April 1999: Scottsdale’s population had just zoomed past 200,000. Sam Kathryn Campana was mayor. More than 30,000 people worked at about 1,800 companies in the Scottsdale Airpark area.
Tony Messenger was editor/publisher of the Scottsdale Airpark News, and I began my stint as a monthly contributor. Twenty-five years — and hundreds of Remember When history columns and other features — later, I’m impressed and amazed at how the Scottsdale Airpark area has evolved.
Here’s a mix of personal and professional reflections from 25 years of airpark history:
• My first article was a salute to Administrative Professionals Day (formerly known as Secretaries Day). It profiled several longtime Airpark-area employees. The Scottsdale Airpark News office was 15855 N. Greenway-Hayden Loop. For the first several years, I submitted my articles online via AOL and took the accompanying photos on a 35mm film camera. I had the film processed into prints at the Airpark Costco, then hand-delivered the prints to the editor at the Airpark News office. Today, my photos are all taken and submitted (or scanned in the case of the historic photos) digitally, and I email my column and images to the editor wherever she is working remotely.
• In 25 years of reading this publication, we’ve experienced “Y2K” (when we thought all of our electronics would malfunction at midnight December 31 as 1999 turned to 2000); the aftermath of 9/11 and the display of U.S. flags on nearly every business and car in the Airpark; and the COVID-19 pandemic, when so many businesses around the area shuttered for a few weeks/months, we masked up, worked remotely via Zoom and, after a year of waiting, got vaccinated and back to “new normal.”
• In 1999, the Loop 101/Pima Freeway was under construction, wending its way north along Scottsdale’s eastern border. When completed through Scottsdale in April 2002, it changed where businesses chose to locate near the Airpark, how employees got to work and how customers came to patronize Airpark businesses. In 2001, Carolyn Braaksma’s colorful art along freeway walls and underpasses made the commute more pleasant.
• Scottsdale Airport, one of the busiest single-runway airports in the United States, continued to make improvements over the past 25 years — adding a U.S. Customs Office in 2000, remodeling the terminal in 2001, resurfacing the runway in 2015, opening a new operations building on the north end of the runway in 2016, then razing the 1968-vintage terminal to build the Scottsdale Aviation Business Center and Thunderbird Airfield II Veterans Memorial in 2018. For decades, Rural/Metro (Scottsdale’s former contract fire service) had a fire station on the southeast corner of Scottsdale and Thunderbird roads. In 2005, it became a station of the new in-house Scottsdale Fire Department. The station was relocated to another area of the airport, and a Park and Ride opened in 2015 at the site.
• In addition to the Scottsdale Airport, the city of Scottsdale enhanced facilities and amenities in the Airpark area. The city water campus opened on Hualapai Drive in 1999, the CAP Basin Sports Complex in 2006, the McDowell Mountain Ranch Aquatic Center and Park in 1999-2006, the stand-alone Arabian Library in 2007, and the Bell/94 Sports Complex (2022). A huge event tent was erected at WestWorld in 2005 (remember its huge U.S. flag rooftop?) and the Tony Nelssen Equestrian Center opened at WestWorld in 2013. While new facilities opened at WestWorld, the old Brett’s Barn event facility was razed in 2011.
• Since 1999, the airpark area has become a shopper’s paradise: Kierland Commons and The Promenade debuted in 2000; shops throughout Northsight, circa 2003, Scottsdale 101 in 2003, Scottsdale Quarter in 2009 and more. Car dealerships opened on the west side of Scottsdale Road, north of Bell, throughout the early 2000s. New shops opened in old locations at Thunderbird Square.
• Works of art have added a touch of culture to the Airpark area since 1999: the Frank Lloyd Wright spire on the southeast corner of Scottsdale and Bell/FLW (2004), the TPC Bridge Underpass (2000s), Water to Water at the City Water Campus (1999), Sonoran Suite on Princess Drive (2006), Desert Tracery at Arabian Library (2007), Impulsion at WestWorld (2014), Aspire in the Hayden Road traffic circle (2014), From Land and From Air and Sun and Moon inside the Scottsdale Aviation Business Center (2018), Cholla Reflections and Cholla Canal Water Resources Mural by the Central Arizona Canal and Hayden Road (in 2010s), and the At One with the Eagle sculpture was moved from the Butherus to the Thunderbird/Redfield entrance to the Scottsdale Airport.
• Armour-Dial’s research and development facility was one of the first major businesses in the Airpark when the building opened in 1976; Dial’s corporate headquarters relocated from Phoenix to the Airpark in the 1990s. Both R&D and Dial headquarters moved into a new, Will Bruder-designed building on the northeast corner of Scottsdale Road and Loop 101 (renamed Henkel before moving out of state). The former Dial R&D site on Scottsdale Road at Butherus became home to the retail/office complex Scottsdale Quarter in 2009.
• Over 25 years, some Airpark-area events grew — Barrett-Jackson, All Arabian Horse Show, Waste Management Phoenix Open, the Polo Championship. Others went away — National Festival of the West, the Dial Corporate Challenge marathon, Thunderbird Balloon Classic. Until 2005, all events at Rawhide Western Town were covered in articles and ads on the pages of the Scottsdale Airpark News, including a farewell feature in October 2005 when the attraction closed on the southeast corner of Scottsdale and Pinnacle Peak Roads and moved to the Gila River Indian Community.
• During the past two and a half decades, there have been proposals for the Airpark area that did not happen. There was a plan to open a branch of the Pima Air & Space Museum (or the Champlin Fighter Aircraft Museum) at the south end of the airport; they didn’t fly. A task force studied the feasibility of building a tunnel under the runway to alleviate car traffic congestion on Airpark/airport roadways. Didn’t happen.
• Remember Chauncey’s Arabian Ranch on Scottsdale Road north of Bell? It was sold and the land now houses car dealerships and retail shops. Speaking of shopping, remember Sam’s Club and Wild Oats at Northsight? Stein Mart and Linens & Things at The Promenade? Albertsons at Frank Lloyd Wright and the 101? Remember when ChildHelp and Food for the Hungry were located in the Airpark? When Discount Tire headquarters was on Scottsdale Road in the Airpark before moving north to Grayhawk?
• Did you ever go to Farrelli’s Cinema Supper Club at Thunderbird Square? To Brennan’s on Thunderbird where it had off-track betting? Take classes when Scottsdale Community College had space in a building near the Scottsdale Airport terminal? Sit at the airport restaurant during Super Bowl weekend to see the sea of corporate jets parked here?
• Remember the restaurants: Jilly’s, The Left Seat, Los Olivos Norte, Mondo’s, Bobby’s, Arriba Mexican Grill and Barcelona?
• Cheers to some of the Airpark’s longtime survivors and thrivers; how could we live without Costco, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, Kohl’s, Home Depot, Copenhagen, Best Buy, PetSmart, Arizona Sun and Cactus Flower. And restaurants like White Chocolate Grill, Capital Grill, Wildflower Bread, PF Chang’s and Ray’s Pizza.
• I couldn’t do historic articles about the Scottsdale Airpark/Airport area without big kudos to the “father of the airport/Airpark,” the late Bill Arthur (owner of the Thunderbird Inn and longtime airport commissioner), and commercial real estate executive Jim Keeley, who has been publishing a report about the airpark area since the 1980s and knows more about the area than anyone.
Now in its 44th year of publication, the Scottsdale Airpark News has followed the people, developments, businesses and events in the Airpark area and how Scottsdale Airport itself has changed. It’s been a privilege to get to know the newsmakers who are now an important part of overall Scottsdale history. Thanks for reading; keep making airport, Airpark and Scottsdale history!
