For years, the joke on Lincoln Drive was that Paradise Valley had four resorts, three golf courses, and one reason to leave town after 6 p.m. If you wanted a real dinner that wasn't inside a hotel, you drove into Arcadia or Old Town. That geography is quietly ending this summer.
Two projects a mile apart are the reason. To the south, Kimpton Miralina Resort & Villas is deep into a $70 million transformation that will land Arizona's first Katsuya on the property. To the north, at Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard, the redeveloped PV site keeps adding chef-driven rooms to what was, until 2023, a shuttered mall. Residents who already live inside the 85253 line, and the adjacent zips that share Camelback as a backdrop, are watching the two dining poles converge on their block.
The Mile That Rewrote Dinner
The Kimpton project is the more dramatic story on paper. The resort will undergo the final phase of its $70 million transformation from Q4 2026 to early 2027, including the addition of Arizona's first Katsuya restaurant. Pair Katsuya with the existing Hecho Libre, and the destination becomes one of the only resorts in Paradise Valley with two distinct, chef-driven restaurants. The rest of that phase reads like a resident's checklist rather than a tourist brochure: 134 newly renovated Valley Villas and an onsen-inspired hotel-within-a-hotel called The Enclave, bringing the finished property to 404 keys, six pools, and 22 indoor and outdoor event venues.
A mile north, the PV redevelopment is doing the opposite move. Instead of concentrating a few marquee names inside a resort footprint, it's spreading a dozen operators across 100 walkable acres. The 100-acre redevelopment is only about half finished and will likely be completed in 2030, with more restaurants, retail, and residential units, including high-rise for-sale product, on the horizon. The office anchor tells you who's betting on daytime traffic: Fender Musical Instruments is relocating its headquarters from Scottsdale to PV.
| Pole | Anchor project | 2026 additions | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| South (Lincoln Dr corridor) | Kimpton Miralina, $70M final phase | Katsuya, The Enclave onsen wing, 134 Valley Villas | Resort-contained, membership-adjacent |
| North (Cactus & Tatum) | PV redevelopment, 100 acres | Cala, Harry & Izzy's, Velvet Taco, The Vig, Too Sweet Cakes, Life Time PV | Open-air, walk-in, mixed with office and residential |
The point isn't which one wins. It's that a resident driving between the two on Tatum now passes through the densest cluster of new hospitality in the town's history, and the drive is under ten minutes.
What's Actually Opening At PV This Summer
The PV site has been trickling openings since fall 2024, which is why the 2026 slate reads less like an announcement and more like a filling-in. Federal Pizza is already on the ground. Federal Pizza PV opened on August 12 as the second-ever Federal Pizza location inside a custom-built 4,000-square-foot space with a sweeping 1,500-square-foot patio, on the revitalized Paradise Valley Mall site. What arrives next, this year:
- Cala. The Mediterranean concept from Clive Collective, currently housed inside Senna House Hotel Scottsdale, opens its second location at 4596 E. Cactus Road, #105, anticipated to open in 2026.
- Harry & Izzy's. The upscale Indianapolis steak-and-shrimp-cocktail house from Huse Culinary is slated to open in summer 2026 as part of the highly anticipated PV redevelopment at the former Paradise Valley Mall site.
- Velvet Taco. The first Arizona location of the fast-casual, Dallas-born Velvet Taco opened in Old Town Scottsdale in November, serving tacos inspired by global dishes such as chicken tikka masala and cubano sandwiches; its second Valley location will be just under 2,000 square feet at PV in 2026.
- The Vig. The local tavern has been a staple since it launched in the Arcadia neighborhood nearly 20 years ago; in March it announced its eighth Valley location will join PV, serving elevated pub fare and drinks.
- Too Sweet Cakes. The Bend, Oregon-born bakery already has a Gilbert shop; the bakery's claim to fame is its cronuts, which take three days to make and have 100 layers of pastry, and the 1,700-square-foot PV bakery will feature a walk-up window for coffee plus in-view cake decorating.
- Life Time Paradise Valley. Not a restaurant, but the reason the parking lot will fill on weekday mornings. The 92,000-square-foot Life Time Paradise Valley is the athletic country club's eighth Arizona location and includes Pilates and yoga studios, a spa, pickleball courts, and a rooftop pool club.
The developer is not finished. He teases that the team is actively pursuing a seafood-focused restaurant and a breakfast joint to be part of the Cactus Road development's menu of options. Read that alongside the office and residential build-out and the resident math changes: the reasons to drive south to Arcadia or east to Old Town for lunch, an errand, and a workout in one loop are thinning out.
The Resident's Case For Mountain Shadows In July
Mountain Shadows has always been the resident-friendliest of the town's resorts, in part because the property opened in 1959 below Camelback Mountain and earned its namesake from the shadows cast each afternoon. What locals often miss is how aggressively the summer pricing separates from the winter rate card. This year, Arizona residents can stay between June 1 and Sept. 30, 2026, and pay $159 nightly on weekdays and $199 nightly on weekends, with the resort fee waived. Set that against peak-season averages for a MICHELIN Key property in Paradise Valley and the summer rate is doing serious work.
