More Than 4,500 Meetings and Events Bring Approximately 63,000 Visitors Annually to South Scottsdale
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (August 3, 2026) — For 20 years, SkySong, The ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center has been known as a place where companies, entrepreneurs and innovators come to work. But each year, tens of thousands of people also come to SkySong for another reason — to meet, collaborate, learn and connect.
SkySong hosts approximately 4,500 meetings and events annually, bringing an estimated 63,000 visitors to the campus each year for conferences, business meetings, educational programs, community gatherings and other events.
The activity represents another dimension of SkySong’s impact on south Scottsdale and the McDowell Road Corridor. In addition to the thousands of employees who work at the 42-acre mixed-use development, the steady flow of meeting and event attendees brings people from across the Valley and beyond to the area throughout the year.
“SkySong has always been envisioned as a gathering place for innovation, and that means much more than providing office space,” said Sharon Harper, chairman and CEO of Plaza Companies and master developer of SkySong. “Every day, people come here to exchange ideas, build relationships and find opportunities to work together. That energy is a big part of what makes SkySong special, and it also creates another important connection between the project and the surrounding community.”
SkySong’s meeting facilities accommodate everything from small executive meetings to conferences and large-scale gatherings. Current facilities include 15 meeting and event options across two buildings, with spaces ranging from intimate boardrooms to a more than 4,600-square-foot multipurpose event space capable of accommodating hundreds of attendees.
The campus also offers outdoor gathering spaces beneath its iconic shade structure and elsewhere throughout the development, expanding the range of community, business and educational activities that can take place at SkySong.
The mix of organizations using the facilities reflects SkySong’s broader role as an intersection between business, education and the community. SkySong serves as a meeting center for companies based at the development, Arizona State University units, government agencies and community organizations, bringing together groups that might otherwise have little opportunity to interact.
SkySong is also one of Arizona State University’s nine “Innovation Zones” across the Valley – unique collaborative destinations that reflect a distributed, regionally integrated approach to university-driven economic development. The success of ASU’s SkySong Innovation Zone is measured by whether the zone generates sustained research commercialization, talent retention, venture capital growth, and cross-sector collaboration. For partners — industry, government and community organizations — this is where ASU’s innovation becomes accessible, offering direct access to talent, research and new ways to advance ideas.
“SkySong was created to help create greater access to the innovation that ASU is now so well known for and to advance economic development across the Valley, said ASU President Michael Crow. “It attracts thousands of meetings every year and provides an environment of discovery that produces new ideas, new partnerships and new companies. A conversation that begins in a conference room can turn into a business relationship, a new idea or an opportunity that has an impact far beyond SkySong.”
The meetings and events also contribute to SkySong’s role as an economic activity center for south Scottsdale. Visitors coming to the campus can generate activity for nearby restaurants, hotels, retailers and other businesses, extending the project’s economic footprint beyond its property lines.
That role has become increasingly important as the surrounding McDowell Road Corridor has undergone significant redevelopment over the past two decades. SkySong has helped establish the area as a destination for employers and innovation while new residential, retail, restaurant and hospitality development has brought additional activity to the corridor.
SkySong itself has evolved into a destination where visitors can work, meet, stay and dine within the same development. The campus includes Class A office space, residential development, restaurants and retail amenities, the Element Scottsdale at SkySong hotel, meeting and event facilities and outdoor gathering spaces.
The result is a project that functions not simply as a workplace, but as a hub of activity for south Scottsdale.
“When SkySong was first envisioned, one of the goals was to create a place that connected ASU, the business community and the broader region,” Harper said. “Twenty years later, the number of people coming through SkySong every year shows just how deeply that idea has taken root.”
Plaza Companies is the master developer of SkySong, in partnership with ASU’s University Realty, the City of Scottsdale and Holualoa Companies. SkySong is one of nine Innovation Zones ASU has across the Valley.
Plaza Companies provides development, financing, construction oversight, leasing renewals and expansions and property management at SkySong. The Coppola Cheney Group of Lee & Associates is SkySong’s leasing broker.
SkySong is a 42-acre mixed use development designed to:
● Create an ecology of collaboration and innovation among high-profile technology enterprises and related researchers.
● Advance global business objectives of on-site enterprises.
● Raise Arizona’s profile as a global center of innovation through the co-location of Arizona State University’s strategic global partners.
● Create a unique regional economic and social asset.
As a tenant in one of ASU’s nine regional Innovation Zones, companies located at SkySong have the opportunity to connect with talent, research and new industries in partnership with ASU. ASU, which has about 194,000 students studying across four metropolitan Phoenix campuses, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and online, is one of the largest public universities in the nation. Its largest campus is Tempe, Arizona, less than three miles from SkySong.
In addition to locating its own innovative research units at the center, through ASU’s on-site operations, companies have a single point of contact for introductions to researchers, faculty and programs at SkySong and across the Greater Phoenix region to address their specific needs.
For more information on SkySong, visit SkySong.com or follow developments on Facebook.
About SkySong
Plaza Companies is the developer of the project in partnership with University Realty, the City of Scottsdale and Holualoa Companies. Lee and Associates provides the brokerage services and Plaza del Rio Management Corporation provides the property management and construction services. Architects at SkySong include Pei Cobb Fried and Partners, DMJM Design, Butler Design Group and Kendle Design Collaborative.
About Plaza Companies
With offices in Peoria, Scottsdale and Tucson, Plaza Companies is a full-service real estate firm specializing in the management, leasing and development of medical office and commercial office properties, technology and bioscience facilities, mixed-use properties and senior housing communities. Since 1982, Plaza Companies has established a proud track record as a competitive, connected and conscientious real estate firm with partnerships throughout the industries it serves. For more information, visitwww.theplazaco.com.
About University Realty
University Realty is an affiliate of ASU Enterprise Partners, a nonprofit organization that creates solutions and generates resources to extend Arizona State University’s reach and advance its charter. For more information, visit www.universityrealtyllc.org.
About Holualoa Companies
Holualoa Companies is a real estate investment firm focused on the successful acquisition, repositioning, redevelopment and disposition of real estate assets. Headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, with offices in Phoenix, Santa Monica, Hawaii and Paris, its investments span the United States and Europe and include office, retail, industrial, multi-family, hotel and mixed-use investment properties. Holualoa is an experienced investor for its own account and on behalf of a select group of private investors.
About the City of Scottsdale
Scottsdale is one of the state’s leading job centers, with a diverse economy built on medical research, high-tech innovation, tourism and corporate headquarters. Scottsdale is home to nearly 18,000 businesses supplying over 180,000 jobs. The high-tech innovation center SkySong, located just a few miles from Old Town, is designed to help companies grow through a unique partnership with nearby Arizona State University. For more information, visit ChooseScottsdale.com.
About Arizona State University
Arizona State University has developed a new model for the American Research University, creating an institution that is committed to access, excellence and impact. ASU measures itself by those it includes, not by those it excludes. As the prototype for a New American University, ASU pursues research that contributes to the public good, and ASU assumes major responsibility for the economic, social and cultural vitality of the communities that surround it.
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