For roughly a decade, a proper dinner out from Troon, DC Ranch, or Estancia meant pointing the car south. Old Town has the density, the valet stands, the reservation depth. The corner at Pinnacle Peak and Pima had Preston's Steakhouse and a familiar rhythm of coffee, hair, Pilates, and a nightcap at Little Snitch. That corner is not what it was six months ago, and by the time the McDowells cool off in October, it will not be what it is today either.
This is a note for the people who already live within five minutes of that intersection. The reset is specific, it is named, and it changes how a fall Saturday can look without ever crossing the Loop 101.
What Is Actually Landing at 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Road
The headline is Alma. Alma Scottsdale is preparing to reopen at The Citadel, 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Rd., with founder and CEO Sheila Bryson targeting an October reopening with a completely reimagined concept centered on a Southwest steakhouse and several new experiences throughout the property. The team is aiming for an Oct. 1 opening, though the timeline could shift into early November depending on construction progress.
This is not the Alma that Old Town regulars knew. The redesigned concept will feature a Southwest steakhouse serving premium cuts alongside flavors inspired by Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Northern Mexico, with multiple dining experiences that include a rooftop lounge, a tequila bar, and the return of Barbwire Western Couture. A single restaurant becomes a floor plan of rooms, which is a very different proposition for a neighborhood that has spent years budgeting a whole evening around a single reservation.
The address matters. The space is the former home of Preston's Steakhouse, which closed last year after more than a decade in business, citing the condition of the building and required repairs. A building that needed a decade's worth of repairs is now getting them under a new operator, and the operator is not a stranger to the corner.
Why This Operator, on This Corner
Bryson's group already has a foothold at the Citadel courtyard. She has described the move as an opportunity to bring Alma closer to her other Soul Hospitality Group concepts, including Soul Café, Vic & Ola's, Pescada, and Little Snitch. Little Snitch, in particular, is already the coffee-and-pastry answer to a morning at the Citadel. Add a rooftop and a tequila bar upstairs from the same operator and the courtyard starts functioning like a small district rather than a strip.
Bryson said she wanted to create something beyond a traditional restaurant and bring a lifestyle space to The Citadel.
Take that at face value and the practical translation is this: the Citadel is being asked to hold a full evening, not a single course. That is a real change for a corner where the pattern has been to eat here and drink elsewhere.
A Corner With More Pedigree Than Most Residents Realize
The building itself deserves a paragraph. The Citadel was designed by former Frank Lloyd Wright apprentice and Scottsdale-based architect Vern Swaback and opened in 1985 on a previously undeveloped site. The Inn at the Citadel began offering guest rooms in 1991. The courtyard, the water features, the way the buildings hold shade in July, those are not accidents. They are Swaback's language, and they translate well to the kind of rooftop-and-tequila-bar configuration Alma is bringing in.
The corner also sits at a location that is easy to underestimate. The crossroads of Pinnacle Peak and Pima is actually the geographic center of Scottsdale. The Citadel sits at the northwest corner with an average household income in the trade area of roughly $159,000, and it is within two miles of DC Ranch, Troon, and Estancia. The trade area was already there. What is arriving is a reason to spend the evening inside it.
What Else Is Shifting Between the Loop 101 and Pima
Alma is not the only piece of the corridor changing this year. A few of the pieces worth having on the mental map, in the order a resident is likely to encounter them:
- The Henry, North Scottsdale. Fox Restaurant Concepts is building The Henry from the ground up on the southwest corner of the Loop 101 and Scottsdale Road, slated to open in summer 2026. That puts a full-service, all-day room at the freeway edge, useful for anyone driving in from Kierland or Grayhawk.
- The Citadel's own tenant mix. Little Snitch continues to anchor the courtyard's café side with pastries, craft coffee, and cocktails in a garden setting, which means the morning-through-late-night arc at 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak now runs through one operator group.
- Dia de los Muertos at the Civic Center. A large-scale outdoor exhibition of Day of the Dead art activations, altars, and 2D/3D placements will run throughout the Scottsdale Civic Center from October 23 through 26, with daytime music performances, food, arts, crafts, and a 7:00 p.m. procession through the Civic Center on Saturday, October 25. It is the one weekend where driving down to Old Town still earns its keep.
None of these are in the same category as a new Trader Joe's or a road resurfacing. They are the small, named changes that quietly rewrite where a household spends its Friday nights over the course of a year.
What a Fall Evening Actually Looks Like Now
Here is the specific claim, and it is the thesis of this whole piece: the Pinnacle Peak and Pima corner is quietly assembling enough at one address that residents of the surrounding communities can build a full fall evening inside a single courtyard instead of driving to it.
A worked example. Coffee and a pastry at Little Snitch in the morning. A walk on the trail loop in the McDowells while the shade holds. Late afternoon back at the Citadel courtyard. Early cocktail at the tequila bar upstairs at Alma. Dinner in the steakhouse. A last drink on the rooftop with the lights of the Loop 101 in the middle distance. Home in under fifteen minutes.
That itinerary was not available on this corner in 2024. Preston's could hold the dinner slot, but the room before and the room after did not exist in the same building. Under the new configuration, they do. For a household that has been budgeting a full night out around a forty-minute drive each direction, that is not a small change. It is the difference between a night out you plan two weeks ahead and a night out you decide on at 5 p.m.
What This Means If You Own a Home Near the Corner
Two practical observations for owners in the two-mile ring around 8700 E. Pinnacle Peak Road.
The first is textural. The corner is going from a single anchor restaurant plus a service-and-beauty tenant mix to a multi-room dining property with a rooftop, a boutique, and a bar. That kind of density tends to bring evening foot traffic that was not previously there. If your patio faces the Citadel side of Pima, you will hear it. If you are half a mile north on a golf-course lot, you probably will not.
The second is longer term. Whitestone REIT, which owns the center, is actively marketing the Citadel as a leasing opportunity catering to the upscale communities of North Scottsdale, and the courtyard still has retail and office availability on the plan. What is happening this fall is a signal about what the next two years of tenant decisions are being priced against. The corner is being positioned upward, not held.
For sellers thinking about listing a Troon, DC Ranch, or Estancia home in the spring, the practical read is this: the story about the neighborhood corner is measurably better than it was twelve months ago, and buyers touring in March will feel the difference in ways they will not always be able to articulate. That is worth building into the listing narrative rather than leaving on the table.
If you would like to talk through what any of that means for the value of your specific home, or you are moving into the North Scottsdale corridor and want a candid read on where the corner will be a year from now, Kapanicas Group is happy to sit down for a market consultation. Schedule a Free Market Consultation and we will bring the map, the comps, and a reservation at Alma when the doors are open.
