Chandler's Desert Palms Shakes Off 13 Years of Blight With Ross, Burlington, Chick-fil-A

A shopping center at Alma School and Warner roads in Chandler that sat mostly vacant for years is finally coming back to life, with new anchor tenants and local businesses filling in space that has stood empty since a Fry's Food Store closed roughly 13 years ago. PetSmart has already opened its doors, while Ross Dress for Less and Burlington are expected to open in October, and the center — now rebranded Desert Palms — is about 75% leased.

According to ABC15 Arizona, the property changed hands in 2024 when Arizona Partners took ownership of the shopping center, previously known as Sun Village Fair. That deal, worth $12.5 million and finalized with seller LNR Partners, is detailed by Kidder Mathews. Arizona Partners is now executing a $20 million renovation in partnership with the City of Chandler to revitalize the 160,000-square-foot center, according to the developer's own project materials.

Splitting Up a Dead Grocery Store

The center's long slump traces back to the closure of an 84,000-square-foot Fry's Food Store, which sat empty for about 13 years before redevelopment work began, as reported by YourValley.net. Rather than seek another single big-box tenant, developers subdivided that footprint into three smaller anchor spaces to accommodate PetSmart, Ross Dress for Less and Burlington. The same outlet's reporting shows how the re-tenanting strategy was designed to replace one giant vacancy with several active storefronts instead of leaving the space to sit empty any longer.

The 2024 sale did not include every parcel on the corner — a Walmart Supercenter, FirstBank and Wendy's sit on adjacent parcels that were excluded from the transaction, per The Chandler Local. Even so, Walmart is coordinating its own store and exterior updates alongside the broader overhaul, giving the whole intersection a simultaneous facelift.

A Longtime Diner Owner Sees Opportunity

For Skip Chase, who owns Chase's Diner and has operated at the Alma School and Warner intersection for nearly 30 years, the investment could not come at a better time. Chase said the shopping center's investment will benefit his business, according to ABC15's report. A local restaurant is also moving into Desert Palms, along with a salon, adding to the mix of businesses returning to the corner.

City of Chandler economic development director Micah Miranda said destination tenants bring community spending and support adjacent businesses, per the same ABC15 account. Miranda pointed to Ross, Burlington and PetSmart specifically as destination drivers — the kind of retailers that pull shoppers off the road and, in turn, put more feet on the sidewalk near smaller operators like Chase's Diner.

Local Names Joining National Anchors

Beyond the big-box anchors, Desert Palms is filling in with smaller, homegrown businesses. Red Brick Eatery is already open, and Image Studio Salon and tea shop Gozen Kamicha are also joining the tenant lineup, according to The Chandler Local's coverage of the buildout. Desert Palms still has 12 spots left to fill, and developers are eyeing the empty lots on the property for additional tenants, with restaurants viewed as a likely fit, per ABC15.

Beyond the inline building renovation, the 20.46-acre property includes roughly six acres of arterial pad space along the street, where developers have already secured commitments for drive-thru outparcels including Chick-fil-A, according to Arizona Partners. That empty-lot development is still being planned, and a neighborhood meeting is set for September 1 to discuss the project further.

Why National Chains Are Filling Old Big-Box Space

The Desert Palms turnaround is playing out against a tight regional retail market. Metro Phoenix retail vacancy held at just 4.5% in the second quarter of 2026, a landlord-friendly climate that has pushed expanding national retailers to target existing vacant big-box buildings rather than wait for new construction, according to a market report from Kidder Mathews. Desert Palms also benefits from its location in the Uptown Chandler Business District, about a mile from NXP Semiconductor, where roughly 25,000 daytime workers are within a five-minute drive and 377,000 are within 15 minutes, per data from Showcase.com.

Retail industry listings tracked by Malls and Retail Wiki peg the Burlington and Ross Dress for Less openings at Desert Palms for October 16, 2026, giving the corner a concrete date after more than a decade of empty storefronts. With PetSmart already trading and the rest of the center filling in around it, the intersection that Chase watched sit dormant for years is on track to look like a fully functioning shopping center again by the fall.