Drive Lincoln Drive on a Friday evening this fall and you'll pass two resort entrances less than a mile apart. One has a valet line and cars turning in for dinner reservations. The other still has construction fencing that's been up long enough for some Paradise Valley residents to have stopped noticing it.
Both properties have carried enormous names and enormous promises for years. Only one of them is actually open.
The Address Everyone Watched First
The Ritz-Carlton, Paradise Valley, part of a 122-acre development called The Palmeraie at 7000 E Lincoln Dr, was first proposed back in 2007. Construction eventually got underway around 2018. Along the way, the project announced its marquee restaurant, Mott 32, a Hong Kong-born Cantonese concept that would mark the brand's first Arizona location and only its second in the United States. For a corner of the neighborhood most residents have driven past for a decade without a reason to stop, that was the kind of announcement that made people pay attention.
Then, on November 4, 2025, the developer behind the $2 billion project, Five Star Development, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. The filing came days ahead of a scheduled foreclosure sale initiated by the project's lender, Madison Realty Capital, after months of legal back and forth between the two sides.
A bankruptcy court judge ruled in December 2025 that sales of the project's villas could proceed, but only with net proceeds held in a court-supervised escrow account. The developer told the court it needed to present a construction restart plan in January before work on the hotel itself could resume. By July 2026, the most recent reporting on the project described a new agreement between Five Star and its lender aimed at providing liquidity through the ongoing restructuring, meaning the project was still working its way through Chapter 11 as of this summer. No new opening date for the resort has been announced.
The One That Didn't Wait
A short distance away, on the site of the former Scottsdale Plaza Resort, a much quieter transformation was already finished. Kimpton Miralina Resort & Villas opened its doors on January 7, 2026, following a $42 million reimagining led by Trinity Investments and Partners Group. There was no decade of delay attached to this one. IHG signed the deal in October 2025 and had guests checking in roughly three months later.
The opening phase includes 224 redesigned guest rooms and 36 casitas, part of what will eventually be a 404-key property once villas and residences arrive later this year. The signature restaurant, Hecho Libre, comes from chef Wes Avila, a James Beard Award finalist known for his Baja-inspired cooking, with day-to-day culinary operations led by executive chef Stephen Jones, a James Beard semifinalist in his own right. Guests and locals can also find Spa Miralina, six pools including the multitiered Canyon Oasis Pool, and a lobby anchored by a textile installation called The Loom, created by artist Mariella Motilla.
Rooms started at $359 a night when the property opened, a number that puts a real staycation night within reach for anyone curious about the place rather than committed to a full resort weekend.
Where Things Actually Stand This Fall
| Property | Status as of September 2026 | What's open now | What's still pending |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kimpton Miralina Resort & Villas | Open since January 7, 2026 | Hecho Libre, Spa Miralina, six pools, 224 rooms plus 36 casitas | 134 Valley Villas, an onsen-style Enclave, and Arizona's first Katsuya, expected between Q4 2026 and early 2027 |
| Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley, The Palmeraie | Under Chapter 11 protection since November 4, 2025 | Villa closings proceeding under court-supervised escrow | The 215-room hotel, Mott 32, and a 29-acre retail and dining district, with no announced opening date |
The gap between these two rows is the whole story. One project delivered a full resort experience inside a single quarter. The other has spent most of a year moving through federal bankruptcy court while its most famous announcement, the Mott 32 restaurant, remains unopened.
What You Can Book Tonight
If you're deciding where to spend an evening on this stretch of Lincoln Drive right now, the choice makes itself. Hecho Libre is taking reservations. Spa Miralina is booking treatments. The pool deck is open to overnight guests, and the resort has positioned its restaurant and bar program as something meant for locals as well as travelers passing through.
None of that exists yet at the Ritz-Carlton site. The villas that are closing are closing quietly, through the escrow process the bankruptcy court put in place, not through a grand opening. If you've been holding off on visiting because you assumed the more famous name would be ready by now, that assumption has been wrong for the better part of a year.
What's Still Coming, and What Isn't Confirmed
Miralina's second phase is the more concrete of the two timelines. The resort has publicly committed to finishing 134 renovated Valley Villas, opening a hotel-within-a-hotel concept called The Enclave, and introducing Arizona's first Katsuya restaurant, all targeted for the window between the fourth quarter of 2026 and early 2027. That's a specific, sourced commitment from a property that has already proven it can hit a stated date.
The Palmeraie's timeline is harder to pin down. The July 2026 reporting on the developer's new financing arrangement with Madison Realty Capital describes a path toward completion, not a date. Given that this project has already moved from a 2007 proposal to a 2018 groundbreaking to a 2025 bankruptcy filing, the responsible read for anyone planning around it is to wait for an actual opening announcement rather than a construction milestone.
The Actual Lesson On This Stretch of Lincoln Drive
The name on the sign was never the reliable signal here. A globally recognized hotel brand attached to a project doesn't tell you when, or whether, the doors will open on schedule. What tells you that is court filings, lender agreements, and whether a restaurant is actually taking reservations.
This isn't the only corner of Paradise Valley where resort and retail investment has been reshaping how residents spend an evening. But on Lincoln Drive specifically, the practical read this fall is straightforward: one address delivered everything it promised inside three months of its brand announcement, and the other, despite carrying the more famous name, is still working through federal court before its own promises become real.
For now, that means dinner reservations, a spa afternoon, and a pool day exist at Miralina. Everything else on this corridor is still a plan.
If you're weighing what a shift like this means for a property you own near this corridor, or you're watching how Paradise Valley's amenities are changing before deciding on a future move, Clinton Miller can walk you through what's actually confirmed versus what's still speculative. Request a confidential consultation to talk through your specific address and what's changing around it.
