If you tried to hike Camelback Mountain's Cholla Trail this week, you ran into orange construction fencing instead of a trailhead. The City of Phoenix Parks Department closed Cholla from August 17 through August 28 so crews can install a new sewer line along Cholla Lane. That leaves Echo Canyon as the only way up the mountain right now, and Echo Canyon already fills its lot most weekend mornings without the overflow from displaced Cholla regulars. If Cholla is your usual route because of its gentler grade, this is the week to start before sunrise instead of after it.
Here's the detail that trips people up. Cholla's trailhead parking carries a Paradise Valley mailing address, even though the mountain, the trail, and the construction crew all answer to the City of Phoenix. That's not a bureaucratic footnote. It's the same mix-up playing out at a much larger scale a few miles north, where a 100-acre retail and residential project also calls itself Paradise Valley while sitting entirely inside Phoenix city limits. Two places share a name this year, and both are changing fast. Almost nothing that happens in one has anything to do with the other.
Which Paradise Valley Are You Actually Talking About
The actual Town of Paradise Valley is the low-density enclave tucked between Camelback and Mummy Mountains, home to resorts like Camelback Inn and Sanctuary and to some of the most private residential streets in the region. "PV," as most people say it now, refers to the redeveloped site of the old Paradise Valley Mall at Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard, over 100 acres of shops, apartments, and restaurants built inside Phoenix, not the town.
| Town of Paradise Valley | "PV" at Cactus & Tatum (Phoenix) | |
|---|---|---|
| What opened in 2026 | Kimpton Miralina resort, January | Life Time athletic club, April 30 |
| What's still filling in | Mountain Shadows repriced its rooms for locals | New restaurant lineup, still expanding |
| What stalled | The Ritz-Carlton, in bankruptcy reorganization | Nothing major, buildout on schedule |
| Who governs it | Town of Paradise Valley | City of Phoenix, developer RED Development |
Both places are having a real year. Neither one's headlines tell you much about the other.
The Resort That Finished While Everyone Watched the One That Didn't
Kimpton Miralina opened on January 7, 2026, the result of a $42 million transformation of the former Scottsdale Plaza Resort by Trinity Investments and Partners Group. The property debuted with 224 guest rooms and 36 casitas as phase one of an eventual 404 keys, with villas and residences arriving later this year. Colm O'Brien was named managing director on February 25, overseeing a property built to keep 224 rooms of guests entertained without ever leaving the grounds, which is exactly why it matters to people who already live nearby. A mid-week bar seat, a spa opening, a quiet pool afternoon on a Tuesday: none of that requires a room key if you know when to show up.
The signature restaurant, Hecho Libre, comes from chef Wes Avila, whose California and Mexican cooking has drawn recognition from both the Michelin Guide and the James Beard Foundation. It anchors the resort's three-tier Canyon Oasis Pool alongside a poolside bar called Cima, which means the simplest way to try it is as a local rather than as an overnight guest.
Set that against the Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley, sometimes called The Palmeraie, a project that has been in some stage of development for close to two decades. In November 2025, developer Five Star Development filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after its primary lender, Madison Realty Capital, moved toward foreclosure. A Texas bankruptcy judge cleared the way in December for villa sales to continue even with hotel construction paused, and Five Star has kept advancing those closings since. By July 2026, the developer had reached a term sheet with its lender for additional liquidity during restructuring. The hotel's opening date has been pushed back repeatedly, from 2023 to 2024 and now to 2027, well past the spring 2026 date once floated for the project. If you've been waiting on the marquee project, the wait just moved by a year.
What Actually Changed for Someone Already Living Here
If you're trying to figure out whether any of this touches your week, the answer depends on which side of the line you're on.
- Hikers: plan around the Cholla closure through August 28. Echo Canyon Trailhead, at 4925 E. McDonald Dr., is the only route up until then, and it fills fast on weekends even without the extra traffic.
- Anyone who wants a night out without booking a flight: Mountain Shadows is running its Fee-Free Staycation through September 30, waiving the nightly resort fee entirely for Arizona residents and pricing Signature Deluxe rooms at $159 on weekdays and $199 on weekends, with no deposit and a seven-day cancellation window. The resort's Summer Golf Pass, priced at $399 through September 20, drops each round at The Short Course to $10.
- Anyone who assumed "PV" meant something closer to the town center: it doesn't. Life Time opened its 91,000-square-foot Paradise Valley club on April 30 at 12800 N. Tatum Blvd, inside Phoenix rather than the town, and the restaurant additions announced for that site, including Velvet Taco, Cala, Too Sweet Cakes, and the Indianapolis steakhouse Harry & Izzy's, are all inside Phoenix too.
None of these compete for the same resident's attention the way the shared branding suggests. Growth in the actual town is happening at the resort level, in ways that mostly reward people who already live within a short drive. Growth carrying the same name in Phoenix is happening at the retail and fitness level, aimed at a much wider radius of shoppers and members.
Why the Distinction Is Worth Keeping Straight
The habit of calling both places Paradise Valley isn't wrong exactly, it's just imprecise in a way that costs you information. Hear that Paradise Valley "got a Life Time" and the accurate version is that Phoenix zoning and Phoenix permitting got a Life Time, outside the town's own borders. Hear that the Ritz-Carlton is delayed and that has no bearing on whether Kimpton Miralina or Mountain Shadows are operating normally, because they are, on schedule, taking reservations today.
Part of why the headlines blur together is the trailhead problem from the top of this piece: addresses inside Phoenix keep carrying the Paradise Valley name out of habit, long after the jurisdiction has changed. For anyone who already lives in the actual town, the more useful habit going forward is reading for direction rather than name. Development inside town limits tends to move on a resort or estate timeline, with the Ritz-Carlton's twenty-year saga sitting at the extreme end of that pattern. Growth carrying the Paradise Valley label in Phoenix moves at a commercial retail pace instead, opening and filling storefronts within a single calendar year. Keeping that split in mind means you stop crediting one place's momentum, or blaming it for the other's setbacks.
Curious what any of this means for property values or timing inside the actual town limits? Kayla Kerulis offers a complimentary market consultation for anyone weighing a move in Paradise Valley or the surrounding East Valley.
