A world-class destination for adventure and recreation and a welcoming and compassionate community, Tempe, Arizona is situated in the heart of the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area. One of the most educated communities in the state and among the nation’s most prosperous economies, Tempe offers an amazing array of opportunities. Whether you’re a family looking to relocate, a new start-up, or a Fortune 500 company, the Tempe Economic Development team is ready to help you achieve success.
Bringing in business
The City of Tempe benefits from the regional success that the Greater Phoenix area is seeing in terms of attracting the technology and semiconductor industries.
“Tempe offers a lot in terms of assets that attract businesses in the tech, aerospace, and bioscience industry,” says April Kroner, Tempe’s Deputy Economic Development Director. “We are home to many regional, national, and even international companies, including Honeywell, GoDaddy, Carvana, AIDC, Deca Technologies, and Amkor.”
Tempe’s central location is one piece of the puzzle. “We’re right in the middle of the Phoenix metro, which offers a better quality of life and shorter commute time for employers,” says Kroner.
Other draws for business include Sky Harbor International Airport, just a six-minute drive from downtown Tempe, and Arizona State University (ASU), the largest public university in the United States, with the country’s largest engineering school. With more than 55,000 students attending the Tempe campus in various disciplines, it’s a definite draw for tech companies.
Tempe enjoyed an impressive win earlier this year, cementing the city as ground zero for future semiconductor and technology-related companies, Kroner tells us. “In January, Natcast, the operator of the National Center for the Advancement of Semiconductor Technology, powered by CHIPS for America, announced they were locating in Tempe, and will be up and operating in 2028.”
This roughly $3 billion-plus investment includes a facility that will perform cooperative research with other firms in the industry. “Their goal is to move technology forward by sharing facilities, knowledge, and resources,” says Kroner. “We’re really excited about the new facility. Plus, other companies now want to locate close to it.”
Life at the human scale
Touching on five freeways, Tempe boasts light rail with nine stops inside its borders, and 14 streetcar stops on its line. It is truly a walkable, bikeable, and likeable human-scale city.
The city is also proud of its Tempe Town Lake, built more than a generation ago in a dry riverbed that runs through the core of the downtown.
From Pat’s Run to Ironman triathlons to music festivals, the lake is home to a variety of popular events year-round, and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the development centered around the lake—which didn’t exist 25 years ago. “We estimate about 40,000 people come to work on the banks of Tempe Town Lake every single day, with about 2.4 million annual visitors,” Kroner says.
In the late 1990s, before the lake existed, nobody came to downtown Tempe after 5 p.m., she adds. “The foresight of our previous leaders made Tempe what it is today.”
Mayor Corey Woods is determined to uphold this legacy, ensuring that Tempe’s downtown remains the envy of all the downtowns throughout the Valley. This means adding new sidewalks, irrigation, electrical, public art installations, and a new tree canopy.
“I live right in the middle of downtown Tempe myself, so I understand what it’s like to live in a construction zone and how challenging it can be,” he says. “At the same time, we recognize this is part of what’s going to allow our downtown to compete with the other downtowns in the East Valley and throughout Arizona. Once it’s finished—around February 2026—people will be in awe of what the new, refreshed Mill Avenue looks like.”
Of course, housing is an ongoing challenge, as it is everywhere. “Housing is a very important part of what we do here in Tempe,” says Mayor Woods. “In the downtown area, we’re adding tons of new housing units, which is critically important.”
Additional market-rate housing units include developments like Mirabella at ASU, a university-based retirement community located right on campus. A number of new hotels have also come to town, such as the Westin Hotel, the Omni Tempe Hotel, and the Canopy Hotel, along with the traditional favorites, including the Tempe Mission Palms Hotel, which recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.
Mayor Woods is aware of how ongoing developments and renovations can impact area businesses and strives to alleviate the impact. “We’re doing everything we can to make this as smooth as humanly possible, which is why we’re speeding up some of the work we’re doing during the summer months,” he says.
