Only a decade ago, Greater Phoenix Valley developers opened Desert Ridge Marketplace, an outdoor shopping center north of the Phoenix Arizona Loop 101 which was designed to integrate marketplace with community by combining entertainment, dining and shopping, local to North Phoenix residential developments.
After ten years, and during one of the toughest recessions the United States has endured in decades, the success of Desert Ridge Marketplace continues to prove that innovation in mall design can thrive even under the toughest economic conditions.
Strategically located at the Loop 101 and Tatum Boulevard, Desert Ridge Marketplace, a $180 million endeavor, opened to great fanfare November 30, 2001. The goal of the developers was to create an open-air entertainment, dining, and shopping mecca of over 1.2 million square feet that would become a gathering spot for the North Phoenix community.
Customers across the country have been demanding shopping centers that allow them to get to their stores of choice with greater ease than they experience in enclosed malls and with entertainment hubs between clusters of stores, Desert Ridge Marketplace visitors have plenty to entertain them as they move about the outdoor space.
Desert Ridge Marketplace puts on more than 300 performances a year and customers do not always feel like spending, but they still want to get out and be in a positive and energetic environment. Desert Ridge Marketplace allows them just that and it is because of this core idea that this outdoor entertainment mall continues to achieve extraordinary success and that Desert Ridge real estate home prices have remained much stronger than home prices in other areas of Phoenix.