The other resident-tilted product is the golf pass. Priced at $399 plus tax, the Summer Golf Pass allows guests to play for just $10 per day. Tee times are available anytime Monday through Thursday and after 10 a.m. Friday through Sunday. The pass is valid from May 26 through Sept. 20, 2026, with tee times bookable up to one week in advance. A maximum of 36 holes can be played per day, and while the pass is non-transferable and cannot be combined with other promotions, it provides a straightforward way to make the most of the course over multiple visits. For a resident who lives four minutes from the property, the pass amortizes across roughly nine rounds. That's a July.
The daily rhythm inside the property is also more bifurcated than the marketing suggests. The pool experience is split between two distinct settings. For a quieter atmosphere, the adults-only Sunset Pool sits tucked away on the western edge of the resort, where the focus is on relaxing and cooling off. Late afternoon tends to be a highlight, when the light softens and the mountain backdrop becomes part of the experience. At The Citizens Club, the energy picks up: two 75-ft. pools create space for both lounging and swimming, while cabanas offer a shaded retreat throughout the day. On Saturdays, the atmosphere becomes more social, with a DJ paired with live saxophone or violin. If you already live here, the play is Sunday through Thursday at Sunset, Saturday at Citizens, and a round at The Short Course before 8 a.m. on any of them.
Dining at the resort still routes through Hearth '61, and Rusty's serves grill fare and brews inside and on the patio for the post-round crowd. Both are on the residents' side of the pricing wall in a way that Katsuya, when it lands, will not be.
Camelback, But On Local Time
The mountain is the reason people bought here, and July is the month that separates the residents from the visitors on it. Two trailheads, two very different calculus problems.
Echo Canyon is the trail the internet knows about. It's also the one with the most brutal parking dynamic. The trailhead and trail hours run sunrise to sunset. During winter and spring months, Echo Canyon experiences extremely high visitation, and the parking lot will typically be full from late morning through early afternoon on weekdays and remain full throughout the day on weekends. When the parking lot reaches capacity, the entry gate will be closed. That last sentence is the one to remember: visitors cannot idle vehicles on nearby McDonald Drive or Tatum Boulevard to wait for the gates to reopen, and police will ticket visitors who idle and tow those parked illegally. In July, the practical window for a resident is 5:15 a.m. to about 7:30 a.m., after which the surface temperature makes the west-facing scramble unpleasant regardless of parking.
Cholla, on the east flank, is the longer alternative. Cholla Trail is a slightly longer alternative to the more strenuous Echo Canyon Trail, but is also rated Extremely Difficult. Incredibly steep and at times rocky, the trail traverses the eastern slope, and to add to its difficulty, it is completely exposed to the elements and offers little shade. Full exposure is the operative word in July.
A resident-only note on the shorter loop most people miss: Located within Echo Canyon, Bobby's Rock Trail is a short hike that loops around a large cube-shaped sandstone rock. Start on the Echo Canyon Trail and veer to the right shortly after beginning your ascent. Hikers will immediately find a helipad and then Bobby's Rock. Follow the loop trail approximately two-tenths of a mile from its initial intersection to be brought back to Echo Canyon Trail. A turn to the west will return hikers to the trailhead, while a turn to the east will take them toward the Extremely Difficult summit trail. Bobby's Rock Trail has a total elevation gain of 200 feet and provides hikers with a fantastic view of Paradise Valley and the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. That's a July-morning-with-a-dog kind of hike, provided the mercury cooperates. Dogs are allowed on leash, but not when the temperature exceeds 100 degrees. The Praying Monk formation on the west face is visible from most of it.
Why This Summer Matters More Than Last
Every year in Paradise Valley looks like the last one at first glance. Camelback stays where it is. The four resorts hold their positions. Lincoln, Tatum, and Invergordon do what they've always done. Summer 2026 is the one where the two ends of the town start functioning as a single hospitality corridor. Kimpton Miralina's Katsuya announcement gives the south end a chef-driven anchor a resident can walk into on a Wednesday. The PV site's 2026 slate gives the north end a walkable dining district a resident can lap on foot after a Life Time class. The mountain, and the resident deals at Mountain Shadows, are what tie the summer together.
For homeowners in and around 85253, the market signal underneath all of this is worth naming without overstating it: hospitality density and a walkable retail-office node one mile from Camelback are exactly the kind of long-horizon inputs that reshape which pockets of a resort town command a premium. If you're thinking through what your home is actually positioned against this cycle, or you're circling a move within town rather than out of it, The Studebaker Group would be glad to sit down over coffee at whichever pole of the new mile suits you. Schedule a personalized consultation and we'll bring the maps.
