Hayden Flour Mill, located on the southeast corner of Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway, is one of Tempe’s most iconic buildings. It is among the primary reasons our city exists today. 

Current redevelopment efforts

Venue Projects has a strong history of restoring, improving and honoring iconic buildings. Sunbelt Holdings has been involved in many projects in Tempe, including Marina Heights, where State Farm is located.

The City of Tempe approved a Development and Disposition Agreement with Venue Project and Sunbelt Holdings to rejuvenate and improve the Hayden Flour Mill and surrounding property. 

This agreement reads that the City of Tempe will continue to own the flour mill and its land. The lease agreement for 60+ years will result in new restaurants and shops, a public park, restoration of the mill, an improved trailhead to A Mountain and 3% of net revenue from the development proceeds, among other benefits. 

The Hayden Flour Mill is a symbol of our city and is an important touchstone to our past. This development has been crafted in partnership with our historic preservation community, SRP-MIC, residents, businesses and even former workers from the mill. This project honors our mountain and our community heritage, beautifies the area and opens it to everyone.

Partnerships like these will truly help elevate the city’s future plans for keeping our downtown vibrant and reaffirm Mill Avenue’s ranking as one of America’s best streets.

Renderings 

Hayden Flour Mill is a relic of our agricultural past, when Tempe was a small town surrounded by miles of farmland and anchored, economically, by the processing and marketing of grain, cotton, fruit, vegetable, and dairy products. Like the creamery complex on East 8th Street, Hayden Flour Mill ranked among the prominent agricultural industries in the Valley. It purchased most of the grain grown in Central Arizona and milled many of Arizona's best known flours: Sifted Snow, Arizona Rose, and Family Kitchen among them.

As it stands today, the mill remains the oldest cast-in-place, reinforced concrete building in Tempe. Constructed in 1918, it replaced an earlier adobe mill lost to fire in 1917. This earlier mill, built in 1895, had itself replaced the original 1874 Hayden Flour Mill, also lost to fire. The current building was designed to be fire-proof; its architects and builders used techniques developed in the wake of the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The grain elevator and silos east of the mill were constructed in 1951 and remained the tallest structures in Tempe until 2007.

On April 1, 1998, Bay State Milling ceased milling operations at Hayden Flour Mill, ending the longest run of continuous use for an industrial building in the Greater Phoenix Metropolitan Area.

Take a look at a newspaper celebrating the Mill's Centennial. Read more about the Mill's history and other Tempe historic buildings by visiting our Tempe Historic Preservation pages.  

Protecting Our History and Environment

The City of Tempe wants to keep the Hayden Flour Mill a landmark for future generations. The current building dates to 1918 but other mills have been on the site since 1874.

The city has protected Hayden Butte, otherwise known as A Mountain, by designating anything above the elevation of 1180 feet mean sea level as the cut-off for any sort of development. 

Tempe respects the significance of Hayden Butte to the Four Southern Tribes of Arizona. Those are the Ak-Chin Indian Community, the Gila River Indian Community, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community and the Tohono O’odham Nation. 

View the DDA - go to item 8C1 

RFP Documents

Winning RFP response:
Sunbelt Holdings and Venue Projects 

City of Tempe RFP

Appendix C
Appendix D1
Appendix D2

Hayden Flour Mill Timeline

1874 – First mill built
1998 – Bay State closes the Hayden Flour Mill
2001 – MCW Holdings buys Hayden Flour Mill
2003 – City buys mill from MCW Holdings
2006 – Tempe Flour Mill LLC receives development rights to Hayden Flour Mill. They expired.
2011 – City of Tempe does light restoration of mill and grounds
2014 – Baum receives rights to Hayden Flour Mill. They expired.
2021 – City of Tempe issues RFP for new developer. Two responses were received from the team of Venue Project and Sunbelt Holdings as well as DMB Associates.
Feb. 10, 2022 - City of Tempe enters negotiations with Venue Project and Sunbelt Holdings to create a development agreement to redevelop the flour mill site.
Oct. 12, 2023 - City of Tempe approves the Development and Disposition Agreement to partner with Venue Projects and Sunbelt Holdings.