Neighborhoods · Southeast Mesa · 2026

How Will Mesa’s Massive New Legacy Park Change Eastmark?

What the approved $3 billion plan changes near Eastmark, and what it does not

When a buyer asks me about Legacy Park Mesa, the first thing I do is figure out which Legacy Park they mean. For years that name belonged to the giant sports complex on Williams Field Road. As of this month it belongs to something much bigger: a roughly $3 billion mixed-use district the Mesa City Council approved on September 14, 2026, on the dirt directly north of that sports complex and right next door to Eastmark.

I spend a lot of time in this corner of southeast Mesa with buyers who are weighing Eastmark against everything else in the East Valley. This deal changes the conversation, so here is what was actually approved, what is still unknown, and how I would think about it if you are buying nearby.

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Two Legacy Parks, one intersection

The old Legacy Sports Park opened as one of the largest youth sports complexes in the country, went through bankruptcy, lost the Bell Bank Park naming rights in April 2023, and was bought out of bankruptcy court for $25.8 million. The new owners renamed it Arizona Athletic Grounds in December 2023. It is still operating, and it is not the project the council just approved.

The new Legacy Park Mesa project sits on nearly 200 acres at the northeast corner of Ellsworth Road and Williams Field Road, between State Route 24 and Williams Field, across from Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. KTAR describes the site as part of the Eastmark community. The lead developer is Vestar, working with Pacific Proving, the landowner behind much of the former GM proving ground.

If you search the name and land on news about bond fraud or bankruptcy, that is the sports complex story. Different owners, different land, different deal.

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What Legacy Park Mesa will actually include

According to reporting from East Valley Explorer and the development documents it covers, the full build calls for:

• About 2,500 multifamily residences
• A 600 room resort hotel and conference center
• About 3.4 million square feet of office and corporate campus space
• About 300,000 square feet of upscale retail and restaurants
• A public park of more than 20 acres, with a planned 10 acre lake

The first phase is where the near-term picture lives. East Valley Explorer reports it includes roughly 700 rental residences, a JW Marriott, and a Life Time fitness club of about 100,000 square feet, along with the park and the infrastructure that serves it.

The city calls it the largest private investment in Mesa history and projects $58.8 billion in economic activity, more than 13,500 jobs, and $1.4 billion in city tax revenue over 30 years. Keep in mind those are the city’s own projections. Axios Phoenix reported a far smaller set of figures for the same deal, so I would treat the big numbers as a best case, not a forecast.

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The Legacy Park Mesa timeline, and the fine print

This is a long runway. Public infrastructure work is expected to start in early 2028, with the first phase targeted to open in October 2029. Engineering News-Record reports that no general contractor has been selected yet.

The agreement also sets outside deadlines: construction must begin by December 31, 2029, the park must be finished by December 31, 2034, and the hotel must open by December 31, 2035. Those dates tell you how the city is thinking about it. The first phase is the near-term piece. The full picture is closer to a decade out.

Two details are worth knowing if you plan to live or shop out here:

• The lake cannot run on tap water. Under Arizona law, Vestar has to buy Type II groundwater rights and run a separate piping system so lake water never mixes with drinking water. Axios reported those rights had not been purchased yet, so the lake is the least certain piece of the plan.
• Shoppers help pay for it. The city created a theme park district that adds surcharges on purchases, restaurant bills and hotel stays inside Legacy Park. Reimbursement to the developer is capped at $76.4 million. The surcharge applies inside the district, not to your property tax bill in Eastmark.

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What this means if you are buying near Eastmark

I would not buy a home in Eastmark or the Gateway area because of Legacy Park. I would also not ignore it. Here is how I would weigh it:

• Amenities are coming, slowly. A walkable district with dining, a resort hotel and a big public park fills a real gap on this side of Ellsworth. Buyers who plan to stay five to ten years are the ones most likely to enjoy the finished version.
• Construction is the tradeoff. Years of infrastructure and vertical work at Ellsworth and Williams Field means trucks, lane closures and dust on roads you would use every day. If you are looking at homes on the western edge of Eastmark, drive that corridor at rush hour before you write an offer.
• New rentals mean new competition. Around 700 rental residences in phase one and 2,500 at full buildout is a lot of new supply. If you are an investor planning to be a landlord in Eastmark, factor in that tenants will soon have a brand new amenity district to choose from.
• The airport is still the airport. Legacy Park does not change flight paths. Gateway traffic is part of life in this area, and it belongs on every buyer’s checklist regardless of what gets built.

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The bottom line on Legacy Park Mesa

The approval is real and the developer has a track record, but this is a plan with deadlines, not a finished place. The honest way to use it is as one more factor in a longer decision: where you want to be in 2030, how much construction you can live next to, and what the neighborhood already offers today without it.

If you want to see what is available close to the site right now, browse current Eastmark listings on our site or look across all of our Mesa neighborhood guides. And if you are trying to decide whether a specific street will feel the construction, reach out. I will drive it with you.

Sources: City of Mesa, September 15, 2026; KTAR News, September 15, 2026; Axios Phoenix, September 16, 2026; Engineering News-Record, September 18, 2026; East Valley Explorer, updated September 22, 2026; KTAR News, December 15, 2023.