The vote authorized the developer to use sales taxes generated at the new development to help pay for its construction. The arena cost represents about one-third of the total $535 million cost of the project.

City spokesman Pat Dodds said Wednesday the city was not close to setting hearing dates despite the developer's eagerness to get started.

Project opponent Alan Kaufman said he hopes the vote that enables the developer, Ellman Cos., to begin breaking ground can be delayed until just before elections in March, when council members will have an eye on re-election.

He said he may raise the issue of groundwater pollution in an adjacent Superfund site as a new issue to block the arena plan, which includes sinking the rink below ground level to reduce the 18,000-seat structure's silhouette in a primarily residential area.

But the water table in the area is at least 70 feet below the surface. Paula Bruin of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in San Francisco said excavations for the arena would not bring workers into contact with toxic substances.

"It's not even on the Superfund site," Bruin said. "There's no contamination there, and construction should pose no problem at the depth they will be digging."

Coyotes owner Richard Burke wants the team to begin play in the new arena in the autumn of 2001, based on his hope that construction can begin by Jan. 1.

Although committed to leaving the America West Arena in downtown Phoenix after the 2000-2001 season, he had no backup plan in mind before the vote.

"The staff asked us that question, and I just said, 'You know, I can't even go there.' And that was before I knew it would win. We didn't have any Plan B," said Burke, who plans to change the team's name to Arizona Coyotes now that its future seems settled.

Players' comments left little doubt they expected Burke to move the franchise to another state if he failed to get his own arena and control of luxury suites and concessions.

"Getting this building is not only a celebration of the Phoenix Coyotes, but a celebration of hockey staying" in the Phoenix area, said center Jeremy Roenick, who went into the election expecting to sell his house and move if residents voted no.

Team president Shawn Hunter said no one in the organization wanted to consider an alternative, though they had already seen voters in nearby Mesa say no this year to a development including a new stadium for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals.

"We had only one plan, and that's been appropriate so we could focus all of our energies and all of our resources on making this project happen," Hunter said.