Drive to the corner of Alma School Road and US-60 today and you will not find a mall. Fiesta Mall's last standing building came down in 2025, and the 80 acres it left behind sit graded and empty, already sold, already rezoned, already waiting on the next phase of construction equipment. Drive twenty minutes southeast, out toward where Mesa's edge meets Gilbert and Queen Creek, and you will find something closer to raw desert. No demolition. No sale on record yet tied to a groundbreaking date. Just a 197-acre parcel that, as of this week, is still a proposal sitting in front of the Mesa City Council.
Both of these places are being talked about as billion-dollar districts. Both have real developers, real renderings, and real names behind them: Vestar on one side, Sunny Day Sports on the other. But if you have heard the phrase "Mesa's next big development" tossed around at a coffee shop or in a neighborhood group and pictured one project, you are actually picturing two, and they are nowhere close to the same stage. One has already changed the ground under it. The other is still asking permission to start.
The one still waiting on a vote
Vestar's Legacy Park is the newer name in Mesa's development conversation, and it is also the bigger dollar figure. The Phoenix-based retail developer, working with landowner Pacific Proving, is proposing a roughly $3 billion mixed-use venture on 197 acres near where Mesa meets Gilbert and Queen Creek. City staff and Vestar presented the plan to the Mesa City Council at a study session on September 10, with a council vote anticipated for September 14, which is today.
If the vote goes Vestar's way, the timeline the company has laid out is specific and not immediate. Groundbreaking on public infrastructure, amenities, and traffic improvements is targeted for January 2028. Vertical construction would start in June 2028. The first phase would have its grand opening in October 2029. At full buildout, the retail, restaurant, and fitness component alone is projected at 400,000 square feet, with Vestar drawing a direct comparison to the scale of its own Scottsdale Quarter project.
That comparison matters if you have ever spent an afternoon at Scottsdale Quarter, because it tells you what Vestar thinks this corner of Mesa could become: not a strip of chain restaurants, but a walkable retail and hospitality core built around a mixed program of housing, hotel rooms, and office space. Vestar's president and CEO, David Larcher, has called it a project meant to become the centerpiece of the East Valley. Pacific Proving's Andrew Cohn, who has said he has believed in the potential of this land for decades, framed the partnership as the moment the site's potential finally lines up with the right timing and the right partner.
None of that changes the fact that, as of today, Legacy Park does not yet have a city council yes. Everything downstream of that vote, from annexation to permitting to the 2028 groundbreaking date, depends on what happens in the next few hours.
The one that already sold the land
Contrast that with the Palo District, and the gap in progress becomes obvious fast.
The former Fiesta Mall site has been moving through actual, physical milestones for two years now. The mall itself, built in 1979 and gradually emptied of tenants by 2018, saw demolition begin in 2023 and its last remaining building come down in 2025. In November 2025, the Mesa City Council approved the formation of a Theme Park District on the 80-acre site, a zoning tool meant to unlock the kind of large-scale, sports-and-entertainment-anchored redevelopment Sunny Day Sports has planned. By December, the land sale from longtime owner Verde Investments to Palo District LLC, the entity Sunny Day Sports CEO Vicki Mayo manages, had closed.
The plan, a $2.5 billion project now branded the Palo District, centers on a $100 million Women's Health Campus that Sunny Day Sports CEO Vicki Mayo has called the cornerstone of the entire vision. Plans announced in March 2026 add two hotels to the mix, a 400-key property with a chef-driven restaurant positioned next to a proposed stadium, and a smaller 200-key extended-stay hotel aimed at the families, researchers, and medical visitors the health campus is expected to draw. Both hotels are targeted to open in early 2028. Sunny Day Sports has also floated a 25,000-seat stadium built around interest in bringing a National Women's Soccer League team to Mesa, and told local reporters in March that roughly 15,000 people had already signed up as founding fans.
Mesa Mayor Mark Freeman put it plainly when the Women's Health Campus was announced in December 2025:
"This investment will have a lasting impact on Mesa's future."
Plaza Companies, the firm serving as master developer with Gensler handling design, brings a track record that includes SkySong and the ASU Scottsdale Innovation Center, two other projects built on the premise that a shuttered commercial site can be turned into something that outperforms what came before it. Sunny Day Sports told local reporters in March 2026 that a site groundbreaking could come as soon as that summer, pending final permits and financing. That lines up with what officials said back in December 2025, when construction on the Women's Health Campus specifically was expected to begin in the second quarter of 2026.
Why the gap actually matters if you live here
It is tempting to file both of these under "big Mesa news" and move on. But the practical difference between a project that has already sold its land and demolished its old buildings, and a project that is still waiting on an annexation vote, is the difference between change you will notice within the next year and change that is still three-plus years from its first shovel.
If you live in or near the Fiesta District, close to Banner Desert Medical Center, Banner Children's, and Mesa Community College, the Palo District's milestones are the ones to watch first. A Women's Health Campus groundbreaking, hotel construction starting in 2026 or 2027, and a stadium proposal that already has a founding fan list all point to visible activity on that site well before Legacy Park's crews arrive anywhere near Gilbert and Queen Creek.
If you live closer to Mesa's southeast edge, the calculus is different. Even a favorable vote today only starts the clock on infrastructure work that Vestar itself has placed in early 2028. That is not a knock on the project. It reflects the genuine difference between redeveloping an already-graded, already-owned 80 acres inside the city's existing footprint, and bringing 197 acres through the full annexation and entitlement process before a single road gets built.
What to actually watch for next
A few concrete markers will tell you more than any renderings will:
- Whether today's council vote approves Legacy Park, and if so, what conditions get attached to the annexation
- Confirmation of a groundbreaking date for the Palo District's Women's Health Campus, which officials had put in the second quarter of 2026
- Any hotel brand announcements tied to the Palo District's two planned properties, expected to firm up as the 2028 opening dates approach
- Whether Sunny Day Sports' stadium plans move from a fan interest list to an actual league commitment
Two billion-dollar districts, two very different clocks. Knowing which one is closer to breaking ground is the difference between planning around construction traffic next spring and simply keeping an eye on a project that will not visibly change your commute for a few more years yet.
If you are trying to make sense of how projects like these ripple through daily life in specific pockets of Mesa, or you just want a neighbor's read on what is actually happening block by block, Rebecca Smith Real Estate is always glad to talk it through. Request your free home valuation whenever you are ready to see how your corner of Mesa is holding up.
