities and services the arrangement provides. Benefits Slatus checked off included civic pride, economic impacts from visitors using hotels/restaurants/other amenities, and providing enhanced opportunities for their residents.
Avila followed up by asking why other teams would want to develop around a Cactus League facility rather than building their own ballpark.
Slatus said a Cactus League facility is part of an entire mixed-use experience, echoing Silverberg’s earlier point. He said making an experience that is anchored in sports and entertainment “creates a fold-in platform for Spring Training guests, and it creates a 365-day-a-year platform for folks living in the Valley.”
Turning to Silverberg, Avila asked how to approach sports-anchored facilities versus standard mixed-use.
Silverberg responded there are major differences, the greatest being that the sports venue is an anchor, rather than the destination itself. He said it is vital to plan for the 250 non-sport days and to set up the surrounding components to address those days’ needs by providing broad offerings and a strong sense of place.
Noting that sports project development is complex, Hilliard said there are more components to consider than with many other mixed-use destinations, and bringing a sports-centric development to completion and launch takes sustained political will, the right combination of land and capital, and the right timing across the process.