The East Valley is getting a new 70,000-square-foot entertainment venue in early 2028.
After four years of planning, the Bongiorno family, who opened the first of several Potato Barn Unique Home Furnishings locations in 2002, has plans to break ground on a venue called The Nox as early as September 2026 near Ray and Sossaman roads in southeast Mesa.
Potato Barn founder Greg Bongiorno and his sons, Mike and Keaton Bongiorno, have spearheaded the project with Mesa-based developers The Streamline Companies, whose CEO is David Hrizak.
“They are a music family that just happens to sell furniture,” Hrizak says of the Bongiornos. “Mr. Bongiorno's long-term vision was to build a music venue in the East Valley because of the entertainment desert that it sits
in. If you were to live in the area of the Nox, it would take probably 35 minutes to get to the closest concert hall, the Marquee Theatre (in Tempe) or potentially 45 minutes to get to the Van Buren (in downtown Phoenix).”
The Nox concert venue is next to a Potato Barn in southeast Mesa
The East Valley is rapidly growing, Hrizak says. “We have statistics showing about 1.2 million people within a short radius of where The Nox will be located.”
The exact location will be 7224 E. Seaver Ave. in southeast Mesa, which, as Hrizak says, is right next door to a Potato Barn location.
“We have not broken ground on the project yet,” he says. “We plan on doing that in September, October of this year. We do have building permits in hand from the city of Mesa. We're just finalizing a few internal things before we start an 18-month construction project.”
Hrizak says there’s been “a lot of misinformation being floated by local social media influencers, I’ll call them” regarding the location of the venue.
“We're in the process right now of building a 50,000-square-foot warehouse for Potato Barn, which is our phase one of the entire project,” Hrizak says. “The 50,000-foot warehouse will be an ancillary parking lot for the Nox, which is right across the street from this warehouse. So as we're building this warehouse, people are thinking that's The Nox.”
This newsletter goes to 11. Sign up for weekly music news.
The Nox was designed to be one of the top 10 US venues of its size
The 70,000-square-foot building should be open for business by March or April 2028 with an expected capacity to “hold upwards of 2,000 people, depending on the type of entertainment going on at the time,” Hrizak says.
That 2,000 capacity is for general admission shows. The seated capacity will be 1,000.
The size of the venue is based in part on what the parcel of land the Bongiornos own could hold and still allow for parking at the family’s other nearby properties.
“But also, we feel that concerts in the mid-size range of 1,000 and 2,000 people, there's really nothing in the East Valley,” Hrizak says. “As I mentioned, the Van Buren is probably the closest competition to us, but that's 45 minutes away.”
The Bongiornos won’t be teaming with Live Nation, AEG or any other entertainment corporation once the venue opens.
“We want to create an independent music scene,” Hrizak says. “So we'll be working with concert promoters and bookers from around the country. We'll have the full platform of ticketing, sound, lighting, food and beverage available. We have three bars on the first and second floor. We have two warming kitchens. We have gone through every effort possible to make this one of the top 10 facilities in the country of its size. So we're super excited.”
They chose the name The Nox in honor of the goddess of the night in Roman mythology.
The Nox will bring a wide variety of shows to southeast Mesa
As to the type of performances one might encounter at The Nox, Hrizak says he would expect a venue that size to be a perfect fit for up-and-coming artists in the early stages of building an audience as well as artists in the twilight stage of their careers downsizing from arena tours to something a little more intimate.
“There's a lot of bands that we've already spoken to that are interested in this facility,” Hrizak says. “We're not gonna pigeonhole ourselves into just one genre, but we also have a creative floor plan where it doesn't have to be music. It could also be comedy. It could also be utilized for corporate events during the day. It could be a round-table-type banquet or wedding facility.”
The whole idea, Hrizak says, is “providing something that's not there.”
The Nox exterior will incorporate a historic Chicago warehouse design
As to the look of The Nox, Hrizak says, “We have taken the things we like in other concert facilities around the country and things we didn't like to make sure we didn't incorporate that to come up with the right size, right shape and right sound.”
That last part is what Hrizak feels will be a major draw for promoters and artists alike.
“The sound is what's going to drive this facility,” he says. “It’s the only brand new concert venue in the area. There's other great ones that have been adapted and retrofitted into older buildings or upgraded throughout the years. But because we're able to start from scratch, we feel we're gonna have a better floor plan, a better footprint and better amenities for not only the concert goers but also the entertainers as well.”
In addition to The Streamline Companies, the team bringing The Nox to fruition from the ground up includes two other Mesa businesses – the architectural firm Adaptive Architects and the design firm EPS Group – with a general contractor based in Milwaukee with offices in Tempe, CG Schmidt.
The exterior will incorporate a historic Chicago warehouse design for an industrial-chic aesthetic employing concrete, brick and arched architecture.
Once the venue is open for business, The Nox will team with Rideshare, Uber, and Lyft so that when concertgoers buy a ticket, they’ll receive a coupon for discounted rides on the day of the concert — in part to encourage responsible driving.
Music fans are encouraged to visit thenox.com to sign up for updates on the construction process and concert announcements, which Hrizak expects will begin in the spring 2027.
Ed has covered pop music for The Republic since 2007, reviewing festivals and concerts, interviewing legends, covering the local scene and more. He did the same in Pittsburgh for more than a decade. Follow him on X and Instagram @edmasley and on Facebook as Ed Masley. Email him at ed.masley@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: New concert venue coming to this Arizona 'entertainment desert'
