For most of its fifty-year history, the lake at the center of McCormick Ranch has done one job: sit there and look good. It reflects Camelback Mountain in the evening, it gives the golf courses their signature water hazards, and it lets the greenbelt path curve around something prettier than a parking lot. Nobody in Central Scottsdale has ever driven to the lake. You drive past it, or around it, or you jog its edge on your way to somewhere else.
That is the part about to change, and it is changing for a reason most residents have not connected yet: two unrelated developers have landed on the same shoreline at the same time, and the city has been tearing up the paths around that shoreline all year to fix the infrastructure underneath it. Neither project caused the other. Together, they are turning a fifty-year-old backdrop into a place people will actually go.
The office building becomes the destination
The most visible change is happening at 7501 E. McCormick Parkway, where Forever Corporate Plaza has sat since 1978 as a fairly unremarkable 100,000-square-foot office building with lake views nobody outside the building could enjoy. Scottsdale-based developer Diversified Partners has now closed on the property and is converting it into a mixed-use project called The Lakefront at Scottsdale, built around four restaurants facing the water, boutique retail, wellness tenants, and a small marina offering Duffy boat rentals.
Forever Living Products, the company that has occupied the building for close to thirty years, is staying put as a tenant even as the rest of the site is rebuilt around it. The plan folds in a separate bank teller building on the same parcel to widen the lake frontage, and the arrival sequence gets its own name: Forever Lane, a valet entry designed to make the drop-off feel like a hotel rather than an office park.
Walt Brown Jr., founder and CEO of Diversified Partners, described the ambition in a press release announcing the deal:
"The Lakefront represents an opportunity to create a true destination in Scottsdale, a place where exceptional dining, curated retail and beautiful waterfront spaces come together in a way that reflects the lifestyle and energy of this community."
The restaurant footprints range from roughly 5,400 to 10,400 square feet, with three of the four adding patios sized between 3,000 and 4,000 square feet, which tells you the water is meant to be the main course, not a backdrop glimpsed through a window. Demolition and the first phase of construction are slated for the third quarter of 2026, which is right now, so any fencing you've spotted going up along McCormick Parkway this summer is the start of it and not a false alarm. A second phase focused on retail and office space follows in early 2027.
It's not a one-building story
If The Lakefront were the only project on this stretch of water, it would read as one developer's bet. It isn't. A few hundred yards away, the former Chart House restaurant site is being rebuilt by Prime Steak Concepts into a 12,000 to 14,000 square foot steakhouse, targeting a June 2027 opening.
Put the two projects side by side and the shape of what's forming becomes clearer:
| Project | Location | Scale | Target Opening |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Lakefront at Scottsdale | 7501 E. McCormick Parkway | ~100,000 sq ft mixed-use, 4 restaurants + retail | Phase 1: Q3 2026, Phase 2: early 2027 |
| Prime Steak Concepts steakhouse | Former Chart House site | 12,000-14,000 sq ft | June 2027 |
Two developers, working independently, converging on the same lake edge inside the same eighteen-month window is not a coincidence you'd expect from a neighborhood that's been quietly residential for decades. It's a signal that the demand was always sitting there. McCormick Ranch has had the golf, the water, and the household incomes for years. What it hasn't had is a reason for any of it to feel like a destination rather than a drive-through.
What changes on the path you already walk
The commercial story is the exciting half. The inconvenient half is happening on the ground, and it's worth knowing about before you plan your next evening loop around the greenbelt.
The Pima Road multi-use path is currently closed between McDowell Road and Indian Bend Road, with that closure expected to run until fall 2026. The posted detour sends cyclists and walkers over to Hayden Road, Granite Reef Road, 86th Street, and 87th Street to get around the work zone.
Separately, the city has been working through a multi-phase repair of the Indian Bend Wash lakes and irrigation system, since decades-old clay liners have been failing and the lake edges have started eroding into the paths beside them. The next phase, a new low-flow channel through East Eldorado Park between Murray Lane and McDowell Road, is anticipated to begin this fall. Earlier phases in Vista del Camino Park have meant temporary path closures with a work-around path built along the west side of the park between McDowell Road and Roosevelt Street, so expect a similar temporary detour when the Eldorado phase gets underway.
There is at least one piece of finished good news in the middle of all this. The Indian Bend Wash underpass at Chaparral Road, a $5 million project that broke ground in May 2024 and closed the road for twelve weeks that summer to speed up the work, has been open for a while now. It replaced a surface crossing with a below-grade path connection under the road, which means the walk between Chaparral Park and the rest of the greenbelt no longer requires waiting on a crosswalk signal.
If you're planning a longer greenbelt outing this fall, here's the short version of what to expect:
- Pima Road path, McDowell to Indian Bend: closed through fall 2026, detour via Hayden Road, Granite Reef Road, 86th Street, and 87th Street
- East Eldorado Park low-flow channel work: expected to begin fall 2026, likely with a temporary side path
- Chaparral Road underpass: finished and open, no more surface crossing at that intersection
The parks are getting funded too
The path work is happening alongside a broader wave of park investment funded by the city's dedicated sales tax for recreation. Eldorado and Vista del Camino Parks were slated to begin design work on new splash pads, sport courts, and upgrades to the existing skatepark and dog park, and a new Thompson Peak Dog Park with three separate play areas, restrooms, and a connecting footbridge was set to break ground as part of the same funding push. The McDowell Mountain Ranch Aquatic Center went through a full pool replastering project in January of this year, the first phase of a five-year infrastructure plan for the city's older aquatic facilities.
None of this is dramatic on its own. Together with the lakefront construction, it adds up to a neighborhood getting a genuine refresh at the same time, rather than one flashy project surrounded by aging infrastructure that never gets attention.
The lake was never the point before. Now it might be.
McCormick Ranch was built in 1972 around two 18-hole golf courses and a network of man-made lakes that Fowler and Anne McCormick's original 5-square-mile ranch made room for. The greenbelt paths that connect it all run more than 25 miles, and they've always been the neighborhood's quiet asset, the thing residents love and outsiders barely notice. What's happening now is the first real attempt in decades to turn that water into something with a front door, a wine list, and a place to tie up a boat.
If you already live along this stretch of the wash, the next year will feel like a trade. Some evenings the detour signs will be annoying. But the lake you've been jogging past for years is finally getting the kind of investment that matches how much your neighborhood has always been worth.
If you're weighing what any of this means for your own address along the greenbelt, whether that's a question about timing a sale around the construction calendar or just understanding how a project like this tends to move property values in a corridor, Ragini Sejpal is happy to walk through it with you. Let's Connect.
