There may be milestones he has to meet that are not public. One that has been publicly leaked is that the NHL needs 18 months notice for an expansion draft, so he needs to have arena construction partially completed by the 3.5 year mark. It does not sound like the auction is a milestone. He still has a time to find another arena solution if he loses the auction.
But the NHL can't engage with any other groups until the window expires or is terminated.
Right, in my jibber jabber I was attempting to allude to the fact that he's not going to make that if the auction doesn't go his way. The key points we know are that the 5 year mark has earlier windows he has to make. My understanding is he has 5 years to get the arena to 50% NHL determination built, so he could get it evaluated to be there at 4 years 364 days and then he locks in the right to purchase/have the expansion draft at the appropriate time thereafter.
Missing out on the auction sets him behind schedule to the point where he has to line up another site. Another site gives all the other investors a chance to jump ship (potentially to even another future franchise group).
With the immense cost to develop these sites, I think you give it maybe a year post-auction to determine if Meruelo is ever going to pursue it. This is why I think another group could come in and win the auction and do essentially the same idea, but be favorable with the City of Phoenix.
Basically the timeline becomes:
A. Meruelo wins - he starts building it and it's clear he'll get to re-activate the team.
B. Meruelo loses - if he doesn't immediately pivot and we see signs something within another 12 months, it's just not going to happen, and other groups now have the green light to start spending on developing an arena with the express purpose of immediately negotiating with the NHL once Meruelo's window closes. We also do not know if there are further clauses in there where Meruelo has to show earlier progress otherwise it re-opens the market to other groups.
I think it'll generally be a 5 year process regardless just based on the complexity of it all.
I also think there's immense risk to another group to just try and build an arena without any guarantee from the league, but Kansas City did it well, and Phoenix would accept a new state of the art arena for concerts et cetera in a more central location, so maybe they just go ahead with it. I think ultimately if you win that auction, you can knock Meruelo out entirely if you just build an arena. He won't try and compete and will just abscond away with his payout.