Growing mindfully
As a small- to medium-sized town that feels more like a big city during the day, Tempe must amenitize to keep up. When Mayor Woods talks about restaurants and retail, service businesses and transportation infrastructure, the city is building for more than just its residents: it’s also building for everyone who comes to work there each day.
“Our population is a bit under 200,000, but we have a daily employment base of about 210,000 people,” says Kroner. “We’re hoping—and the Mayor keeps pushing to build more affordable housing and workforce housing—that those commuters will eventually be able to move here.”
Adequate space for Class A office facilities is another ongoing concern. Post-pandemic, Tempe’s downtown office market has an “unhealthy level of vacancy” (meaning too little space available). “There are a few pending deals that, once announced, will probably take our vacancy in Class A to below three percent,” shares Kroner, adding that a healthy amount of vacancy in any market is somewhere in the eight to ten percent range.
“We’ve got about 600,000 square feet or so under construction now, but it won’t even make a dent in the demand.”
While this is a good problem to have, it’s also a challenge. Tempe’s economic development team cares about attracting new business and operators to the region, but it is even more important to take care of the people and businesses already in the city. “The best way to grow is to take care of the companies already doing business here so that they can grow organically,” Kroner says.
To support existing businesses, Tempe has rolled out new programs such as the Business Retention and Expansion Program—Tempe360, as it’s been branded—a concierge program connecting existing businesses with resources provided by the city as well as various outside entities, such as schools. While ASU is vital, equally as important to the business community is the Maricopa County Community College System, the largest in the country, along with the local Rio Salado College, which provides the workforce that Tempe’s manufacturing tech companies need.
“We also have a new business licensing program that City Council approved last month that will allow us to better identify businesses, disseminate information to them, and follow up on recruitment opportunities,” says Kroner. “We estimate there are about 30,000 businesses in the city; this is an incredible opportunity for the city to better connect and support them.”
Quality of life
Along with a wide variety of businesses, Tempe offers a thriving entertainment scene with something for everyone, whether it’s spring training baseball for the Los Angeles Angels at Tempe Diablo Stadium, a multi-day music event like Innings Festival, or fall and spring arts festivals. “We have one of the best homegrown, small-town, Fantasy of Lights street parades on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, a Fantasy of Lights boat parade at Tempe Town Lake, and the Tempe Blooms Festival, a phenomenal event,” says Mayor Woods.
This latter, distinctly unique festival features live music, a floral-filled market, “flowerful specials” from businesses across Downtown Tempe, and amazing displays created by local floral creators. “I hear from a lot of folks that one of the things that differentiates our city from other surrounding communities is the quality of the special events,” adds Mayor Woods. “It’s one of the many reasons people come to Tempe in droves.”
Another powerful attraction is the quality and variety of restaurant experiences, Kroner says. Along with housing, one of the initiatives Mayor Woods has championed—and with which he’s very involved—is retail and restaurant attraction, reinventing and curating an upgraded vibe for the downtown core.
As a certified foodie himself, this is a real passion project, he says. “With the increasing diversity in our downtown, the Class A offices, the market-rate, multi-family housing, and the new hotels, we’ve tried to make sure we have restaurants that match the interests and tastes of the people who live, work, and play here.”
Doing “exceptionally well” is a new restaurant, Filthy Animal, featuring a cocktail bar in the back called Drop Dead Gorgeous. “I love the food, the atmosphere, and the vibe,” says Mayor Woods, “and I’m more than happy to show off one of the newest treasures in downtown.”
Opening in February 2026 is Roman, a high-end Italian restaurant complete with a speakeasy, as well as the famed Glide restaurant, arriving in mid-2026. There’s a country and western bar downtown called Neon Spur, a “great new addition” to what Tempe is doing; the Devil’s Hideaway and speakeasy Idle Hands; Carmen, a Tulum-inspired cocktail bar; Prince St. Pizza; and Proof Bread Bakery.
“It’s very exciting,” says Mayor Woods. “Folks in the food and beverage community are saying something is really changing here, and they want to be a part of it. I think the best is still to come.”
So Tempe is not only an amazing place to live, work, and play, but it’s on the cusp of even greater things. “It’s just a good quality of life,” says Kroner.
