Omni Hotels & Resorts broke ground on Tempe’s newest hospitality project, the Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU, on Friday, September 17. Located at the corner of University Drive and Mill Avenue, adjacent to Mirabella at ASU, will bring 330 guest rooms and some of the largest conference and meeting space to the city. 

The 16-story hotel is a $125 million investment and part of a public-private partnership with Arizona State University and the City of Tempe.

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“We’re excited to welcome the Omni to Tempe,” says Tempe Mayor Corey Woods. “This hotel will be the largest conference center space in the city, which will be a true game changer for us. It will allow more than 1,000 people to come together for special occasions, such as weddings and anniversaries, and it will attract trade shows and conferences that we haven’t been able to host in the past.”

The Omni Tempe will offer almost 36,000 square feet of flexible meeting space. In addition, it will feature four dining outlets, an indoor-outdoor rooftop lounge on the 16th floor, a spacious pool deck and a state-of-the-art fitness center, with expansive views of the ASU campus and the Arizona cityscape.

“We’ve really done a good job of trying to incorporate ASU and the state of Arizona in the design,” says Peter Strebel, president of Omni Hotel & Resorts. “We’re using lots of colors of copper and blue skies. There will be a lot of concrete in the building and natural fabrics and leathers. So you’re going to know that you’re in Tempe, you’re going to know that you’re in Arizona, and you’re going to know that you’re on the campus of a college.

Scottsdale-based interior design firm Monogram Hospitality Interiors at BBGM joins Georgia-based architect C+CT Studio and Alabama-based general contractor Brasfield & Gorrie on the 18-month long project, that is already underway.

 As an added bonus, Omni Resorts & Hotels partners with U.S. hunger-relief organization Feeding America. For every room sold at the Omni Tempe, the company will donate one meal to a local food bank. It anticipates that, when open, the hotel will donate more than 10,000 meals to Tempe food banks.

“This hotel is going to complement the Omni Scottsdale Resort at Montelucia as well as our Omni Tucson National Resort,” Strebel notes. “We love Arizona, and the Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU is going to be a focal point for Tempe. It’s going to be part of this great downtown revitalization that’s been going on for years.