The apartments get all the attention. Ask anyone in Oro Valley what's happening at the corner of Oracle and Tangerine, and they'll mention Encantada, the 320-unit complex rising south of Tangerine Road. It's the piece with the renderings, the council votes, the comment-section arguments about whether the town needs luxury apartments or something more affordable. It's also the piece that won't be finished until mid-to-late 2027.
Meanwhile, the changes you can actually feel on a Tuesday afternoon grocery run have mostly already started. A new pedestrian tunnel is going in under Water Harvest Way. A public park is taking shape between Walmart and Tuk Tuk Thai. Intersection work near In-N-Out is smoothing out one of the more awkward turns in the lot. None of that required waiting for a single unit to lease. The redevelopment at Oro Valley Marketplace is really two projects running on two different clocks, and the one residents will notice first isn't the one everyone's been debating.
What broke ground, and when
Construction on this phase started in September 2025, when crews began grading the site and salvaging native desert plants before any concrete went in. By October, work had moved to relocating water lines along Water Harvest Way. The tunnel connecting the east and west sides of the roadway followed in November and December, timed so the plaza could reopen at full access for Thanksgiving weekend and the holiday shopping season that followed, according to a KVOA report on the project's rollout.
Here's how the sequence actually breaks down:
| Timeframe | What's happening |
|---|---|
| September 2025 | Grading begins, native desert plants salvaged and relocated |
| October 2025 | Water line relocation along Water Harvest Way |
| November–December 2025 | Pedestrian tunnel construction under Water Harvest Way |
| November 2025 | Neighborhood park construction begins between Walmart and Tuk Tuk Thai |
| January 2026 | Intersection upgrades along Water Harvest Way, from In-N-Out toward Oracle Road |
| 2026–2027 | Encantada apartments under construction, completion expected mid-to-late 2027 |
By this past May, KGUN 9 returned to check on progress and found playground equipment going in and structures tied to the future apartment complex visible for the first time. The town's Economic Development office confirmed in its February 2026 update that an extended construction hours permit had been issued for concrete work at the apartment and park sites, anticipated to run roughly ten months, which puts the noisiest stretch of this project running through much of 2026.
The park nobody had to argue about
The park itself has a longer paper trail than most people realize. Back in November 2023, the town council approved revised plans setting aside 2.9 acres between the Walmart Supercenter and the buildings anchored by Century Theatres for open space and recreation. The original proposal called for a courtyard near the plaza's southern end. Then-Vice Mayor Melanie Barrett pushed for something different after meeting with Town West representatives the day before the vote, arguing that a play area near Tuk Tuk Thai would draw families and help nearby businesses right away rather than waiting on a courtyard the market might not fill for years.
That's the version now under construction. It's a small decision, but it's the kind that tells you something about how this redevelopment actually got built: not as one master-planned reveal, but as a series of smaller calls about what would get used soonest.
Who the redevelopment is actually for
The apartments raise a question the town has been fairly open about. Paul Melcher, Oro Valley's Community and Economic Development Director, has framed the 320 new units as a way to bring what he called a "youth movement" to a shopping center that was built for a bigger population than the one currently living around it. Speaking to KOLD after the October groundbreaking, he put it plainly: "You get local shopping, you get walkability, you get all those enhancements from having 600 residents right next to your retail and shopping offerings."
Not every resident sees it the same way. Bob Lopez, who's lived in Oro Valley for three years and mostly comes to the Marketplace for groceries, told KOLD he considers Oro Valley a retirement community and pointed to that as part of why the shopping center's growth stalled in the first place. He's tried some of the restaurants but wants better options. He also thinks the apartments could help: more young people nearby might be exactly what tips the restaurant mix in a different direction.
The business owners who've already committed to the plaza are betting the same way. Crispin Franco, co-owner of Stacks Book Club, told KGUN 9 that the promise of a live-shop-dine environment was part of why he opened there in the first place. Hector Martinez of The Hoppy Vine echoed the sentiment when the groundbreaking finally happened. Both are staking a storefront on a bet that won't fully pay off until apartment leasing starts, whenever that is.
What's already filling in
While the housing waits on its 2027 timeline, the tenant list has kept moving. Happy Joe's Pizza & Ice Cream opened this past spring with a small arcade alongside the usual menu. Manager Jessica Gonzalez told KGUN 9 that more options nearby means residents don't have to leave Oro Valley to find them, and she flagged something worth knowing if you're timing a visit: much of the plaza's existing customer base skews seasonal. "A lot of the people that already know about us are snowbirds," she said, "so when they leave, we're left with the crowd that doesn't know about us." That's a real pattern for anyone weighing why a favorite spot feels quieter in July than in January.
Elsewhere in the plaza, Fork + Fire Smokehouse + Taproom, Charred Pie, and Tuk Tuk Thai's second Tucson-area location have already established themselves as the local counterweight to the national chains like Olive Garden and The Keg. Martinez mentioned during the groundbreaking coverage that a tea room was preparing to open a few doors down from Charred Pie, one more sign that the vacant storefronts Town West inherited when it bought the property are closing up rather than sitting empty.
What this means for the rest of 2026
If you're driving through the plaza this fall, expect what the town has already flagged: construction activity, some truck traffic, and occasional rerouting near Water Harvest Way as the intersection and tunnel work wraps up. Full access to the retail side has been maintained since the holidays reopened it last year, so none of this should complicate a normal shopping trip. The apartments, hotel sites, and additional retail space the 2023 master plan allows for are still further out, and Melcher has said those later phases depend on how this first one performs.
What's worth watching between now and the end of the year is the park. It's the piece with the shortest runway, the most direct benefit to anyone who already walks or bikes through the plaza, and the one detail that didn't need a single new resident to move in before it started paying off.
If you're weighing what growth at Oracle and Tangerine means for property values in the surrounding Oro Valley neighborhoods, The Bonn Team tracks these corridor-level shifts as part of daily market work. Request a Confidential Market Consultation to talk through what redevelopment like this tends to mean for nearby home values over time.
