Tempe lands new headquarters for Arizona organ-donation network
Jan 15, 2019, 12:15 PM | Updated: Jan 16, 2019, 9:32 am
(Yelp Photo)
(Yelp Photo)
PHOENIX – The city of Tempe has lured the Donor Network of Arizona from its nearly 18-year-old home in Phoenix with a big chunk of land that will be tailored for growth.
The development plan review for the two-story, 70,000-square-foot site near Tempe Town Lake was approved unanimously at last week’s council meeting.
The organ-procurement nonprofit has been headquartered at Second Street near Highland Avenue since 2001.
“This is a great project for us and for the Donor Network,” Mayor Mark Mitchell said at the Jan. 10 meeting.
The plan was open to public comment and moved along without objection from attendees.
The 6.4 acre site on Rio Salado Parkway close to Tempe Marketplace was the last vacant parcel at the Liberty Center development, according to public documents.
The land is south of Loop 202 and is within Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s flight path. That triggered notification to the Federal Aviation Administration.
“It will be (our) home for the foreseeable future,” Nico Santos, a spokesman for the Donor Network said in an email Tuesday to KTAR News 92.3 FM.
The organization hoped to break ground in April and begin moving in by the third quarter of next year, he said.
Two spaces will be carved out of the buildings, one clinical and the other for administration and community outreach.
The clinical portion — “facilitating organ and tissue donation for transplantation” — had outgrown the Phoenix site, the email said.
“We take very seriously our responsibility to donors, their families and transplant recipients as well as our future ability to both save and improve lives. This responsibility continues to be the basis for our strategic direction, policies, protocols and practices,” the company said.
Donor Network of Arizona employs more than 200 people and wants to push that up to 300 by 2027.
