Canopy by Hilton Tempe Downtown will be opening in early April on the corner of University Drive and Myrtle Avenue. This is the first Canopy by Hilton in Arizona and the first one in the Southwest.
General Manager Alan Klein has been working in the hospitality business in the Valley for about 30 years. “We want to be the living room for the neighborhood,” he says. “We want people to come in and relax.”
The concept behind Canopy by Hilton is to be thoughtfully local in whatever city it is in, and it does exactly that in Tempe. There are currently 20 Canopy hotels across the U.S. from Portland to Atlanta to Philadelphia, and there is one international location in Cancun, Mexico.
“Canopy is that place where the locals can gather as much as the visitors,” Klein says. “They’re looking to be engaged in the culture of a certain place and time, and this hotel celebrates that neighborhood feel.”
The hotel has partnered with local vendors and has many art features that honor Tempe and its history. For example, the hotel will have cairns, which are stacked stones that are usually at the beginning of a trailhead, to represent the old Tempe. As guests walk through the lobby, they will see what looks like the ceiling parting above them, which is meant to look like a canyon that leads to the newer Tempe. To recognize nearby Arizona State University, designers of the hotel digitized the University’s fight song and wrapped the exterior panels of the building with the music notes.
The hotel will have a midcentury modern feel with polished concrete floors, concrete columns, murals and big garage doors that open up onto University Drive.
The property will have 198 guest rooms and suites and approximately 5,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The full-service rooftop bar and pool on the 14th floor will be the only one in the East Valley. There will also be a signature restaurant on the ground floor, Alter Ego, that will serve urban fusion cuisine and is headed by executive chef Ken Arneson.
Guests will receive a local welcome gift upon check-in and will be provided with complimentary transportation with Canopy bikes and an electric jump cart that will take guests within a one-mile radius.
“I’m thrilled to be able to be working with a brand like Canopy. We have fun every single day in what we do… I think [guests] are going to be so pleasantly surprised and excited about it,” Klein says. “Everyone is just searching for that local experience.”
Klein hopes that guests feel better when they leave than when they came, and that they establish a connection with the local neighborhood.
