11 Major Projects That Will Change Phoenix Forever!

0:00 Phoenix is about to spend over $11 billion on new roads, freeways, and infrastructure. And that's before you count the $7 billion semiconductor campus, the NFL practice facility, or the largest master-planned community ever built in the entire United States. And most people moving to Phoenix, or honestly even people that already live here, have no idea how dramatically our city is about to change. And I don't mean way off in 20 years. I mean in the next three to five. So, my team and I spent the last few weeks digging into every major project happening across the metro right now, from Buckeye to North Scottsdale, to figure out what's actually being built and what it means for anyone thinking about buying, selling, or relocating here. My name is Cody Romero. I was born and raised here in the Phoenix Valley, and I've watched this city grow from wide-open desert into one of the most in-demand metros in the entire country. From dirt roads in the West Valley to the current traffic jams in that same exact location. What's happening right now is unlike anything I've ever seen before. So, in this video, I'm going to cover the 11 biggest projects reshaping Phoenix right now, what they mean for home values across the valley, and the one project at the end that ties everything together. But for right now, let's get into this video. Let's start with one that is personal for a lot of Phoenix locals.

1:21 Metrocenter Mall was a landmark in Phoenix. If you grew up here or spent any time in the city in the '80s and '90s, you know exactly what this place meant to the city. And watching it sit vacant since 2020 has been tough to see, and it's been brutal for the surrounding area. But that's all starting to change because the former Metrocenter Mall site is being completely transformed into The Village, an $850 million mixed-use development. New renderings were just released recently showing what this thing is actually going to look like, and it's pretty impressive. What's being built is a 140,000 square foot retail area surrounded by town center style spaces, restaurants, and housing. The future apartment complex called Levante is expected to have 350 residential units. And the whole development sits directly adjacent to the new light rail extension that Phoenix already opened at the former mall site. So, this new development is connected to the rest of the city through public transportation, unlike most other places in the Valley are. And the old mall site was demolished last September to make way for this new build. So, this is not just a renovation of the old building. This is a ground-up transformation of one of the most recognizable sites in northwest Phoenix.

2:34 For the surrounding neighborhoods, this is a massive quality of life upgrade. The Metro Center area has been one of those parts of the cities that kind of felt left behind while other areas were booming. This project finally changes that and will serve as a revitalization to this area. I'm not really seeing this next project talked about a whole lot and I'm really not sure why. Eastmark is one of the most successful master-planned communities in the entire Phoenix Valley. It's been growing steadily in Mesa for years, but one thing it's always lacked is a real commercial and retail hub close by to the neighborhood. Right now, for dining, entertainment, or shopping, you really have to drive to Tempe, Gilbert, or Chandler, which is a real bummer for the people who live there. And honestly, it's been a major thing holding this area back. But Medina station is the answer to that. It's a mixed-use commercial development planned near East that will bring in retail, dining, office space, and services to an area that's really only primarily been residential so far. For the thousands of families and retirees who have bought into the Eastmark and surrounding East Valley communities, this changes the daily convenience significantly. Because like I said, right now residents have to drive further than anyone would really like for a lot of their everyday needs.

3:49 Medina station is going to help fill that gap. And from a real estate perspective, this is kind of the exact commercial infrastructure that supports long-term home values. I can tell you, when I show houses in Eastmark, everyone loves the look of the neighborhood. They love the brand new homes, but the one complaint here is that there just isn't anything nearby to do or for daily conveniences. Medina Station is going to help solve that objection. Now, if you've ever sat in traffic on the I-10 freeway heading out towards Goodyear or Buckeye, you know how bad it can get.

4:21 I'll be driving through the area at 1:00 p.m. on a Tuesday and somehow I get caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic in our city that's supposed to be traffic free. That stretch of freeway has been carrying more weight than it was ever designed to handle. And for years, there really wasn't a solution in sight, but it looks like that finally might be changing. In mid-June 2026, construction officially started on a $613 million project to extend Loop 303 southward in Goodyear. The project adds 4 mi of brand new freeway stretching from Van Buren Street all the way down to Maricopa County 85. Between Van Buren and Lower Buckeye Road, they're building three full lanes in each direction. That's a real freeway that's going to help spread the congestion out. And you're probably thinking, "Well, big deal. 4 mi of freeway isn't going to solve our traffic issue." But it's actually the start of a bigger picture project that changes everything about our freeway system in the West Valley. Meet the all-new SR 30, project number four on our list. And it's essentially a brand new east-west highway that will run parallel to the I-10 passing through Buckeye, Goodyear, Avondale, and Phoenix. The full corridor is a $28 billion project and ADOT expects it to wrap up by 2035. This extension isn't just about Goodyear, either. This is essentially the West Valley's second I-10 freeway. Once both pieces are in place, you'll be able to move across the entire West Valley without ever touching the I-10 if you don't want to. To understand why this is such a big deal, we have to look at where things are heading in the West Valley. Forecasts show that by 2050, roughly 270,000 cars a day will be making the I-10 drive between Buckeye and downtown Phoenix.

