Mesa Gaylord project still alive, company tells mayor

Gaylord Entertainment Co. told officials from Mesa and DMB Associates last week that it is still serious about building a resort on DMB's land in southeast Mesa. The assurances came in a two-hour meeting with Gaylord's top executives at company headquarters in Nashville, according to Mayor Scott Smith and David Bruner, who is DMB's chief operating officer. The meeting quelled a growing sense of unease that Mesa's $800 million Gaylord resort and conference center might never come to pass, especially since the company announced plans this summer to build a massive resort near Denver. It has been almost 2½ years since Gaylord executives were last in Mesa, celebrating overwhelming voter approval of the resort on the northern end of DMB's Mesa Proving Grounds development. Even at the election-night celebration in March 2009, Gaylord Vice President Bennett Westbrook said construction would depend on the economy, which was spiraling into the depths of the Great Recession.

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