In November, City Manager Greg Caton said, "The farmers market is one of Scottsdale's most loved traditions," as AZ Free News reported when the city announced the relocation. The market has operated at the Brown Avenue site since 2009, and the city is relocating it to make room for the garage expansion.
If you live near Old Town, you've probably heard the headline: the market is moving. The relocation is one change in Old Town amid restaurant openings elsewhere in Scottsdale.
The Market's Move and the Garage Expansion
The Old Town Scottsdale Farmers Market has run every Saturday from a city-owned parking structure at First Street and Brown Avenue since 2009, drawing more than 100 vendors selling produce, eggs, artisan bread and specialty foods from October through June, then closing for July, August and September because nobody wants to shop for tomatoes at noon in a Phoenix summer.
That run at Brown Avenue already had its final season this past June. On November 17, 2025, the Scottsdale City Council approved relocating the market to the surface lot at City Hall, 75th Street and Bennie Gonzales Way, starting with the 2026 to 2027 season. The reason is a $20.9 million expansion of the Brown Avenue parking garage, the same structure that's hosted the market for nearly two decades. The city needs the space back to build more of it.
That's worth sitting with for a second. Scottsdale isn't shrinking parking capacity in Old Town. It's spending nearly $21 million to add to it, with the market moving to the City Hall lot to make room. In comments reported by AZ Free News, Caton said, "Moving it to City Hall keeps it close to the heart of Old Town and gives vendors and visitors the space they need while we make improvements elsewhere."
Here's what changes and what doesn't:
| Brown Avenue (through June 2026) | City Hall lot (starts October 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Address | First Street & Brown Avenue | 75th Street & Bennie Gonzales Way |
| Site type | Parking structure, under $20.9M expansion | Open surface lot |
| Distance from current site | — | About a quarter mile |
| Vendor base | Roughly 100 growers and producers | Same vendor roster expected |
| Season | Saturdays, October through June | Unchanged |
The address changes, but the market remains part of Old Town's Saturday routine.
Restaurant Openings Across Scottsdale
During the same period as the garage expansion, several restaurant groups opened or announced locations in different parts of Scottsdale.
The Guest House opened January 9, 2026 in the former Etta space at Scottsdale Quarter, an elevated New American concept with a Wagyu steak program and menu items pulled from sister locations in Austin and Las Vegas. Din Tai Fung, the Taiwanese dumpling chain with a cult following in nearly every market it enters, opened its first Arizona location at Scottsdale Fashion Square in 2026 and has been pulling reservation waitlists from across the state. BOA Steakhouse, the Hollywood-favorite concept from Innovative Dining Group, the same group that ran Sushi Roku at the W Scottsdale for 15 years, landed at Scottsdale Waterfront in the first half of the year. Cielito opened in February atop the new AC Hotel Scottsdale Old Town, a rooftop bar and restaurant built by the research and design firm TWG under chef Shon Foster. Il Bracco, a Texas-based Italian concept, chose Scottsdale for its first expansion outside Texas and opened near the Mayo Boulevard corridor this year. Fox Restaurant Concepts expanded The Henry into North Scottsdale the same year.
None of these are rumors or renderings. They're open, or close enough to it that reservation lines already exist. The openings fell within roughly the same twelve-month stretch as the city's $20.9 million Brown Avenue garage expansion. The dates overlap, but the timing alone does not show that the restaurant openings and the garage expansion share a cause.
What Residents Get While the Market Sits Out Summer
The farmers market's summer closure isn't new. It's closed every July, August and September for as long as it's existed, because nobody's shopping outdoors at 10 a.m. in a Scottsdale summer. What's changed is how much is actually open and worth doing during that gap.
McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, the city-run 30-acre park at Indian Bend Road and Scottsdale Road, runs a free 5,000-square-foot splash pad daily, along with an indoor Roundhouse play structure built specifically to give kids somewhere air-conditioned to burn energy when the outdoor playground isn't an option. Neither costs anything beyond the optional $3 train and carousel rides.
The Scottsdale Gallery Association's ArtWalk runs every Thursday, year-round, 7 to 9 p.m., free, through the Arts District along Main Street and Marshall Way. It doesn't pause for summer. As recently as July 9, the Association ran a themed Gold Palette edition, Summer Spectacular, extending hours to 6:30 and pulling in live music and gallery receptions specifically built around the argument that summer in Old Town is worth walking through, not waiting out.
Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West runs Reel West Sundays at 2 p.m. in the Virginia G. Piper Theater, screening a classic Western each week followed by a discussion, with an August lineup built around titles including The Train Robbers. It's indoor, it's air-conditioned, and it doesn't require a jacket for the walk from your car.
None of this replaces the farmers market. It's evidence that the neighborhood isn't actually pausing for three months. It's running a different set of programming while the market takes its usual break, and that programming has gotten noticeably more developed than it was a few summers ago.
What This Actually Tells You
Put the pieces next to each other and the picture is different from "the farmers market is moving." The garage expansion is an Old Town project; restaurant openings include locations beyond Old Town. Together, these are changes across Scottsdale, while the market's new address on 75th Street is the most direct change to a familiar Old Town routine.
If you've lived here a while, none of this requires you to do anything differently. Your Saturday market trip moves a quarter mile in October, and Old Town's summer programming continues while the market is closed. Restaurant openings elsewhere in Scottsdale add to the city's dining options. Taken together, these changes are worth watching for what they may mean over time for property values, traffic patterns and the difficulty of getting a Thursday reservation in December.
Sanctuary Realty Group keeps an eye on changes like these because they shape more than where you park on Saturday morning. When you're curious what a year of this much movement means for your own address, get your home valuation from Sanctuary Realty Group and talk with a team that knows the local market.