6:02 That's not really a traffic problem. That's more of a crisis. SR 30 is Phoenix's answer to this. The center segment running from Loop 303 to Loop 202 is what's getting built first. Design work started in late 2024, and according to ADOT, construction is set to begin in summer 2027. The plan calls for six lanes on that initial stretch which with an expected completion around summer 2030. For the communities out in Buckeye, specifically Virado, this changes the entire picture of living out West. Right now, the primary knock on far West Buckeye is the drive and dealing with I-10 traffic. SR 30 removes that objection almost entirely because you can avoid the freeway and get into downtown Phoenix. That second piece is important. When jobs follow infrastructure, home demand is going to follow the jobs. And Buckeye right now is only about 14% built out. That's an enormous amount of room to grow, and SR 30 is one of the main engines that's going to drive it. Now, if you're finding all of this informative, I have a lot more information for you on my Phoenix suburbs guide, and it's completely free. On there, it's going to have each city and town listed and the top neighborhoods in each, the crime ratings, school ratings, median home prices, and just a whole lot of information that you need when comparing the places to live. So, just scan this QR code to download your free copy of the guide. Now, let's get back into this video. Next, let's shift into something that's already turning heads in the East Valley. Shorehaven is the first phase of a $1.8 billion mixed-use project called South Pier at Tempe Town Lake. It sits on a 3.3 acre lot at East Rio Salado Parkway and Vista del Lago Drive in North Tempe. And when it's complete, it's going to be among the tallest buildings in all of Tempe. So, here's exactly what's coming. 1.3 million square feet across three towers. Towers 1 and 2 are both 21 stories high. Tower 3 comes in at 23 stories. The complex will have 724 residential units, three levels of subterranean parking, and 26,000 square feet of retail at the base of all three towers. There's also a 2-acre park at the center of the project. inside are what you'd expect from a development of this scale.

8:13 Resort-style pools with outdoor bars, club room and entertainment spaces, three fitness centers, and an outdoor dog park. All three towers are expected to open in 2026, and this is actually a part of the original vision for Tempe Town Lake that dates all the way back to when the lake opened in 1999. Okay, this next one is a little different from the rest of the list, but hear me out because it matters more than you might think, especially to some people.

8:40 Buc-ee's has officially arrived in the Phoenix area. And if you're from Texas or the Southeast, you already know exactly what that means. If you're not familiar, Buc-ee's is essentially the gold standard of travel centers. It's not just a gas station like a lot of people think. We're talking massive, immaculately clean facilities with hundreds of gas pumps, an enormous food operation, and a retail experience that people seriously drive out of their way to visit. The Phoenix area location is one of the largest in the entire chain, which is saying something given that Buc-ee's already holds the world record for the largest convenience store. Now, why the heck does a gas station make a list of projects that will change Phoenix forever? Well, it's because Buc-ee's doesn't really just serve people who live nearby. It honestly becomes a destination. It draws traffic.

9:26 I'm telling you, when it opened a few weeks ago, people were literally lined up down the street starting at 1:00 a.m. waiting for the grand opening. And Buc-ee's signals to other retailers and developers that a location has the population density and spending power to support major commercial investment. When Buckeye's picks a location, other development tends to follow. That's been the pattern in every other market they've entered and for the Phoenix area communities near the planned location, that commercial momentum is a real factor in long-term property value. Now we move to North Scottsdale and the projects here are kind of a different story altogether. On February 19th, 2026, the Arizona Cardinals broke ground on a brand new $200 30-acre training facility and headquarters at the intersection of Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road. It's right at the edge of Desert Ridge and on the border of North Phoenix and North Scottsdale. This facility is completely privately funded. It covers more than 250,000 sq ft including three natural grass outdoor practice fields, a full-size indoor turf field, and modern athletic performance and medical spaces. It's expected to open in summer 2028. But this is more than just a football story.

