Desert Ridge Marketplace opened in northeast Phoenix in 2001, while the surrounding community was still taking shape. Residents who wanted to shop or see a movie had previously faced drives of 20 to 30 minutes.
In November, a three-day celebration filled the center with live bands and performers, with the 18-screen AMC opening amid the festivities.
The original design treated the weather as part of the experience. Water mist cooled the outdoor areas in the heat; on colder evenings, tall gas torches and a stone fireplace warmed the scene. In 2017 that look gave way to turf, bocce, and big screens for sports.
Each change gave people another reason to stay after the shopping. Jo-Ann had been one of the big stores since the first year.
In February 2025 the chain announced it would close every store, this one included. In 2026 part of the space it left is under construction.
State desert leased for a shopping core
In 1993 the corner of northeast Phoenix where Desert Ridge Marketplace would rise was still undeveloped desert.
Historical records show no buildings there before development; washes and dirt tracks crossed the site.
The ground was Arizona State Trust land.
In 1990 Phoenix had adopted a plan to turn about 5,700 acres of that trust land into a new district of homes, resorts, golf courses, offices, and shops.
The state and city lacked the money for the roads and utilities such a district needed, so the first auctions were structured to make private developers fund and build the infrastructure, using both long leases and land sales.
Its commercial core, 332 acres of the 5,700, went to Northeast Phoenix Partners in July 1993, and the company was the only bidder.
A challenger had protested the appraisal and the bidding terms before the auction and asked the state to cancel or redo it.
In October 1993 the Arizona Court of Appeals struck out a clause that could have let the rent fall later without a new auction and allowed the rest of the deal to stand.
The state kept the land. Anything built on the commercial core would sit on ground leased from Arizona.
A town center planned, a theater tower dropped
By the mid-1990s houses were going up across Desert Ridge, and the people moving into them had no major stores or cinema close by.
A big shopping trip or a movie meant a drive of 20 to 30 minutes.
Vestar Development Co. began studying the shopping site and spent about a year touring open-air centers, entertainment complexes, and mixed retail projects around the country.
What it settled on was an outdoor town center for the new suburb, with walking streets and several kinds of shopping in one place.
Planning started in November 1998, and leasing in March 1999.
In 2000 Vestar took the parcel on a 99-year ground lease that cost $27.5 million, and construction began that July.
Parts of the old desert stayed on the site. More than 80 percent of the native plants were preserved and replanted.
The finished landscaping included over 300 cacti and trees, some of them hundreds of years old.
The cinema tower was where the plans met resistance.
The design put it roughly 130 feet above the theater, nearby residents objected, and the tower was taken out of the plan.
The tall signs that did go up stood along the freeway side: 14 obelisks about 40 feet high, each carrying the names of the big stores.
Desert Ridge Marketplace opens in 2001
Target opened first, in January 2001, before the rest of the center was finished.
Through the rest of that year Desert Ridge Marketplace, an open-air shopping and entertainment center at Tatum Boulevard and Loop 101 in northeast Phoenix, Arizona, opened in stages.
By mid-November, bands and roaming performers were filling the center for three days of opening festivities.
AMC Desert Ridge 18 opened on November 16, 2001. Residents who had once driven 20 to 30 minutes for a movie now had 18 screens nearby.
The large stores ringed the outside of the site and faced the parking.
Albertsons was among the first, and so was Jo-Ann, in a store of about 45,000 square feet.
Jillian's took about 64,000 square feet for dining, games, bowling-style play, and late nights.
Through the middle ran The District, a walking street of smaller shops, restaurants, and entertainment with no roof over it.
The District was meant to be somewhere to linger, not just a route between stores.
Entertainment was spread through several areas: a stage for live shows, a climbing wall, a soft-surfaced playground, and a 12-by-12-foot screen showing extreme-sports footage.
The outdoor plan also had to handle the weather.
About half of its walkways were meant to be shaded, with misters for the heat; cooler evenings brought heat lamps, 20-foot gas torches, and a large open stone fireplace.
A small alternative-fuel shuttle ran a 10-stop loop through the center and out to nearby offices and the JW Marriott Desert Ridge.
The whole project cost $180 million.
Kohl's arrives as rival centers rise nearby
Kohl's added another large store in October 2003.
