A Sam's Club opened in August 2025 on the east side of Tempe Marketplace, the open-air shopping center on Rio Salado Parkway in Tempe, Arizona. It took the center's last vacant lot.
The center opened in September 2007 near Loop 101 and Loop 202, with big stores in a ring around The District, a pedestrian core. The lot the club uses now was empty at the opening.
That lot had been drawn into the plans by 2006 as a warehouse-club parcel, with a warehouse store and a fuel station. Sam's Club had a place in the site plans before the center's 2007 opening.
Coach and Tommy Hilfiger were scheduled to open stores there in late 2026. Around the club, the center holds more than 100 shops and restaurants, and none of its lots is vacant.
Dumps, drums, and a lost condemnation case
The ground just south of the Salt River held three unregulated dumps, 42 drums of hazardous waste, lead-contaminated soil, and buried construction and household debris.
One holding on it was used for storage and concrete recycling.
Cleanup of the 117 acres began in 2004, and it was the largest brownfield cleanup completed in Arizona to that date.
That land was split among many owners and users.
Tempe had picked Miravista Holdings in 2002 as master developer for the redevelopment district, and under a 2003 agreement Miravista was to negotiate with each owner directly.
Where talks failed, the city could seek the land by eminent domain.
Tempe filed several condemnation actions.
In September 2005, the Maricopa County Superior Court rejected the city's attempt and found that taking land for a private retail project didn't meet Arizona's public-use requirement.
The city asked the Arizona Supreme Court to review that ruling, and on November 29, 2005, the court declined to hear the case.
With the trial court's ruling left in place, the remaining land had to be bought through negotiation.
Vestar, the retail developer on the project, kept assembling parcels with Miravista, and by February 2006 the last owners in the most visible condemnation fight had reached private deals.
Construction could go ahead without the city taking their land.
A warehouse parcel left empty on opening day
The site was laid out as a ring of large stores around The District, a pedestrian core of smaller buildings and a theater.
By March 2006, the planned center held 1,284,400 square feet.
A sign and site plan drawn that April put a warehouse-club parcel on the east side, with a future building of about 153,300 square feet, and the original design included a warehouse store with a fuel station.
Harkins Tempe Marketplace 16 opened on June 29, 2007, and the cinema was drawing customers while other parts of the center were still filling.
Tempe Marketplace officially opened on September 28, 2007, as an open-air shopping, dining, and entertainment center at 2000 E. Rio Salado Parkway in Tempe, Arizona, near the junction of Loop 101 and Loop 202.
It still runs as an open-air center and now has more than 100 shops and restaurants.
On opening day the warehouse-club parcel on the east side was empty.
It sat beside a ring whose first large stores included Target, Best Buy, JCPenney, and Linens 'n Things.
Recession closings, then a full center
The ring began changing almost immediately, because national retailers were going bankrupt or closing stores during the recession.
Linens 'n Things disappeared from its box, and by December 2010, Stein Mart had opened in the former Linens 'n Things space.
At the end of 2010, the center was 94 percent occupied.
In 2014 the first big wave of new large tenants since the recession arrived.
DSW opened near Best Buy that April, and on October 3, Nordstrom Rack opened next to JCPenney.
H&M and F21 Red, a Forever 21 value store in The District, opened in 2015.
By October 2015, the center was fully occupied.
Sam's Club had appeared in the property's site plans before the opening, and that year's site layout still reserved about 136,000 square feet on the east side for a future store, on a parcel that was vacant.
Smaller tenants, nearly 100 percent leased
By December 2017, occupancy was at 94 percent again, and the tenants that came next were smaller than the large stores the center had opened with.
Several were services.
In 2019 The Joint, a chiropractic clinic, and Brooklyn Bedding, a mattress store, took spaces south of The District, and Five Below went into the southwest part of the center.
In February 2021, Sephora opened in The District and Twin Peaks opened in a new freestanding restaurant building.
Marshalls arrived on March 24, 2022, in a 23,000-square-foot store near Target, after moving from Mesa Riverview, a competing open-air center just east across Loop 101.
More than 54,000 square feet of tenants came in during 2023, Nike among them, and by late that year the center was nearly 100 percent leased.
Lot 7 gets its warehouse club
Talks with Sam's Club resumed in the early 2020s.
By December 2023, the warehouse retailer was again in active planning, and the city had received a formal plan for Lot 7, the east parcel and the last vacant lot in the center.
On May 14, 2024, the Tempe Development Review Commission approved a single-story Sam's Club with a fuel station for the lot, at 2080 E. Rio Salado Parkway.
The approved building measured 154,700 square feet. In April 2006, the sign plan had drawn a building of about 153,300 square feet in the same area.
After an 8 a.m. ribbon cutting on August 7, 2025, Sam's Club opened on Lot 7 with a fuel center and a pharmacy.
Re-leasing a center with no vacant lot
By August 2025, LumberjAxes, the axe-throwing venue and restaurant that had opened in summer 2023, had reopened as Recess.
The space kept its axe throwing, full bar, and event space, and added yard games and game-show activities.
The 2026 leases were far smaller than the club's 154,700 square feet, and they went to apparel and service brands.
Carhartt opened a 6,000-square-foot store in summer 2026, its first stand-alone retail location in the Phoenix metro area.
KUIU's first Arizona store, in roughly 6,000 square feet, was open by October 2026. Coach and Tommy Hilfiger were scheduled to open in late 2026.
When the center was fully occupied in October 2015, the east parcel was vacant ground set aside on the site layout for a future Sam's Club.
Sam's Club and its fuel center stand there now, on the last lot in the center to be built.
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