Other tenants include the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitor's Bureau (PHX CVB) and the main corporate offices of the Harlem Globetrotters.

Arizona Center was designed by The Rouse Company (on its festival marketplace model, which worked to great success in other cities) and opened in the fall of 1990 to great fanfare and high expectations, as it was considered one of the original components of the ongoing downtown revitalization efforts in Phoenix taking place since the early 1990s.

Critics have also pointed out the relative scarcity of permanent upscale apartment and/or condominium housing in the immediate vicinity as a factor in the lackluster performance of the mall.

[2] Most of the residential districts surrounding the downtown area are middle-to-lower income, not adequate to support the middle-to-high-end marketing mix that Arizona Center set out to provide.

Many of the initial retailers struggled to attract customers, and by 2003, the large second-story food court, similar to those found in suburban shopping malls, was closed and reconfigured into the Phoenix regional office of Detroit-based architectural firm SmithGroup.