A Scottsdale homebuilding executive is helping lead a downtown Phoenix project with a $50 million price tag, meant to make sure his father's story outlives him. Steve Hilton, co-founder and executive chairman of Meritage Homes Corp., is leading development of the Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center, a 31,000-square-foot facility rising on the site of Phoenix's first permanent synagogue. It is set to become Arizona's first dedicated Holocaust museum and education hub, with an opening targeted for 2027.
The project traces back to Hilton's late father, Sam Hilton, who survived five Nazi concentration camps during World War II, according to the ABC15 Arizona report on the project, which draws on reporting from the Phoenix Business Journal. Sam Hilton went on to speak to children about his experiences in the camps and later served as an expert witness for the FBI, testimony that helped lead to the deportation of some Nazis who had been hiding in the United States, per that same account. Steve Hilton has said continuing his father's Holocaust education work is one of the most important things he has ever done.
Groundbreaking on Sacred Ground
The center broke ground on June 5, 2025, with an estimated capacity to host more than 50,000 visitors a year once it opens, per 12News. The site itself carries its own history: the building sits at 122 E. Culver St. on the grounds of Temple Beth Israel, Phoenix's first permanent synagogue, built in 1921, according to Visit Phoenix.
Steve Hilton has pegged the project's budget at $50 million, per the original account from the Phoenix Business Journal relayed by ABC15. Part of that cost is being offset by $11 million in Arizona state funding intended to let middle and high school students tour the center free of charge, according to reporting from KAET/Arizona PBS. Arizona PBS also reported that Steve Hilton donated $5 million to get the project moving.
Holograms Let Survivors Answer Student Questions
Among the center's planned features are interactive exhibits built around recorded, non-artificial intelligence holograms of Holocaust survivors, technology designed to let visiting students pose questions and receive direct responses, the Arizona PBS report notes. The recorded testimonies are intended to preserve survivors' accounts for future students.
Development of the building is being handled by a local team, including Scottsdale-based A.R. Mays Construction as general contractor, along with Phoenix-based Deutsch Architecture Group and Chermack Consulting Group, according to the Phoenix Business Journal.
A State Mandate and School Survey
The center's free field-trip model is designed to answer a problem that predates the groundbreaking by years. Under Arizona statute A.R.S. § 15-701.02, enacted in 2021, public and charter school students must receive instruction on the Holocaust and other genocides once in middle school and once in high school, according to Justia Law.
But a survey sent in January 2024 drew responses from 322 of approximately 750 school districts and charter schools; those respondents said they were actively teaching the material, Hoodline reported on previously when Superintendent Tom Horne pushed districts for stricter reporting. A proposal in House Bill 2779 would require three instructional days on two occasions.
Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the United States but has, until now, been the only U.S. municipality of its size without a dedicated Holocaust museum or education center, according to the Hilton Family Holocaust Education Center. That gap is part of the backdrop to a project now at the intersection of philanthropy, historic preservation on a century-old synagogue site, and a state law still struggling to reach every classroom.
