Scottsdale Waterfront is rapidly evolving from a dining-and-retail destination into a true live-work-play district. New canal-front projects like Magnolia Waterside at Old Town are adding residential density, ground-floor commercial space, and year-round walkable amenities directly along the Arizona Canal in Old Town Scottsdale.
What is happening with development at Scottsdale Waterfront and Old Town?
The Scottsdale Waterfront is no longer just a place you visit for dinner. New mixed-use projects along the Arizona Canal are adding residential units, ground-floor retail, and canal-front public space that are reshaping Old Town into a genuine neighborhood where people live, work, and spend their days on foot. The transformation is backed by city planning policy and driven by developer demand, and it’s accelerating in 2026.
The Canal District Taking Shape
The Scottsdale Waterfront sits immediately south of Scottsdale Fashion Square, straddling the Arizona Canal near the Marshall Way and Soleri Bridges, which connect directly into Old Town’s Fifth Avenue and Arts District. That geography is the whole story. You are a short walk from the city’s core dining, gallery, and shopping corridors without ever getting in a car.
According to Phoenix New Times, the Waterfront at the Stetson Canal already offers local and national restaurants, retail storefronts, office space, free underground parking, and valet services. What’s changing now is a residential layer being added on top of and around that base.
Magnolia Waterside at Old Town
The most concrete recent addition is Magnolia Waterside at Old Town, a new mixed-use project under development at 6824 E. Indian School Road, near Fifth Avenue and the Scottsdale Arts District. As reported by The Arizona Republic in November 2025, the project is a four-story building with 54 multifamily residential units and 900 square feet of ground-floor commercial space on a 1.17-acre canal-front parcel, with a tuck-under garage. That’s a meaningful amount of residential density on a small footprint, and the ground-floor commercial continues the pattern of pairing residents directly with street-level activation along the canal path.
The exact completion and occupancy status as of August 2026 has not been confirmed in available sources, but the project represents the kind of incremental, canal-adjacent densification the city has explicitly encouraged.
What the City’s Plan Actually Says
This isn’t just developer ambition. The City of Scottsdale’s Old Town Character Area Plan explicitly defines an “Arizona Canal District” with pedestrian and bicycle-friendly pathways along both canal banks, the Marshall Way and Soleri Bridges for non-motorized crossing, and a mix of retail, restaurants, office, and residential development adjacent to the canal. The plan calls for year-round activation of the canal with mixed uses and public open space suitable for special events, not just peak-season tourism months.
That policy framework matters to buyers and investors. When a city’s official planning document supports higher-intensity, vertical mixed-use development in a specific corridor, developers follow. The Waterfront and its adjacent blocks have that tailwind built in.
What This Means If You’re Considering Living Here
We walk buyers through the Waterfront area regularly, and the question we hear most often is some version of: “Is this actually a neighborhood, or is it still just a nightlife district?” The honest answer in 2026 is that it’s becoming both, and that transition is exactly what makes it interesting right now.
The Southbridge mixed-use development, which sits in the center of Old Town along the canal, has already demonstrated that upscale canal-view living and a vibrant entertainment corridor can coexist. The newer projects building around it are reinforcing that model rather than reinventing it. And just across the water, the elegant Scottsdale Waterfront Residences have been sought-after by full-time and seasonal residents.
For buyers thinking about urban Scottsdale living, the Waterfront area offers something genuinely different from the broader market. To give you a sense of where Old Town-adjacent pricing sits relative to other parts of the Scottsdale area, here’s a look at recent area-level medians from trailing 90-day data as of August 2026:
| Area | Median Sale Price | Median Days on Market |
|---|---|---|
| North Scottsdale | $1,132,000 | 17 |
| Cave Creek | $1,125,000 | 35 |
| DC Ranch | $3,637,500 | 53 |
These are area-level medians. Individual properties vary significantly by condition, building, floor, and view. If you want to know what a specific unit or building in the Waterfront corridor is actually worth right now, that requires a current market analysis, not a table.
