Hosting its third Super Bowl, Glendale is no longer 'the middle of the middle of nowhere'
As Glendale prepares to host its third Super Bowl on Sunday, the rapid evolution of the city, especially around the stadium, has taken center stage.
“Would we have thought in our wildest dreams it would turn out to be the way that it is?” Elaine Scruggs, former mayor of Glendale, said. “No, because there was never anything like it. We would have been unrealistic to even try to envision anything like that.”
Scruggs, who served as mayor of Glendale from 1993 to 2013, presided over the city as the Westgate Entertainment District was developed, and saw the Coyotes and Cardinals relocate to Glendale. Even though the city aspired to create a commercial corridor along Loop 101 in the area that is now Westgate, the idea of creating a sports-centric district was never the expectation.
In the time since Glendale hosted its first Super Bowl in 2008, the area around the stadium has grown to include 12 hotels, a casino, the Tanger Outlets and entertainment venues like TopGolf and Tiger Woods’ PopStroke mini golf concept, which marked its soft opening the week before the Super Bowl.
'The middle of the middle of nowhere'
Bringing the Coyotes to Westgate was not the city’s original plan. The Coyotes had been looking at a location in Scottsdale, the former Los Arcos Mall, which has since been redeveloped into SkySong.
When the Los Arcos plan fell through, Glendale submitted a site for consideration, which was “nearly identical” in characteristics, Scruggs said. The defunct shopping center was on 59th and Northern avenues, and the city pitched the site as an option for the Coyotes.
The site was not chosen, but during the selection process, all the acres of empty farmland along Glendale Avenue near Loop 101 became a focus. Scruggs said Steve Ellman, the developer of Westgate and the arena, decided that the larger, empty site offered the opportunity to build out all the plans. The city really wanted the old mall to be redeveloped, so as part of the agreement to build Westgate, the mall redevelopment also had to be included.
The former mall is now a Walmart-anchored shopping center, which Scruggs said has transformed the site from becoming a blighted area to providing much-needed shopping opportunities for the neighborhood.
“The opportunity presented itself and we took it,” Scruggs said.
Even as Westgate began to develop and the arena, now called Desert Diamond Arena, opened, the area around the district was notably bare.
The arena’s first concert, held in 2004, was Bette Midler, and Scruggs was in attendance.
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“During the concert, she said ‘I don’t really know where we are, this is the middle of the middle of nowhere,’” Scruggs said. After the concert, Scruggs said she had a chance to introduce herself to Midler, as the mayor of the middle of the middle of nowhere.
“We were not even four miles from where our city was founded, it wasn’t that far, but there was no connection between the two,” Scruggs said of the expansive acreage between downtown Glendale and Westgate.
Scruggs said Glendale never planned to bid on the Cardinals stadium, now called State Farm Stadium, either, but the city was approached to pitch a site.
“We wanted to make good use of our freeway,” she said, adding that the area was the “only sensible site” for the Cardinals to go.
“We didn’t come up with the idea to build a sports and entertainment district,” she said. “People would have thought we were crazy if we did.”
Construction began on the stadium in 2003, the same year the NFL announced that Glendale would host the 2008 Super Bowl. Construction on the stadium completed in 2006.
“There is no way I can describe what all is required to host those kinds of events,” Scruggs said.
Those were some of the last years that political leaders were closely involved in courting and planning the Super Bowl, she said. In the years ahead of hosting the game, she and other delegates from Arizona and Glendale attended several Super Bowls, learning about different requirements for hosting, like hospitality, public safety and transportation.
By the time Glendale hosted the Super Bowl in 2008, the first pieces of Westgate had begun to open, including the movie theater, some restaurants and a sports memorabilia store, Scruggs said.
“Some more businesses were there, but certainly not what there is now, because we just didn’t have that much to offer,” she said.
Still, having all eyes on Glendale that year brought attention to Glendale like it had never seen before.
“It set the stage for Glendale to be recognized as a city open for development, for business and commerce,” she said.
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Scruggs said the impact of hosting that Super Bowl is immeasurable.
“It wasn’t just for Glendale, it opened up opportunity for all of the West Valley,” she said. “The West Valley wasn’t seen as the top of the list for economic development, it was mostly residential. People lived there and they worked somewhere else. This opened up great opportunities for all West Valley cities, the momentum went in that direction.”
