As Major League Baseball employees begin to trickle into downtown Phoenix ahead of the 2011 All-Star Game, many in the area are preparing — and hoping for — a much-needed economic boost to the area.
The region is projected to gain $67 million in revenue from the event over a five-day period, according to figures from the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau, bringing in money during a typically sluggish month for the city, said Shaun Rachau, vice president of communications for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“This is a great shot in the arm for the Phoenix economy,” Rachau said.
All-Star events will begin with Fan Fest on Friday at the Phoenix Convention Center and will continue on with events such as the Home Run Derby until Tuesday’s game at Chase Field, which will include representatives from every MLB team and is expected to reach a televised audience of about 12 million.
The activities are expected to draw in more than 120,000 people to the downtown Phoenix area, Rachau said. Among them are fans, MLB employees, team support personnel and around 2,000 members of the media who are able to contribute to local businesses.
“Downtown’s going to be quite vibrant and alive during that time,” he said.
Hotels and restaurants will likely see the majority of the impact, said David Roderique, president of the Downtown Phoenix Partnership.
July is one of the slowest months in the area, when high desert temperatures squelch tourism and drain business. Hotels typically see 30 to 40 percent occupancy in the summer. This will make the game’s impact more visible, Roderique said.
Tim Sprague, the owner of Lexington Hotel, said Lexington is currently at 100 percent occupancy for the five-day period surrounding the game, adding that most other hotels in downtown Phoenix are also sold out for the same period. Some All-Star employees are already starting to arrive downtown, he said.
Rachau said they are expecting at least 16,000 rooms in the downtown area to be occupied during the period.
Restaurants in the area are also hoping to profit off the increase in downtown traffic.
“We are hoping we should get quite a few people from this event,” said Chris Mirza, general manager of Mi Amigo’s Mexican Grill in the Arizona Center. “We are ready for it.”
Mirza said business drops 15 to 18 percent in July, so, in preparation for the game, the restaurant has ramped up advertising and added special deals. It will also increase staffing by about four to five extra people per shift.
Aaron May, owner and chef at Vitamin T, which opened last fall in CityScape, said he was excited for the downtown activity but saw the impact on sales similar to how it would be with other big events in the downtown area such as concerts, conferences and athletic games.
“It’s just an excellent opportunity for downtown to kind of showcase all that growth and all that excitement around that,” May said. The national and international exposure from the game will highlight the progress downtown Phoenix has made and, on a long-term level, could create future business opportunities for the area, he said.
“When people come downtown, they’ll see what downtown offers,” Rachau said, echoing May’s words and those of many other downtown proponents.
Downtown Phoenix also played host to the 2009 NBA All-Star Game.
The MLB game will likely draw twice as many people, Rachau said. Capacity at U.S. Airways, where the NBA All-Star Game was held, was 18,000, compared with Chase Field’s near 49,000.
The economic impact of the NBA All-Star Game was not as much as Mirza had expected, he said, but he is hoping for more this time around. Mirza admitted MLB All-Star guests might just take light rail and not explore the area for food, but he and his team will try to get their share of both locals and visitors attending the events, he said.
“We think this is going to be extremely positive for downtown,” Roderique said, adding the impact will be “more visible” than the 2009 game because of when the game falls.
A group of partners has been involved in the preparation and planning for the game for the past two years. The event will cost the city, in things such as overtime for police officers and traffic management, an amount that’s “probably less than a million dollars,” making direct spending far more significant, Roderique said.
Contact the reporter at vpelham@asu.edu
