A 20-acre stretch of land at Black Mountain Parkway and Deer Valley Road in North Phoenix has a new owner, and it comes with big plans attached. Developer Vestar has acquired the parcel for a proposed grocery-anchored retail center called Black Mountain Village, pegged as an investment of more than $50 million.
Vestar purchased the site from the Arizona State Land Department, according to a report from azbigmedia.com, which first detailed the acquisition at the intersection of Black Mountain Parkway and Deer Valley Road. The outlet reports the project is being positioned as a major addition to what Vestar calls the rapidly growing Desert Ridge community.
As currently planned, Black Mountain Village would span roughly 120,000 square feet of retail space, the article notes, with a 65,000-square-foot grocery store serving as the anchor tenant. No specific grocer or other retailers have been named yet.
Why Vestar Says the Area Needs It
Ryan Ash, Vestar's senior vice president of asset management, pointed to a gap in nearby amenities as the rationale behind the project. “Access to quality grocery, dining and neighborhood retail options remains limited in this area,” Ash said, per the same account.
Planning and design work is already underway, though the specifics of who will fill the center's storefronts and when construction might begin have not been released. The report states that tenant announcements and development timelines will be shared in the coming months, leaving many of the project's finer points still to be determined.
A Second Desert Ridge Site Also in Play
Vestar's interest in North Phoenix land isn't limited to this one purchase. According to a separate report from the Phoenix Business Journal, the developer had also been eyeing another 20-acre retail site in Desert Ridge that was slated to go to auction November 5 with a starting bid of $6.85 million.
That Desert Ridge property comes with its own strings attached: whoever wins the auction will be required to make roadwork improvements at the intersection, the Business Journal reported. It's a separate parcel from the Black Mountain Village site, but it underscores Vestar's broader appetite for state land in the area as North Phoenix continues to fill in with new retail development.
For now, the Black Mountain Village project remains in its early stages, with the acquisition marking the first concrete step toward a shopping center that, as The Arizona Republic notes, remains at the proposal stage. Residents hoping for details on which grocer might anchor the center, or when shovels might hit the ground, will have to wait for Vestar's promised updates in the coming months.
