Legacy Park and Gateway Crossing, Mesa

Mesa just approved the largest development in its history, and the first shovel does not go in the ground for another sixteen months.

The City Council voted unanimously on September 14, 2026 to approve a development agreement with Phoenix-based Vestar for Legacy Park and the adjacent Gateway Crossing, a roughly 9.4 million-square-foot mixed-use program valued at $3 billion at full build-out. The same action annexed land that had been unincorporated Maricopa County, rezoned it, created a theme park district and set a retail development tax incentive agreement.

Project Scope

Legacy Park covers about 197 acres at the northeast corner of Ellsworth Road and Williams Field Road, east of Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport and served by the new State Route 24. Gateway Crossing is a separate 40-acre commercial site directly across Williams Field Road, filed with the city in August 2025 as Legacy Towne Center.

The program at full build-out: 300,000 square feet of upscale retail and restaurant space, 3.4 million square feet of Class A mid-rise office, 2,500 multifamily units, a 600-room resort hotel to be developed by The Athens Group, and a public park of more than 20 acres built around a lake. MVE + Partners is master planner, with Hart Howerton and ABLA Studio on the design team. No general contractor has been selected. Vestar has said the rest of the team comes together over the next 18 to 24 months.

The schedule puts public infrastructure, amenities and traffic improvements into construction in January 2028, vertical work in June 2028, and a Phase 1 opening in October 2029.

Why It Matters

Two things make this worth watching. The first is water. Mesa approved the project under strict desert water-assurance rules, and the conditions attached to a program this size will set the template for the rest of the Gateway corridor.

The second is the name. This Legacy Park is not the Legacy Sports Park that defaulted on $284 million of bonds in 2022 and went through Chapter 11 the following year. That facility sits immediately south, operates today as Arizona Athletic Grounds, and has entirely different owners. Both parcels came off the old General Motors Desert Proving Ground, which is the only real connection between them. Expect the confusion to follow this project for years.

City officials project nearly $60 billion in economic output and more than 13,000 jobs over 30 years. Vestar’s own earlier estimate was $56 billion and 20,000 jobs over 20.

Project Team & Details