The Money: What the Collier Center Costs Arizona Taxpayers

One

What was asked for, and what was committed

The solicited requirement against the executed lease
	Solicited in the RFP December 1, 2025	Executed at the Collier Center July 6, 2026	Change
Space	approx. 35,000 sq ft	44,734 rentable sq ft	+28%
Term	5 years	93 months	+55%
Base rent	not stated	$32.50 / sq ft full service, from month 10	n/a
All-in rate on ACA’s own comparison	not stated	approx. $35.57 / sq ft	n/a

Pivot offered $24.00 per square foot, all-in, for the requirement as solicited. It also offered roughly 50,000 contiguous square feet while charging rent on only 40,000.

A public body may of course change its requirement. What it may not do is run a competition on one requirement, award on a substantially larger one, and then rely on the original competition as the justification. No bidder was invited to price 44,734 square feet over 93 months.

Two

How the comparison was adjusted

ACA maintained a working comparison workbook through the procurement. Comparing the versions saved in April and May against the version produced with the scoring matrix shows a series of changes to the figures attributed to Pivot. Each change moves in the same direction.

Changes between the May and June versions of ACA’s comparison
Adjustment	Effect
A parking overage was introduced	A $12,000 per year parking overage was charged against Pivot’s free parking package, raising Pivot’s effective rate from $33.35 to $33.70.
Event parking was “equalized”	Earlier versions estimated event-parking cost at $420,000 for Pivot, $245,000 for the Collier Center and $70,000 for the other two buildings. The final version applies $420,000 to every building, calculated over seven years, against a five-year lease.
Validation values were re-scored	The Collier Center’s visitor-validation value was restated from $25,000 to $387,500. Pivot’s 1,800 free full-day passes were valued at $135,000, annotated “to be verified.”
Pivot was measured over a term it never bid	A footnote restates Pivot’s all-in rate over “7 yrs, 9 mos.” The RFP requested a five-year term. Measured over the longer period, Pivot’s figure exceeds the Collier Center’s.
A footnote was rewritten	Beside the moving-cost figures charged against the alternatives, seven earlier versions of the workbook carry the note “* Karyn made this number up.” In the version containing the scoring matrix, the same note reads “* Assumption.”

The Collier Center transaction also grew after the evaluation ACA relies on. The figures shown to the Executive Committee on June 12 describe 42,580 square feet and 161 parking stalls. The instrument ACA’s Chief Operating Officer had signed on May 6 provides for 44,734 square feet and 179 stalls.

Three

What else was in ACA’s files

ACA’s production contains market material and proposals for a range of downtown buildings. Several are priced below the transaction ACA signed.

Alternatives appearing in ACA’s own records
Property	Rate in ACA’s files	Note
One North Central	$33.00 / sq ft	Full service, October 2025, priced “based upon no outside brokerage commission to be paid”
US Bank Center	$25.00 / sq ft	Market material in ACA’s files
2800 Tower	$23.50–25.00 / sq ft	Market material in ACA’s files
ACA’s existing building	$24.50 / sq ft	Renewal offer from the receiver, with a $45 tenant-improvement allowance and a legislative-defunding termination right
Collier Center	$35.57 / sq ft	All-in, on ACA’s own comparison

The market ACA was buying into

Market data in ACA’s own production places the Collier Center at approximately 42 percent occupancy and among the higher quoted rates in the submarket. The same files record a 2024 transaction at the building in which the landlord provided ten months of free rent and roughly $105 per square foot in tenant improvements to secure a 9,172 square foot tenant.

Four

One hundred employees, one hundred forty desks

A.R.S. § 41-1502(P) provides:

“The authority may not have more than one hundred full-time employees, excluding any full-time employees that are funded with monies other than state monies.” A.R.S. § 41-1502(P)

ACA’s Request for Proposal states: “The proposed occupancy is approximately one hundred forty (140) full-time staff members.”

The statutory cap excludes employees funded from sources other than the state, so a 140-person occupancy is not by itself unlawful. ACA has not published how many of those positions are state-funded, how many are not, or how many are held by contractors or co-employed staff rather than employees.

The public is funding rent, parking and a build-out sized for one hundred forty people at an agency the Legislature capped at one hundred.

Five

The Gift Clause, and the advice ACA already had

Arizona Constitution, Article IX, Section 7: Prohibits the State from making any donation or subsidy to an individual, association or corporation.
Schires v. Carlat, 250 Ariz. 371 (2021); Gilmore v. Gallego, 258 Ariz. 38 (2024): Arizona courts ask whether the expenditure serves a public purpose and whether what the public gives is disproportionate to what it receives. Only direct, bargained-for consideration counts.

January 2024

In an unrelated investigation, the Arizona Attorney General advised ACA in writing that generalized economic gain is an indirect benefit and not cognizable consideration, that goodwill provides no economic value to the State, and that the State may enjoin unlawful expenditures under A.R.S. § 35-212. The determination was addressed to ACA’s General Counsel.

“Hard to compete with the value add – and brand – of Sumitomo.” ACA board member, twenty-nine months later

Separately, ACA conditioned its own lease on the landlord granting a lease option to ACA’s venture-studio partner. That is a benefit running to a private party, attached to a public transaction, and not disclosed to the Executive Committee that authorized it. The instrument is quoted here →

These are the theories pleaded in the verified complaint. They are allegations in pending litigation, not findings. ACA denies wrongdoing.

Who pays for this

The Arizona Commerce Authority is a public instrumentality of the State, established under A.R.S. § 41-1502 and funded with public money.

Its statutory mission is to grow, diversify, attract, expand and retain business in Arizona. It solicited approximately 35,000 square feet for five years. It committed the public to 44,734 square feet for 93 months, at a building its own files describe as 42 percent occupied and among the more expensive in the submarket, while cheaper alternatives sat in the same files.

The question ACA has not answered

What did the public receive, in writing, in the lease, in exchange for the additional square footage, the additional years, and the price difference? The executed lease would answer it. It has not been produced.

Read the record See the scoring matrix