For broader context on where the Scottsdale luxury market stands heading into fall 2026, my July 2026 luxury market update covers current conditions across the city.
The Broader Waterfront Trend Across Scottsdale
The Waterfront’s evolution isn’t happening in isolation. In McCormick Ranch, Diversified Partners is redeveloping a waterfront office property at 7501 E. McCormick Parkway into The Lakefront at Scottsdale, a mixed-use project centered on dining, lifestyle retail, offices, and nightlife. According to Shopping Center Business, planned phases are beginning in the third quarter of 2026. That’s a separate location from Old Town, but it reinforces a citywide pattern: waterfront settings, whether canal or lake, are being used to anchor cohesive mixed-use lifestyle hubs across Scottsdale.
The community you choose matters as much as the home itself, and that’s especially true in a corridor like the Waterfront, where the neighborhood is actively being built around you. Understanding what’s planned, what’s under construction, and what the city has approved for adjacent parcels is part of how we help buyers make a confident decision here.
Every situation is different, and the only way to know whether a specific Waterfront property fits your lifestyle and your numbers is to dig into the details together.
FAQ: Scottsdale Waterfront and Old Town Development
Is Scottsdale Waterfront a good place to live year-round, or is it mostly a tourist area?
It’s genuinely both, and that’s shifting. The City of Scottsdale’s Old Town Character Area Plan explicitly calls for year-round canal activation, not just high-season tourism. New residential projects are adding full-time residents to the mix, and the walkable access to restaurants, retail, and the canal path makes it a livable base in every season, not just winter.
What new apartments or condos are being built along the canal in Old Town Scottsdale?
The most recently reported project is Magnolia Waterside at Old Town at 6824 E. Indian School Road, a four-story building with 54 residential units and ground-floor commercial space on a 1.17-acre canal-front parcel near Fifth Avenue, as reported by The Arizona Republic in November 2025. Completion and occupancy status as of mid-2026 has not been confirmed in available sources. Additional mixed-use concepts near Fifth Avenue and Goldwater have also been described in development-stage coverage from 2025.
How is the Scottsdale Waterfront changing Old Town’s vibe from nightlife to a live-work-play neighborhood?
The change is incremental but real. New mixed-use buildings are adding residential units directly above or beside the dining and retail that Old Town is known for, while the city’s planning framework encourages higher-intensity vertical development along the canal. The result is more full-time residents sharing the corridor with visitors, which tends to support a broader range of businesses and a more neighborhood-like feel over time.
Can you walk to Old Town from Scottsdale Waterfront, and how close is it to Fashion Square?
Yes. The Waterfront sits immediately south of Scottsdale Fashion Square and connects directly to Old Town’s Fifth Avenue and Arts District via the Marshall Way and Soleri Bridges, which are non-motorized pedestrian and bicycle crossings over the Arizona Canal. The walkable grid is one of the defining features of the area, as noted by Phoenix New Times in its coverage of the Waterfront’s programming.
What does the city’s plan say about future development along the Arizona Canal in Old Town?
The Old Town Character Area Plan defines the Arizona Canal District as a corridor for mixed-use, canal-adjacent development with pedestrian and bicycle pathways, public open space, and a blend of retail, restaurants, office, and residential uses. The plan supports continued vertical mixed-use growth and year-round public activation of the canal banks, which gives developers a clear policy signal for future projects in this corridor.
The Bottom Line on Scottsdale Waterfront
Old Town’s canal district is in the middle of a genuine transformation, and the Scottsdale Waterfront is the anchor. City policy supports it, developers are responding to it, and the lifestyle case for living here, walkable, urban, connected to dining and the arts, is only getting stronger as more residential density fills in around the canal.
If you’re thinking about buying or investing in this corridor, the details matter: which building, which floor, what’s planned for adjacent parcels, and how the current market compares to where it’s been. That’s exactly the kind of analysis my team and I do before any client makes a move here.
Ready to explore what’s available at Scottsdale Waterfront or in Old Town? Schedule a conversation with us and we’ll look at the current inventory together.
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