By 2004 Desert Ridge held 97 stores, and its food was spread out in freestanding restaurants, small District storefronts, and quick-service counters, with 35 restaurants across the development.
In those early years young shoppers had Tower Records, Blockbuster Video, PacSun, and Learning Express.
Tower Records, one of the original District anchors, closed with the rest of the chain when it liquidated in 2006.
Other centers kept opening around it. Kierland Commons, about five miles south, had opened in 2000 and added phases through 2005.
Scottsdale 101 was built in 2003 near Scottsdale Road and the same freeway.
The closest rival opened right next door.
In November 2008 CityNorth opened the first part of its High Street directly east of the marketplace, about 180,000 square feet of shops and restaurants, with Nordstrom, Macy's, and Bloomingdale's planned for later phases.
The financial crisis of 2008 stopped that expansion.
Scottsdale Quarter opened on Scottsdale Road in March 2009 and added a second phase in October 2010.
The $15 million renovation that cost $22 million
In January 2017 construction began on the first makeover of the whole property since it opened, and the center stayed open through it.
That February, Vestar announced the work as a $15 million project to be finished by summer.
Outside the stores, the muted desert palette of the opening years gave way to dark wood on the building fronts and a quieter color scheme, and synthetic turf, roughly 57,000 square feet of it, was laid across the gathering spaces.
The entrances into The District and its stage were rebuilt.
Live palms and new canopies took over some of the shading from the older structures.
The places to sit and play changed with it.
New seating came as sofas and lounge chairs, and bocce courts, a children's play area, and big LED screens for events and sports went in nearby.
The work was nearly done by May. Summer passed, and the renovation was officially finished in November 2017, at a final cost of $22 million.
H&M, Nordstrom Rack, and drinks to carry
The rebuilt District filled with places to eat, drink, and watch a show.
Barrio Queen opened in October 2017, taking about 5,700 square feet.
Its outdoor lounge sat in the shade, and tequila tastings had a private room of their own.
Flower Child came in June 2018, and in December 2018 Copper Blues opened a live-music venue with a Stand Up Live comedy club in the same space.
Larger fashion stores followed. In September 2019 H&M opened a 21,000-square-foot store, its first inside Phoenix city limits.
Nordstrom, one of the names once planned for CityNorth next door, announced in March 2022 that it would open a Nordstrom Rack at Desert Ridge, and the 23,500-square-foot store opened that October.
Drinks left the restaurants too. When the program began on November 1, 2019, Copper Blues was the only seller.
From a mobile bar outside the venue, it served beer, wine, and cocktails to shoppers 21 and over, who could carry them through approved parts of the center.
After a change in Arizona law, a wider Sip & Stroll program started in January 2023, open to several approved restaurants.
The holidays used the same open spaces: a tree lighting, free photos with Santa, and in 2022, artificial snow falling every night at 7 and 8 p.m.
The land is bought, and Trader Joe's is coming
In December 2022 the state auctioned the ground under the center, about 115 acres.
Vestar was the only bidder and paid the $29.4 million minimum, and the split that had left Arizona owning the land and the developer owning the buildings ended.
Jo-Ann, one of the center's first big stores, went down with its chain.
In February 2025 the bankrupt company announced it would liquidate all of its stores, the one at Desert Ridge included.
By June 2026 construction was underway on a Trader Joe's of about 15,000 square feet in part of the old Jo-Ann space.
It has not opened, and no opening day has been set.
The rest of the 2026 arrivals are a mix of openings and delays.
Gap Factory opened a store of about 8,500 square feet in September 2026, and Ann Taylor Factory is set to open in November.
Nadu Regional Indian and Kajiken Ramen are serving.
Globe in the Dark, a cocktail lounge, missed a September target and has not opened, and Terra Gaucha Brazilian Steakhouse has moved its opening into early 2027.
Desert Ridge Marketplace is open, and Vestar owns and runs it.
Dave & Buster's holds the big entertainment space that Jillian's opened in, and the AMC is a dine-in theater.
Sip & Stroll runs seven days a week, the splash pad is open year-round, and live music plays at The District Stage on selected Friday and Saturday nights.
In 2000 Vestar signed for the ground under its stores on a lease meant to last 99 years.
Twenty-two years in, it bought that ground outright.
The suburb that once drove 20 to 30 minutes for a movie or a big shopping trip has its town center on land the builder now owns.
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