Recovering from the recession
Around the time the city hosted the 2008 Super Bowl, the national economy collapsed, and states, especially Arizona, took years to recover. The area around Westgate languished and the property went into foreclosure.
“We would have loved more development, but many of the investors who bought land were going into foreclosure,” Scruggs said. “It wasn’t just Arizona; it was the whole country at the time.”
Assessed values in Glendale dropped by half, and investors did not want to hold on to investments and be on the hook for a balloon payment at the end of their loan. Much of the land in the area went back to bank ownership.
Even as the city was getting ready to host the Super Bowl again in 2015, the city was in a tough financial spot and leadership questioned whether the city could afford to do it again, Jerry Weiers, mayor of Glendale, who took office after Scruggs in 2013, said.
“In 2015, we had come out of an incredible recession, and we were reeling from that,” Weiers said. “We wanted to ensure that we could do it. We had already cut several things in previous years because we didn’t have choices.”
The city also had many staffing changes in the years ahead of the 2015 game, creating a staff with relatively little experience, he said.
“But even now I think we had the best Super Bowl that’s ever happened in 2015,” Weiers said.
By the time the city hosted the Super Bowl in 2015, private investment in the area had begun to bounce back. The Westgate district had two apartment complexes and seven hotels developed, according to data from the city. The Tanger Outlets opened its first phase in 2012 and opened portions of its second phase in late 2014.
The West Valley's 'downtown'
This year, when all eyes of the world are on Glendale, the district around the stadium is again undergoing major growth.
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“Even driving in on I-10 west, Loop 101 is visually very different than in 2015,” Sintra Hoffman, president and CEO of Westmarc, the West Valley’s economic development advocacy organization, said. “Even since the last Super Bowl, there was a lot more dirt they would have been driving past. Now they’d drive past the VAI Resort under construction.”
Hoffman said Westgate has become a gathering place for the whole West Valley.
“Westgate is the West Valley’s downtown,” Hoffman said. “Even though the region is big, at the end of the day this is the vibrant area that everyone comes to.”
Kevin Phelps, who has served as Glendale city manager since November of 2015, said the city has been focused on sustaining the Westgate district and growing the offerings there to be in a better position to recoup some of the money spent to put on mega events like the Super Bowl.
“We are trying to increase the hotel rooms, work to attract food and beverage, experiential opportunities and build out the infrastructure,” he said.
One of the largest expansions in the district has been the opening of the Desert Diamond Casino, which opened in 2020 and has plans for expansion. Other entertainment venues, like TopGolf and Dave and Busters will give visitors more options for things to do in the area when not attending the game.
Weiers said having the major spectacle of the Super Bowl happen in Glendale so many times has also helped shift perceptions of the city.
“15 years ago, we were looked at as hickville,” he said. “I don’t think we’re looked at like that anymore.”
Weiers said he believes a large portion of Glendale’s recent growth has been due to hosting Super Bowls and the notoriety that comes with it, and hopes this year will be no different.
“I hope all the work we’ve done will pay dividends in the future,” he said.
District could still double in size
And the area still has room to grow, long after Sunday.
“We are blessed with a clean piece of paper, a tremendous amount of land that surrounds the stadium and entertainment district,” Phelps said, adding that in the next two to five years a handful of other developments will be opening in the district.
The largest and most notable is the nearly $1 billion VAI Resort, which will include 1,200 hotel rooms. The 60-acre development will be Arizona’s largest hotel. The resort is centered around a 6-acre swimming pool with a “party island” and concert stage in the water feature. The Mattel Adventure Park is a tenant of the resort and is underway in its construction. The theme park will include rides and games based on Hot Wheels, Thomas the Tank Engine, Barbie, Masters of the Universe and Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
Also planning to open in Glendale after the Super Bowl is a pickleball-themed food and entertainment venue called Chicken N Pickle.
“The most encouraging thing for the future of Westgate has been that we no longer have to go out and pitch this to people,” Phelps said. “The reputation is out there. I don’t think it’s too much hyperbole to say the district could double in square footage in the next seven to eight years.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Glendale first hosted the Super Bowl in 2008. How different is it today?
