A seven-story, 168-room hotel is headed for the Novus Innovation Corridor on the east side of Arizona State University's Tempe campus, bringing a rooftop pool and bar along with meeting space to the fast-growing district. The hotel will fly under Marriott Bonvoy's Tribute Portfolio brand, adding another lodging option to a corridor that already houses apartment towers, restaurants, and two other hotels.
The project was first detailed by The Arizona Republic, which reported that the hotel will become the next addition to the Novus Innovation Corridor, a 330-acre mixed-use development transforming university-owned land east of the Tempe campus. The 116,855-square-foot building is currently in the design and planning phase, according to Orion Investment Real Estate, with construction slated to begin in the second quarter of 2027 and a target opening in the first half of 2029.
Tempe-based Okland Construction will handle planning, design, and construction of the hotel, working alongside master developer Banbury Development and ASU, as reported by In Business Magazine. The firm previously built The Global Ambassador hotel in Phoenix, giving it an established local track record in hospitality construction before taking on this project.
A Boutique Bet on Campus Visitors
Okland Construction CEO Bill Okland described the project as designed to fill an interesting niche with a boutique style hotel that has more of an elevated experience for campus visitors and sports fans, according to the same Orion report. The positioning suggests the hotel is aiming for guests seeking something more elevated than a standard extended-stay option near campus, while still catering to the steady flow of ASU events and athletics.
The hotel site sits within the ASU Athletic Facilities District, a designation created under a 2010 Arizona law that allows the university to sign ground leases with commercial developers who pay fees in lieu of property taxes, according to AZ Big Media. Those revenues flow directly into funding upgrades to ASU's intercollegiate athletic facilities, and ground lease income from Novus has previously helped fund the $307 million renovation of Mountain America Stadium.
Filling Out a 355-Acre District
The Novus Innovation Corridor is a public-private partnership between ASU and Banbury Development spanning 355 acres, projected to eventually include 10 million square feet of development, 4,100 residences, 4.5 million square feet of office space, and 275,000 square feet of retail and dining. Master plans for the district call for roughly 700 to 1,000 hotel rooms once fully built out, a figure aimed at accommodating Tempe's estimated 3 million annual visitors.
This Marriott property won't be the corridor's first hotel. An eight-story, dual-branded Hyatt Place and Hyatt House opened in the corridor in August 2020 with 259 rooms adjacent to Desert Financial Arena, serving as an early hospitality anchor for the district. Hospitality around ASU expanded further in April 2023 with the opening of the 16-story, 330-room Omni Tempe Hotel at ASU near University Drive and Mill Avenue, built through a $125 million public-private partnership.
Dining and Development Neighbors
The new hotel will sit along Novus Place near a dining hub anchored by several Fox Restaurant Concepts outlets, including Flower Child, Blanco Taco Cocina + Cantina, and North Italia, alongside Blue Sushi Sake Grill's new Tempe location. That retail and restaurant cluster has grown steadily as Novus Place has developed into the corridor's central pedestrian-focused street.
An economic impact analysis from ASU's Seidman Research Institute estimated that completed and active projects within the Novus corridor will generate $1.86 billion in economic impact and support more than 33,000 operational jobs by 2035, per the same AZ Big Media report. With design work continuing ahead of the planned 2027 groundbreaking, the Marriott project marks another step in the corridor's transformation from university athletic land into a dense, mixed-use district built around campus life, sports, and steady visitor traffic.
