Report: USA Basketball may not be moving to Arizona

USA Basketball’s move to the Valley is in doubt after plans for “USA Place” redevelopment project collapsed, the Phoenix New Times reports.

USA Place is a $350-450 million development project of a parking lot on the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and University Drive. The plan was to build a hotel and conference center that would also be the home of USA Basketball.

“USA Place will offer USA Basketball an excellent site for the development of its office headquarters, a training center and event center that will provide the organization with a first-class site for hosting junior level events and will allow USA Basketball to continue to evolve,” USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo said in a July 2013 statement. “The new USA Basketball headquarters and training center will be first-class, state of art facilities, something I know we will be very proud of.”

The project reportedly collapsed after missing a Dec. 31 deadline to find financial backing.

USA Basketball is scheduled to move its operations to Arizona in 2016, but the existence of USA Place was always in the plans. A spokesman for USA Basketball was informed of the recent happenings, but is yet to release a statement.

The New Times reported that plans are in the works for USA Place to put $4 million down with Arizona State University while it explores new options. This comes after a 99-year lease was signed with the university in September, contingent on meeting the aforementioned Dec. 31 deadline.

ASU released the following statement in response to the report:

Arizona State University has been more than generous in granting multiple extensions to deadlines to USA Place in its efforts to secure this ambitious project.

Arizona State University and USA Place entered into an option to lease dated Jan. 7, 2014 granting to USA Place a series of options to lease the property. USA Place missed its very first closing deadline of Feb. 28, 2014, but asked for an extension until May but couldn’t meet that deadline, either, and the option to lease terminated. Although Arizona State University had no obligation to continue to work with USA Place after that termination, ASU agreed to enter into an exclusive negotiating period with USA Place, and thereafter extended the exclusive negotiating period on several occasions, all at the request of USA Place.

Arizona State University has consistently required throughout the exclusive negotiating period that USA Place demonstrate its commitment to the transaction by making a substantial deposit to reinstate the option to lease. USA Place repeatedly pledged to provide a deposit to secure its commitments but never did so.

USA Place failed to deposit the required deposit in the escrow account. Instead, USA Place’s potential equity partner deposited funds in an unrelated escrow account, which was under the unilateral control of that equity partner. Arizona State University had no access or right to those funds. Any suggestion that this escrow deposit satisfied USA Place’s obligations is incorrect.

Arizona State University remains committed to developing a project on the property at Mill Avenue and University Drive that will harness the potential of this site for the University and Tempe communities, but the university must now look for alternative developers to advance the project.

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