Novus Corridor at ASU readying to add hotel, office, restaurants

Article originally posted on AZ Central on May 26, 2026

The 330-acre Novus Innovation Corridor on the east side of Arizona State University’s Tempe campus is nearing completion of its latest phase, with only one retail space remaining available for lease in the existing buildings.

Novus is generally located on Rural Road and Sixth Street in Tempe, but spans north to Tempe Town Lake and includes the former Karsten Golf Course, which is closed and in the process of redevelopment.

About 850 apartment units are now open in the corridor, including the 318-unit Mira complex on the east side of Rural. That project is offering 10% of its units to ASU nonstudent employees at a discounted rate, ASU CFO Morgan Olsen said.

So far, 11 restaurants and one ASU spirit store, called Sparky’s Shop, have opened in the Novus Corridor, including three standalone restaurants and several on the ground level of an office building and apartment complex. Now, almost any new retailer looking for a location in Novus will need to wait for a new building to be constructed.

There are some development-ready spots in the corridor that could begin construction soon, said Greg Weaver, CEO of Banbury Development, the master developer of the corridor.

The developer, along with ASU, which owns all the land in Novus, have hired brokers to seek tenants for a future boutique office building, near the event lawn, which is mostly surrounded by standalone restaurants. The office could include ground-floor retail, Weaver said. There is also a development-ready hotel site along Novus Place, the road that was built through the corridor.

As businesses have seen the success of the restaurants located in the corridor, demand has increased significantly, Weaver said.

“Novus has its own gravitational force now,” Olsen said.

The university has one more site on the east side of Rural Road that could be developed into an apartment complex, Olsen said.

After that, most development in the core of Novus will depend on relocating the university’s track-and-field and tennis facilities, which are planned for development on the east side of Rural Road near the existing softball complex.

Olsen said those sports will relocate “as soon as possible” but did not give a timeline on when construction would begin.

Once the track-and-field and tennis facilities are constructed across the street, the existing facilities can be razed and redeveloped, with a variety of new development planned, including additional retail, apartments, offices, medical offices and age-restricted housing. There has been demand for senior housing similar to the university’s Mirabella complex on the west side of campus, at a lower price point, and said there could be opportunity in Novus for a similar project, Olsen said.

There has also been interest in creating a clinic for ASU students and staff in the corridor, he said.

“We have 20,000 people working here and 60,000 people going to school here,” he said. “We have heard from employees that if they have a doctor’s appointment, it can take the better part of a day. We think we could have something here.”

Olsen said the university also aims to create a “human performance facility” that would focus on physical training, assessment and research. That facility could be related to athletics but also would apply to health overall.

On the eastern portion of the shuttered Karsten Golf Course there is one vacant office building that has been completed as part of the corridor’s development. That building is move-in ready for any business tenants, Weaver said.

Athletics benefits from Novus growth

Novus was created through an Arizona law that allowed the three public universities to create “athletic facilities districts” to generate money for sports facilities using land owned by the university.

ASU so far is the only university to take advantage of the law, Olsen said. It creates two revenue streams for athletics, capturing the rent for the long-term leases of the land in the corridor, and receiving annual payments in lieu of property tax.

Because the land is owned by the public university, it is not subject to property tax, but building owners in the district pay ASU the equivalent amount, Olsen said.

Novus will be the generator of funds to pay for the upcoming renovation to Desert Financial Arena, which costs about $100 million, Graham Rossini, ASU’s athletic director, said.

Mullett Arena, the hockey venue, was among the first new projects in Novus, which cost $140 million to build. The university is also preparing to create a new football and volleyball training facility adjacent to Mountain America Stadium.

But Rossini said the benefit of the district has extended far beyond the funding for athletics.

“We have a massive head start on schools we compete with,” he said, adding that universities around the country have begun to replicate the district, by adding food and hospitality options around their sports facilities.

Rossini called collegiate athletics a “massive arms race” for attractive facilities and amenities, and said ASU has already seen the benefit of having the district. Nearly all of ASU’s ticketed sports set some kind of attendance record last year, he said, and fans have even opted to watch multiple games in a day, like going to a basketball game, eating a meal at a Novus restaurant, then attending hockey.

About 80% of student athlete recruits visiting ASU eat at Novus for their visit, Rossini said, and many student athletes live in the apartments at Novus because of their convenient location near sports facilities. Opposing teams have also opted to stay in the hotel within Novus.

Some businesses located in Novus have also entered into name, image and likeness deals, where athletes can make money through brand partnerships, with ASU athletes, he said. It is common to see ASU athletes featured in social media posts from restaurants in Novus.

Long-term plans taking shape at Novus

At full buildout, Novus is expected to create an economic impact of $4.9 billion per year, according to ASU, based on development and jobs located in the corridor.

Full buildout of the corridor will take years, but will extend from the existing Novus core north to Tempe Town Lake, where the corridor has land for another lakefront development. It will also include razing and redeveloping Packard Stadium, the former baseball field, which will eventually make way for more multifamily residential and office development.

Once it is built out, the corridor is expected to be home to 40,000 jobs, including through office users, hotels, apartments and retail.