For most of the last decade, the Lincoln Drive stretch between Tatum and Scottsdale Road ran on a fixed rotation. Sanctuary for a birthday. El Chorro for the sticky buns and a Sunday brunch on the patio. Camelback Inn for out-of-town guests. Mountain Shadows when Hearth '61 had a table. The lineup was stable enough that most residents could recite it without looking.
That lineup quietly reset in January. The old Scottsdale Plaza Resort, which had been a fixture since the 1970s and had drifted for years, reopened as the Kimpton Miralina Resort & Villas after a $42 million reimagining. It is the first branded IHG luxury and lifestyle property in the Paradise Valley/Scottsdale market, and it changes what the corridor looks like on a Tuesday night.
The 40 Acres Between Chaparral And Indian Bend
The property sits on 40 acres between Camelback and Mummy mountains, minutes from Old Town. Kimpton Miralina opened on January 7, 2026 following a $42 million reimagining of the iconic Scottsdale Plaza Resort by Trinity Investments and Partners Group, and it is one of the brand's largest resorts in its portfolio. The transformation was led by international studio Saguez & Dash, and phase one delivered 224 reimagined guestrooms and 36 casitas that represent phase one of the resort's 404 keys, with spacious villas and residences set to arrive later this year.
The amenity set is the part residents will feel first. Signature restaurant Hecho Libre from James Beard Award finalist Chef Wes Avila, Spa Miralina, sensory Desert Reveries installations, six pools, and over 50,000 square feet of event space round out the opening. The three-tier Canyon Oasis Pool anchors the middle of the property with Cima, a poolside bar concept also from Chef Avila. Spa Miralina runs five treatment rooms with poolside massage pavilions, a cold plunge, and an outdoor movement terrace.
For anyone who has lived here long enough to remember the Plaza's tired ballrooms and dated tile, the practical effect is that a 40-acre parcel in the middle of the corridor has moved from dormant to active. Weekday event traffic on Scottsdale Road is going to look different by fall.
Hecho Libre Is Not Another Resort Restaurant
The easy read on a hotel opening is to assume the restaurant is a package tour amenity. Hecho Libre is not that. Hecho Libre is an all-new Baja-inspired dining concept with a Sonoran Desert twist, a partnership between the resort and lifestyle hospitality group sbe from Sam Nazarian, and the restaurant is helmed by two-time James Beard Award finalist Chef Wes Avila. Avila is best known for his acclaimed Los Angeles dining spots Guerrilla Tacos and Ka'teen, and Hecho Libre marks his first Arizona kitchen.
Day-to-day the kitchen runs under Executive Chef Stephen Jones, another James Beard semifinalist and a Valley operator locals have followed since The Larder + The Delta. The sourcing tells you where the menu actually points: pastries come from Cielito Rosa Bakery, a Latina-owned local pastry shop, and produce comes from desert growers such as Blue Sky Organics in Litchfield Park and Ramona Farms in Sacaton.
Reading this against El Chorro is the useful exercise. El Chorro sits on 11 acres a mile west, still owned by Grossman Company Properties, which paid $19.5 million for it in 2021 and also owns the Arizona Grand and The Scott. It is a special-occasion room built around continental cuisine and sticky buns. Hecho Libre is a three-meal restaurant designed to run at volume from breakfast through late dinner, with agave-forward drinks and house-pressed tortillas. Residents now have a real weeknight option inside the corridor that did not exist last summer. That is the shift.
The Rest Of The Corridor Did Not Stand Still
A resort opening pulls the eye, but a few smaller updates matter to daily life here:
- Camelback Inn's spa entered a redesign this spring, part of an ongoing repositioning of the JW Marriott property that also includes Lincoln Steakhouse and Rita's Kitchen. Locals who use the spa as their default should call ahead on treatment availability through summer.
- Mountain Shadows continues to run Hearth '61 and Rusty's as the corridor's most reliable weekday tables, and the property remains the easiest walk-in on Sunday nights when Sanctuary's Elements is booked.
- Sanctuary Camelback Mountain, established on 53 acres on the north face of the mountain in 2001, is unchanged in ownership and format, which is worth stating in a year when so much else on the corridor is not.
- AndAZ Scottsdale still holds Weft and Warp Art Bar + Kitchen, useful mostly for its patio during the shoulder months.
- North of the corridor at the old Paradise Valley Mall site, the redevelopment simply called PV added Federal Pizza in August 2025, and Huse Culinary's Harry & Izzy's and The Vig are expected to open at PV this year, alongside the 92,000-square-foot Life Time Paradise Valley, which opened with Pilates and yoga studios, a spa, pickleball courts and a rooftop pool club.
The PV redevelopment sits technically inside north Phoenix, but for residents on the Tatum spine it functions as the closest walkable food cluster, and the pace of openings there is real. The 100-acre redevelopment project is only about half finished and is expected to be completed in 2030.
What Is Coming In Q4, And Why Summer Is The Window
The Miralina story is not done. A Paradise Valley 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. Katsuya is the modern Japanese concept with sushi, sashimi, and robata program that Sam Nazarian's group runs in Los Angeles and Miami. The rest of the final phase includes 134 newly renovated Valley Villas and an onsen-inspired hotel-within-a-hotel called The Enclave.
Two chef-driven restaurants inside one Paradise Valley resort has not existed on the corridor before. When Katsuya opens and the Valley Villas come online, the property will have 404 renovated keys, six pools, 22 indoor and outdoor event venues, the two restaurants from award-winning talents and on-property experiences. That is a different scale of pull than the corridor is used to absorbing.
The practical read for residents is that summer 2026 is the soft-launch window. Hecho Libre is open now with a menu Avila and Jones spent months developing. The pools are running. The spa is booked but not yet overrun by conference groups. Rates from January started at $359, which is a reference point worth knowing because it will not hold once Katsuya opens and winter reservation pressure returns. A weeknight pool day or a Tuesday dinner at Hecho Libre right now is a very different experience than the same visit will be in February.
The Trailhead Note
One piece of daily life that has not changed and deserves stating: the north face of Camelback still belongs to Paradise Valley residents in the early morning and to nobody after ten. It is not uncommon for hikers, even those who are capable and prepared, to underestimate the challenges of Echo Canyon Trail and require assistance from first responder rescue crews, and Phoenix's extreme triple-digit heat and unpredictable summer monsoon storms mean even the world's best hikers have required rescuing. Cholla Trailhead access off Invergordon has no dedicated parking, and enforcement on posted parking violations is real. If you have out-of-town guests coming to see the new Miralina property, put the mountain on the pre-6 a.m. side of the day and the pool on the afternoon side. That order matters more in July than it does in November.
The Shift, In One Line
For twenty years the Paradise Valley resort corridor operated as a fixed set of rooms that residents rotated through in a predictable order. As of this year, there is a new anchor at the west end of the corridor with two chef-driven restaurants on the way, a spa reset at Camelback Inn, a full new lifestyle campus north on Tatum, and a set of Villas and Residences arriving in late 2026 that will draw a different kind of longer-stay guest into the neighborhood. The corridor is not being replaced. It is being expanded, and the summer of 2026 is the last stretch before that expansion becomes the new normal.
If you are thinking about how any of this affects a property you already own here, or a purchase you have been quietly weighing along Lincoln Drive, Templeton Walker is glad to talk through it. Request a private consultation and we will read the corridor with you, block by block.
