Drive McCormick Parkway east from Scottsdale Road this week and you pass two lake-facing properties in opposite conditions. One is a 1978 office block still full of tenants, still shaded by the same mature landscaping it has had for decades, and scheduled to meet a demolition crew before the quarter ends. The other is a dark building where a restaurant ran for 41 years, bought by an owner who intends to level it and replace it with something that has not been publicly named yet.
Both are the same story. For half a century, the water in McCormick Ranch has been something you go past. Both of these projects are bets that it can become something you go to. What residents should understand before the trucks arrive is that the conversion runs subtraction first.
The Lakes Were Designed As Scenery, Not As A Destination
Miles of walking and biking paths thread this neighborhood, and a great many of them run alongside water. Almost none of them end at a table. That is not an oversight. The lakes were laid out as the visual spine of a residential master plan, with golf, greenbelt and shoreline framing homes rather than commerce.
The exception proves the point. Z'Tejas at Mercado del Lago has a 2,200-square-foot patio with lake views and direct access to the Indian Bend Wash Greenbelt, with two sliding garage doors that open the dining room to it once the temperature cooperates. It is the single best answer in the neighborhood to the question of where the path system meets a meal. It has held that title largely unchallenged.
That is the gap both shoreline projects are aimed at. And it explains why the disruption of the next several months is worth understanding in sequence rather than as a set of press releases.
What Happens At 7501 East McCormick Parkway
Diversified Partners has closed on the former Forever Corporate Plaza, the 1978 office property on McCormick Lake, and is redeveloping it as The Lakefront at Scottsdale. Connect CRE reported the purchase price at $25 million, paid to Forever Living Products, which stays on as an office tenant in the building it sold.
The plan covers roughly 100,000 square feet of restaurant, retail, wellness and Class A office space. Restaurant space goes on the south and west sides, where the patios get both the water and Camelback Mountain. A pedestrian promenade lined with storefronts is meant to carry foot traffic through the site during the day. There is a named valet arrival drive, Forever Lane, that keeps the previous owner's identity on the property. There is also a small marina with Duffy boat rentals, a resort-style amenity this shoreline has never carried.
Earlier planning documents described four waterfront restaurant spaces ranging from about 5,400 to 10,400 square feet, three of them with patios in the 3,000 to 4,000 square foot range. Set that against the 2,200 square feet at Z'Tejas and you can see the scale of the wager. Diversified's own trade-area math counts more than 56,000 residents within three miles of the site.
Here is the part that matters for your fall. Construction is phased, and the first phase is slated for the third quarter of 2026, which leaves about five weeks on the calendar. That first phase is demolition and initial activation of the restaurant and retail components. The second phase, covering the remaining retail and office buildout, is anticipated to begin in early 2027. Residents get the fencing, the haul trucks and the closed drive aisles well before anyone gets a lakefront patio.
The One Date On This Corridor Worth Doubting
Over on Camelback Lake, the former Chart House site tells a different kind of story. Chart House opened in 1984, ran 41 years, and closed permanently. Prime Steak Concepts bought the property. That group is Michael and Jeffrey Mastro, Dennis Mastro and partner Scott Troilo, the people behind Dominick's Steakhouse, Steak 44, Ocean 44 and Durant's. Jeff Mastro has said publicly that he and his brother grew up a few blocks away in McCormick Ranch, which is a rare thing to be able to say about the operator of a landmark lakefront parcel.
The announcement said the new concept was scheduled to open fall 2026. Fall 2026 starts next month. Nearly every roundup you will find online still repeats that date without qualification.
Read the reporting from the time of the closure and a different picture emerges: the roughly 10,000-square-foot building was to be leveled, the concept had not been finalized, and the restaurant was not expected to open until 2027. A later account floated a target as far out as mid-2027 for a substantially larger building.
Both things can be true. "Fall 2026" was a date attached to a ground-up rebuild before demolition, before a concept, before a name. No concept name has been announced publicly since. The practical read for a resident is straightforward: do not build a holiday reservation, an out-of-town guest itinerary or an anniversary dinner around that site this year. Treat it as a 2027 opening until the owners say otherwise, and consider anything sooner a pleasant surprise.
Where To Eat While The Fencing Goes Up
The corridor's actual dining is inland at Hayden, and it has quietly gotten stronger while the shoreline sits in limbo.
Starfish, 8390 East Vía de Ventura
The Orange County group founded by Gretchen and Archie McConnell in 2011 opened its first location outside California here on May 5, 2026, on the northwest corner of Hayden and Vía de Ventura. The space runs 5,200 square feet with a 1,400-square-foot patio seating 90. The menu carries more than 70 shareable plates drawing on Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China and Japan. Happy hour runs 3 to 6 p.m. daily with more than 30 items starting at $13, and the kitchen is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Two restaurants preceded it in that same room in recent years, Agave del Scottsdale and then briefly Okay Maguey, so the corner has something to prove. Gretchen McConnell's stated reason for choosing Scottsdale is worth sitting with: a meaningful share of their guests split time between Orange County and the Valley. That is a read on this neighborhood's seasonal rhythm, made by an operator who was willing to put a first out-of-state location behind it.
Z'Tejas and The Vig
Z'Tejas at 8300 North Hayden Road remains the patio to book when you want the water in the frame, and its garage doors are about to become relevant again as evenings cool. The Vig McCormick Ranch stays what it has always been on this corridor, the reliable default when nobody in the car wants to decide.
The Fall Calendar That Actually Moves Your Week
Three dates deserve a place on the refrigerator, and none of them involve construction.
Overseeding at McCormick Ranch Golf Club is the first. The Palm and Pine, both Desmond Muirhead layouts from 1972, stay open 365 days a year, but the annual Bermuda-to-rye transition closes nines on a rotating basis and leaves the course cart-path-only for weeks after reopening. In 2025, the published schedule put the Pine back nine roughly from September 22 to October 9, with a cart-path restriction afterward. That is a pattern, not a promise, so call the pro shop before you book a foursome for late September. If you play here regularly, note also that the club's membership year runs November 1 through October 31, which makes October the month that decision actually gets made.
Second, patio season arrives faster than the shoreline will. The Starfish and Z'Tejas patios both become genuinely pleasant well before the first Lakefront tenant signs a lease.
Third, Holiday Lights at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park has historically run from late November through December 30 on timed entry, with tickets released through ActiveNet in late October. For the 2025 season they went on sale October 27 at 8 a.m. The 30-acre city park at 7301 East Indian Bend Road is open sunrise to 10:30 p.m. year round, with $3 rides on the Paradise and Pacific Railroad and the 1950-vintage carousel, so there is no reason to wait for December to use it.
What This Adds Up To
Fifty years of McCormick Ranch have trained residents to treat the lakes as a view. Two of the most visible properties on that water are now being rebuilt on the premise that a shoreline can hold a promenade, four restaurants, a boat rental dock and a reason to arrive on foot from the greenbelt. If both land, the center of gravity in this neighborhood shifts from Hayden back to the water for the first time since the master plan was drawn.
The interval between now and then is the part nobody puts in a rendering. Expect construction fencing on McCormick Parkway before Halloween, a quiet Camelback Lake parcel through the holidays, and a second phase starting early next year. The payoff is real. It just does not arrive first.
If you own here and you are thinking about how a shoreline redevelopment on this scale reads against your own timing, that is a conversation worth having before the fencing goes up rather than after the ribbon is cut. Julie Jarmiolowski works block by block across Scottsdale's urban and lakeside neighborhoods, and you are welcome to schedule a private consultation.