10:38 In May 2026, Dignity Health announced plans to build a 300,000 sq ft medical campus at the same site. Phase one starts in 2027 with opening expected the next year in 2028. This campus will include a sports medicine institute, neurological institute services, orthopedics, cardiology, and outpatient surgery. It's expected to create 700 medical and support positions in the area. So what started as an NFL practice facility is quickly becoming a really a mixed-use destination with an NFL team, a major hospital system, and a growing commercial and residential district forming around it in a prime location in Phoenix. Now that you understand what's happening to the freeway network out west, this next project will make a lot more sense. In November 2025, a new master-planned community called Terravella's held its a opening ceremony out in western Buckeye. And the scale of it is kind of hard to wrap your head around right now when you just see the open desert out there. Nearly 37,000 acres, up to 100,000 homes with 300,000 future residents, and 55 million square feet of commercial development planned out full build out. Seven builders are already active on the site. Century Communities, KB Homes, Lennar, Meritage Homes, and a couple others. A 22,000 square foot space called Echo Community Center has already broken ground as well. What this means in practical terms is that Western Buckeye is not a gamble on future growth anymore. It really is part of the growth of Phoenix. And communities like Victory at Verrado and Sun City Festival aren't sitting on the edge of nowhere anymore. They're sitting next to what's becoming one of the most ambitious residential developments in the entire country. Now, I'm going to be upfront with you. This isn't popping up overnight. Right now, honestly, there's not much out there. They're selling homes in Teravalis, but the rest is just empty desert. But eventually, there will be, and it's coming a lot quicker than what people realize. Shift your attention north now, because what's happening here is going to be a clear part of Phoenix's future. TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the company that makes chips inside of virtually every iPhone, laptop, and AI system on the planet, has committed 165 billion dollars to its Phoenix campus.

12:54 That is the largest direct foreign investment in a project in the entire history of the United States. The campus expansion includes six semiconductor wafer fabs, two advanced packaging facilities, and a research and development center. And directly adjacent to the TSMC campus, a 2,300 acre master planned community called Halo Vista broke ground in March 2026. People are already calling this a city within a city. The Halo Vista development encompasses nearly 30 million square feet of mixed use capacity. Industrial, manufacturing, office, retail, residential, and educational uses all in this one place.

13:33 And the average salary for a process engineer at TSMC in Arizona runs between 120 and 150,000 dollars a year. These are not temporary construction jobs. These are permanent, high-income careers being created in this area right now. For buyers, this reinforces the North Phoenix growth story in a significant way. Properties within a reasonable commute of TSMC are in a fundamentally different market than they were just two years ago. And speaking of North Phoenix, in North Peoria, there's a separate project happening right inside the Vistancia community itself that's worth paying close attention to. Five North at Vistancia is a 320-acre commercial core being built within the 7,100-acre Vistancia master-planned community.

14:16 Think of it as the downtown that Vistancia has always been building toward. Retail, restaurants, a medical district, a new K-12 charter school, an industrial commerce park, and 1,500 luxury residential units all within the boundaries of Vistancia. Construction on the commerce park component of Five North began in the second quarter of 2026, with delivery expected in 2027. That's 239,000 square feet of flexible commercial and industrial space being opened right in the community. And the city of Peoria itself owns 56 acres within Five North and has announced plans to build a medical district on that land. Honor Health and West Mec are already planned for the first phase. For buyers considering the Vistancia community, this is the project that changes the daily convenience for the area. Right now, the main knock on living that far north of the Loop 303 is that you have to drive for things. But Five North is going to fill that gap. Medical care, shopping, dining, and schools all within the community's footprint. That's a meaningful quality of life upgrade for Vistancia residents. We've been through 10 major projects and every single one of them, the freeways, the semiconductor campus, the NFL facility, the master-planned communities, they all have something in common. They're all kind of drawing from the same well, but this last one is different and it's the one that surprised me most when I started digging into it. A company called TracT has acquired approximately 2,069 acres on the west side of Buckeye near the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant and the I-10 freeway. At full build-out, this could become one of the largest data center parks in the United States.

15:54 We're talking up to 40 individual data centers totaling as much as 20 million square feet of data center space. TracT is working with the local utility on power infrastructure that could support up to 1.8 gigawatts of capacity. Buckeye Mayor Eric Osborne has stated that this project replaced an outdated planned community concept with a long-term economic growth plan and that it positions Buckeye to host one of the largest data center technology parks in the country. This isn't quite the flashy project that shows up on the local news every week, but from a long-term financial foundation standpoint, it may be one of the most important things happening in the West Valley now. And some people are going to see this as a major downside. So, we've covered 11 projects today and what I want you to take away from this is not just a list of construction sites. What's happening in Phoenix right now is a coordinated, funded, and structured build-out that is already underway. The freeways, the semiconductor campus, the NFL facility, the master-planned communities, and the data center parks. None of these are isolated. They're all part of the same growth story playing out across the city in real time. If you own a home near one of the major developments, your values may be getting a boost or in some cases they probably already have, like if you're near TSMC. If you're thinking of making the move to the area, you need to know about these projects before you commit to a certain part of the valley.

17:18 Now, if you want to see what neighborhoods and part of our city actually match your specific criteria, scan this QR code and you can take my completely free Phoenix neighborhood quiz that takes your personal criteria and pairs you with the perfect neighborhoods. This isn't some generic quiz. It is AI optimized and will give you real suggestions. I'm Cody Romero, your born and raised Phoenix realtor and relocation specialist. If you want to start the process of moving here to the valley and finding the perfect place to call home, reach out to me and I'll help you get started. I help 50 people every single year make this same move and I'd love to help you, too. Thanks for joining me today. I hope this video was helpful and I'll see you at the next one.