Cardinals revamping Tempe training center
On the heels of a blistering annual players’ survey by the NFL Players Association that ranked the Arizona Cardinals last or nearly last in the league in several categories, the team has announced that it already had begun plans to improve its Tempe training facility.
The Cardinals say they plan to put $100 million into it.
The complex, at 8701 S. Hardy Drive on the northeastern corner of Warner Road in south Tempe, is the source of considerable player discontent. Owned by Tempe and leased to the team, the facility was built in 1991 and received a $15 million facelift in 2015.
When it opened, it was considered state-of-the-art in the NFL – so highly regarded that the Chicago Bears borrowed liberally from it in 1997 for their new facility in Lake Forest, Ill.
But 34 years is several lifetimes in the NFL and the Cardinals players evidently feel the Tempe complex has gone from the top of the league to the bottom.
The Cardinals finished 32nd overall – dead last – overall in the NFLPA survey, released Feb. 26. Players gave the team a D-plus for treatment of families, D-minus for food and dining area, F-minus for locker room and D-minus for training room.
“Our goal is to provide the best possible environment, facilities and resources and to give our team the greatest opportunity to succeed,” the Cardinals said in a statement.
“We are working hard to achieve that. Last season, we shared with our players the plans for a new training facility at the existing Tempe location with a targeted completion date of 2027.
“We have hired Rossetti, a leading architecture firm that has worked with a number of NFL teams on their new facilities, and the design process is underway. We will continue to explore all the other ways — large and small — that we can get better in every single area of our operation.”
Seventy-seven percent of NFL players – nearly 1,700 of them — from around the league responded to the NFLPA survey on current conditions of their teams.
The Cardinals’ training facility includes two outdoor practice fields, a practice bubble, locker room and football offices. The team’s business offices were moved into a nearby building last year to open more space in the main complex.