Arizona Coyotes say they’ve paid outstanding tax debts to state, Glendale

After the city of Glendale threatened to lock the Arizona Coyotes out of their own arena, the NHL team on Thursday said that it had sent money to the Arizona Department of Revenue for unpaid taxes owed.

The amount paid is more than $1.4 million, according to the team.

The department of revenue had filed a notice of state tax lien to IceArizona Hockey CO and the city, the latter of which is owed $250,000. The team also owed money to ASM Global, the arena management company.

Glendale city manager Kevin Phelps wrote a letter delivered Wednesday to the Coyotes, threatening to lock them out of Gila River Arena by canceling the business license. He wrote that the city had “serious concerns as to whether IceArizona is … able to meet its current and future financial obligations.”

The Coyotes called the missed payments an “unfortunate human error” in a statement sent Wednesday to ArizonaSports.com.

“We have already launched an investigation to determine how this could have happened and initial indications are that it appears to be the result of an unfortunate human error,” the statement said. “Regardless, we deeply regret the inconvenience this has caused.

“We will make sure that by (Thursday) morning, the Arizona Coyotes are current on all of our bills and owe no state or local taxes whatsoever. And we will take immediate steps to ensure that nothing like this can ever possibly happen again.”

In September, it became known that the team had submitted a proposal to build a new arena district in Tempe that required vetting by the city before being voted on in a public meeting.

That proposal near Priest Drive and Rio Salado Parkway — which would include the arena, hotels, apartment and storefront retail spaces — would cost $1.7 billion. It also calls for private funding along with a portion of funding coming from city tax revenues to pay for $200 million on top of that.

In a statement on Sept. 2, Tempe said the evaluation process will take many months and include extensive examinations. The finalization of the process would ultimately be in the form of a public meeting and a vote to accept or reject an agreement with the team.

This all comes after Glendale announced in August that it would not be renewing its operating agreement with the Coyotes at their current home of Gila River Arena after many years of quarrels, meaning this season will be the team’s last in Glendale.

Team leaders have remained adamant the Coyotes would not leave the state of Arizona with their move out of Glendale.

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