What it is
The downtown Phoenix arena is the building where the Suns have played since 1992, the Mercury since 1997, and where every arena-sized tour that comes to Arizona sets up. It opened as America West Arena, became US Airways Center after an airline merger, Talking Stick Resort Arena when the casino on Scottsdale’s eastern line bought the name in 2015, Phoenix Suns Arena for a year, Footprint Center from 2021, and after a few months as PHX Arena in 2025, Mortgage Matchup Center as of October 2 of that year, under a ten-year deal with the mortgage company owned by the teams’ owner, Mat Ishbia. Nobody in the Valley calls it that yet. The guide keeps the Footprint name in its address because that is the one on the maps still in people’s heads.
Inside, it is a better building than its age suggests. A renovation approved in 2019 and finished in 2021 gutted the concourses, rebuilt the suites and seating, and brought the capacity to 17,071 for basketball and about 17,700 for concerts in the round. The Suns’ 2021 run to the Finals happened in the half-finished version, which is part of why the city remembers that season fondly.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Because Scottsdale has no arena and does not want one. The biggest room in the city is a theater; the live music note explains the gap and where the mid-sized shows go. When the show is big, a Suns game, a Mercury playoff, a tour that sells seventeen thousand seats, it is in this building or the one in Glendale forty-five minutes west, and this one is twenty-five minutes away with a train to the door.
The practical version
Twenty-five minutes from Old Town via the 202 to 7th Street, longer before a game. About 700 on-site spaces sold ahead online, and garages around it priced by the event. The light rail stops at 3rd Street/Jefferson at the building; park at a station in Tempe or on Central and ride. Eat before: Pizzeria Bianco is a ten-minute walk east, and downtown’s bars are between here and Roosevelt Row. The Suns play October to April, the Mercury May to September.
When to go
Suns season, October through April, overlaps the Scottsdale high season almost exactly, so a visitor in town for the Phoenix Open or spring training can add a game; weeknights against an Eastern Conference team are the easier tickets. Mercury season, May through September, is the summer answer, cheaper and cooler and, in a good year, better basketball. Concerts run year-round and are the reason most Scottsdale residents end up here; check the arena’s calendar rather than the teams’.
Getting in and out
- The train. Park at a Valley Metro light-rail station in Tempe or along Central and ride to 3rd Street/Jefferson. After the event the train leaves while the garages are still full.
- On-site parking. About 700 spaces, bought ahead through the arena’s parking page; they go first for big games.
- Downtown garages. Several within three blocks, priced by event, slow to empty.
- Rideshare. Fine going in, miserable coming out; walk six or eight blocks north toward Roosevelt before you call one.
Before and after
The arena is two blocks west of Chase Field, and the two buildings share a downtown that has grown a real restaurant and bar scene around them. Pizzeria Bianco on Heritage Square is the pre-game dinner if you can get in at 4:30; Roosevelt Row’s bars and The Churchill’s container courtyard are a fifteen-minute walk north for afterward, and Valley Bar, the basement club on Central, is five blocks away and open late. All have guides in this section.
With kids
A Mercury game is the family version: cheaper seats, a smaller crowd, an earlier finish, and the same building. The light rail is half the outing for a child.
The story
Phoenix built the arena to keep the Suns, who had played in the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the fairgrounds since 1968 and wanted a modern building downtown. The city put up most of the money, Jerry Colangelo’s ownership group the rest, and America West Arena opened in June 1992 on Jefferson Street at a time when downtown Phoenix emptied at 5 PM. Charles Barkley arrived that fall and took the team to the Finals in the building’s first season, which did more for the arena’s reputation than the architecture. The Coyotes moved in from Winnipeg in 1996 and found the sightlines for hockey terrible, a problem that eventually sent them to Glendale in 2003. The Mercury arrived in 1997 with the WNBA’s first season and have won more championships in the building than the Suns have.
The names tell the story of corporate Phoenix: an airline that merged, another airline that merged, a tribal casino from Scottsdale’s eastern line that wanted the exposure, a materials startup that bought the rights during the 2021 Finals run and let them lapse four years later. The building itself was showing its age by the 2010s, and the 2019 renovation agreement, in which the Suns paid up to $80 million and the city the rest, was contentious enough to spawn a referendum attempt. The result was a modern arena inside a 1992 shell. Ishbia bought the teams in 2023, and when the Footprint deal ended he put his own company’s brand on the door.
The Scottsdale connection
Talking Stick Resort, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s casino hotel on the Scottsdale line, held the arena’s name from 2015 to 2020, which is why a generation of Scottsdale visitors remembers the Suns playing at a building named for a resort they could see from the 101; our Talking Stick entry untangles the resort, the arena, the spring-training park and the road. The Suns themselves are Scottsdale’s team in the way the Diamondbacks are: the players and the ownership live here, the sports bars on Scottsdale Road fill for playoff games, and the Suns entry in the lexicon has the rest.
Getting there
From Old Town, Loop 202 west to the 7th Street exit, south to Jefferson and west to 2nd Street; 25 minutes with no traffic, forty before tip-off. On-site parking sells ahead online. The Valley Metro light rail stops at 3rd Street/Jefferson beside the arena and at 3rd Street/Washington across from it; park at a station in Tempe, fifteen minutes from Old Town, or on Central Avenue, and ride. Our light rail entry and getting around note explain how.