Phoenix area dubbed ‘Headquarters Alley’ as corporate relocations surge

Article originally posted on Phoenix Business Journal on May 1, 2026

More than two decades ago when she was working as economic development director for the city of Chandler, the chances for a Valley city to land a corporate headquarters relocation were pretty slim.

But these days, politicians and economic development experts alike have started referring to an emerging HQ hotspot – the growing northeast Phoenix area near Loop 101 – as “Headquarters Alley,” where Discount Tire, Republic Services and now Sprouts Farmers Market are all in various stages of building out new headquarters.

“We would have been lucky to land one a year,” recalled Christine Mackay, who went on to guide the economic development department at the city of Phoenix until joining Greater Phoenix Economic Council as president and CEO last October.

What’s more, the Arizona Cardinals also just started work on a $200 million headquarters and training complex at a massive 217-acre site in Headquarters Alley. The NFL team is building out that facility on about 30 acres, while actively marketing the rest of the property to large businesses looking to build their own headquarters campuses there.

“It’s just such a great place to be,” Mackay said.

“We’re not this market that’s built on legacy, and we’re not this government that’s always turning and looking to its businesses and telling them we want more from you. We want to be their partner. We see ourselves as corporate partners,” she added.

In the wake of those headquarters moves comes even more economic development, as exemplified April 30 when Desert Ridge 293 LLC spent $180 million for nearly 300 acres in the Desert Ridge area, just a short drive from where Sprouts and Republic Services have situated their new headquarters.

Beyond north Phoenix, the metro continues to be an attractive city for companies looking to relocate their headquarters, according to a recent report from CBRE.

The report ranked Phoenix No. 6 in the U.S. for gaining the most corporate headquarters, in a three-way tie with Nashville and Tampa, with a net gain of six HQ relocations in 2025.

Some major HQ moves in the last year include Dutch Bros moving its headquarters from Oregon to Tempe, and signing a lease for a 136,426 square-foot space at Liberty Center. Another big move in Tempe saw software company Cognite relocate its headquarters from Norway to the Valley in late 2025.

Canadian medtech startup NeuroCatch Inc. chose Phoenix as the home of its new U.S. headquarters, moving into a space within the Phoenix Bioscience Core.

And in April, Los Angeles-based builder KB Home said it intends to relocate its headquarters from California to Tempe.

Shift toward intrametro relocations

Last year, according to the CBRE report, there were 164 HQ relocations, up from 96 in 2024, and higher than 2021’s 137.

The top U.S. metros for net HQ relocations in 2025 were Dallas-Fort Worth (11) and Miami (8).

The Covid-19 pandemic and rise of hybrid work drastically reshaped the office market in recent years. Companies have reassessed their space needs and employees’ preferences, leading to some notable trends.

As for Headquarters Alley in north Phoenix, its emergence plays into a growing national trend known as intrametro relocations – when companies move their HQs to other spaces within the same metropolitan area. Those companies are often moving from central business districts into smaller offices in more suburban submarkets closer to where employees live, or in some cases, they are taking advantage of finding prime real estate practically just down the street from their existing headquarters, as is the case with Sprouts.

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