The roughly 233-acre luxury resort and retail Legacy Park development in southeast Mesa is one critical step from becoming a reality.
The Mesa City Council will consider on Sept. 14 whether to annex the land needed for the proposed Legacy Park and Gateway Crossing projects and whether to approve a development agreement that would pay for new roads, a park and a pedestrian underpass.
Legacy Park would be located northeast of Ellsworth Road and Williams Field Road. Gateway Crossing would be located south of Williams Field Road and State Route 24, according to a city presentation.
This would be the largest hospitality and retail development in Mesa's history, City Manager Scott Butler said.
Mesa officials project the project to generate roughly $56
billion in economic impact for Mesa over the next 30 years in a growing corner of the city. Butler also noted the project fits into Mesa's larger goal to capture more sales tax revenue by giving visitors to the city more options for places to stay and play.
Vestar, on its own dime, will build out all of the public improvements on the site including a park, a pedestrian underpass and new landscaping.
The city will use sales tax revenue generated by the property to reimburse Vestar for those improvements.
The sales tax will only be used to cover the cost of the public amenities, not the private development, Butler said, speaking at a Sept. 10 study session.
Once those amenities are paid off, the city will get 100% of the sales tax from the property, according to the development agreement. Vestar will be required to maintain the roads, park, utilities, and pedestrian tunnel in perpetuity, according to the development agreement. The city estimates the cost to build these improvements to be $76 million.
The agreement requires Vestar Development to provide a minimum number of hotel rooms, retail square footage, and office space; however, Vestar executives told councilmembers at the study session the company plans to exceed those numbers.
Legacy Park is slated to have 400,000 square feet of restaurant, retail and fitness space, a 600-room luxury resort, 3.8 million square feet of state-of-the-art office space, 2,261 apartments, a 150-room boutique hotel, 2,245 parking spaces and a 20-acre city park, according to a council presentation.
Gateway Crossing is expected to include a 160,000-square-foot large retail space, two 95-room hotels, 6,000 square feet of restaurant space, and 22,000 square feet of retail according to the presentation.
City officials expect the project to deliver high-quality retail and restaurant services to southeast Mesa similar to Kierland Commons, on the border of northeast Phoenix and Scottsdale.
The agreement also requires Vestar to build out the utility network, public parking, a city park and a pedestrian tunnel under Williams Field Road that will connect Legacy Park to Gateway Crossing.
After the project is complete, the city expects the two developments to generate roughly $56 billion in economic impact over 30 years and generate roughly $1.4 billion in tax revenue for the city, according to an independent economic analysis contracted by the city of Mesa.
The project will also help Mesa capture some of the sales tax dollars generated by youth sports tournaments at the Arizona Athletic Grounds located across the street from the project.
The complex contains 158 fields and courts and hosts about 2.4 million visitors annually, according to its website. The Turkish national soccer team used the Athletic Grounds as its home base for the 2026 World Cup.
While bearing the same name, the Legacy Park development is not the same as the Legacy Park sports complex that went bankrupt in 2023.
Families who come to Mesa to have their children compete in such tournaments often end up staying in hotels in Phoenix and Scottsdale, Butler said.
Roughly 60% of visitors to Mesa stay in hotels outside the city limits, according to city statistics.
If the council approves the annexation and the development agreement, Vestar expects to break ground by January 2028, and have the grand opening of the luxury hotel by October 2029, Senior Vice President Ryan Ash said at the council study session.
Councilmembers mostly expressed support for the project. Some raised questions about whether the proposed agreement went far enough to ensure the high quality promised by Vestar.
"People eat with their eyes," said District 2 Councilmember Dorean Taylor said. "They'll go to a cheap store because it's pretty. They'll avoid a high-end retailer because it's ugly."
The agreement does have some mechanisms to ensure the quality of the development, City Attorney Jim Smith said.
He pointed to a section requiring the developer to bring high-quality retailers that uses shopping centers like Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter as benchmarks.
"How do we know we're going to get what the pretty pictures show? They have put it in writing," he said.
The council will vote on the annexation and development agreement at its 5:45 p.m. meeting Sept. 14 at City Hall.
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Reporter Harrison Mantas, who covers Mesa, Gilbert, Queen Creek and San Tan Valley, can be reached at hmantas@azcentral.com. Follow him on X @HarrisonMantas or Instagram @harrisonmantas
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Mesa poised to OK $56B deal for key Legacy Park development
