For students that attended Arizona State in the ‘90s and 2000′s, the dreaded north portion of Lot 59 was the last result for students commuting to the Tempe campus. It was also the home to some of the best tailgate parties known to man.

Sun Devil Stadium was home to Super Bowl XXX in 1996 and the NCAA Football National Championship in 1999. The NFL Experience took over the entirety of Lot 59 while the tailgate in the north lot of 59 prior to the ’96 National Championship was legendary. I was a student for both games and was slinging drinks at private tailgate parties for corporate honchos and generous donors.

ESPN’s renowned program “College GameDay” filmed live there with the Tempe Town Lake as a scenic backdrop in 2005. Former Arizona State student Jimmy Kimmel did a piece for “Jimmy Kimmel Live” during the tailgate and I had the chance to talk to his Aunt Chippy yet didn’t make the broadcast.

The school stopped offering game parking in the lot a few years back and I remembered thinking that Arizona State was trying to shed its party-school image and closing down the rowdiest tailgate lot would be a logical first step.

When it was announced that the lot would be transformed into a two million-square-foot, 20-acre $600 million mixed-use development, it was evident that the school was focused on developing around the legendary stadium and making use of the trendy lake-front property.

The Marina Heights development will be anchored by State Farm Insurance and will feature 2.6 million square feet of office space in five buildings, the largest office development in Arizona history. There will also be an estimate 50,000 sq. ft. of retail space to service the employees. The company based out of Bloomington, Ill., is also establishing regional headquarters in Dallas and Atlanta but will retain its main headquarters in Bloomington.

The Arizona Board of Regents signed the pre-paid 99-year lease with SunBelt Holdings, Ryan Companies and State Farm Insurance for approximately $31 million, not a bad day’s work. Couple that $31 million with 8,000 jobs that will be created by the insurance carrier along with an estimated 6,000 retail employees by 2017, the Marina Heights project is a huge win for Tempe and Arizona State University. On a side note, there will still be a huge parking lot that might be available for game day parking so we might be able to have our cake and eat it too.

The completion date for the main building is scheduled for mid-2015 with total completion by 2017. State Farm has already held several career fairs and the regional headquarters will serve as a hub for claims, service and sale support, according to the press release.

Years of city planning are finally being realized after filling the dry riverbed and estimates are in the Billions, yes, with a capital B, in lakeside development that has been built or is on the way.

The centerpiece of development may be the lake, but I tend to believe that everybody just wants to be close to the hallowed grounds of Sun Devil Stadium.