Drive past Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard often enough and you stop reading the construction fencing. Two years of banners promising something new eventually blur into scenery. Then one Wednesday the fencing comes down for real, and a restaurant that's been "coming soon" since last spring finally turns its lights on.
That happens this week. Harry & Izzy's, the sister restaurant to Indianapolis's St. Elmo Steak House, opens its doors at PV on Wednesday, marking Huse Culinary's first restaurant outside Indiana. The 8,300-square-foot building seats 340 across the dining room and a 2,400-square-foot patio, and Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning, already part of the Harry & Izzy's ownership group in Indianapolis, is a partner in this location too. Huse Culinary announced the project in April 2025 with a target of the second quarter of 2026, a window that closed June 30. The doors open almost two months past that. At PV, that's practically punctual.
Two Projects Share the Same Name
Worth clearing up before anything else: "PV" is RED Development's brand name for its 100-plus-acre redevelopment of the old Paradise Valley Mall, sitting inside Phoenix city limits near Cactus Road and Tatum Boulevard, in the 85254 zip code. It is not the incorporated Town of Paradise Valley six miles south, where resorts like the Camelback Inn have anchored the local economy for decades. Both places share a name and a general compass direction, so news about one gets mistaken for news about the other more often than it should. If you live near Cactus and Tatum, the project reshaping your dinner options is the Phoenix one. The town's separate growth story is happening somewhere else entirely.
What's Already Running
Strip away the press releases and here's what a resident can actually walk into right now:
- Whole Foods Market relocated here on October 16, 2024, moving out of its previous spot near Shea and Tatum after more than two decades there and into a store that tops 50,000 square feet.
- Trevor's Liquor took over the former Sears Automotive and Tire Center building on Tatum and turned the 14,000-square-foot space into a full bar, a full-service restaurant, a golf simulator, and a cigar lounge.
- Velvet Taco opened its second Arizona location here in March, serving tacos built around global flavors like chicken tikka masala and Korean-style fried rice.
- Life Time Paradise Valley opened April 30, a 91,000-square-foot athletic club with a rooftop pool deck, seven pickleball courts, and a full-service spa.
- lululemon held its grand opening weekend July 24 through 26 with an in-store DJ.
- The earlier wave, dating back to fall 2024, brought Flower Child, Blanco Reserva Cocina + Cantina, The Melt, Wren House Brewing, Federal Pizza, and Sephora.
That's a real neighborhood now, not a rendering. But it's worth noticing which categories of business got here on schedule and which ones didn't.
The Announcement Gap
Line up what RED Development and its tenants said publicly against what's actually true today, and a pattern shows up fast.
| Business | Announced Timeline | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Life Time Paradise Valley | "2026" | Opened April 30, on schedule |
| Velvet Taco | "2026" | Opened March, ahead of most peers |
| Whole Foods relocation | Part of Phase One, fall 2024 | Opened October 16, 2024, on schedule |
| Harry & Izzy's | Q2 2026 (announced April 2025) | Opens this week, about two months past its own window |
| The Vig | "2026," no quarter given (announced March 2025) | Confirmed for this fall as of a June 2026 update, roughly two to three quarters after announcement |
| Too Sweet Cakes | Q2 2026 (announced April 2026) | No confirmed opening yet, and that window already closed |
| Cala | "2026" only, never given a narrower window | Still no specific date more than a year after the announcement |
The pattern holds across every wave of tenants RED Development has announced since 2024. National retailers and fitness brands with a real estate department behind them open close to when they say they will. Restaurants built around one chef and a custom dining room don't.
Why the Restaurants Run Late
The businesses that hit their dates share a structural advantage: templated build-outs, corporate real estate teams, and permitting relationships a developer can plug straight into a construction schedule. A Whole Foods relocation or a Life Time club follows a playbook the company has run in dozens of markets before.
Chef-driven restaurants don't get that shortcut. The Vig's PV location, for instance, was designed around adobe brick sourced from one of Arizona's last remaining adobe suppliers, paired with copper accents and floor-to-ceiling windows meant to echo the mall's 1978 mid-century roots. That kind of custom design-build sequencing is harder to pin down two quarters in advance than a grocery store remodel, and the slippage at PV shows it. Cala never got narrower than "2026" in the first place, which in hindsight reads less like caution and more like foresight.
The Old Mall Refuses to Fully Leave
Even with a $2 billion redevelopment reshaping the block, three pieces of the original 1978 Paradise Valley Mall never moved: Costco, JCPenney, and a branch of the Phoenix Public Library. None of them are part of RED Development's phased construction. All three have been sitting inside an active construction zone since the rest of the mall was demolished in 2021, doing business exactly as they did when the mall was still a mall. It's the clearest reminder on the property that a redevelopment this size doesn't erase a place all at once. It builds around the parts that were already working.
What to Actually Plan Around This Week
If you're deciding what to do with a Tuesday or a Wednesday night near Cactus and Tatum, here's what's real right now. RUN PV, a free weekly community run welcoming all paces, meets every Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. through the Phoenix Run Club. The Park at PV, a three-acre green space with an amphitheater and a putting green, hosts the concerts and movie nights that give the property its gathering-place feel. And this week specifically, Harry & Izzy's opens its doors Wednesday, with The Vig's custom-built patio next door now confirmed for this fall.
If you're timing a visit around something you read was "coming in 2026," trust the grocery store and the fitness club. Give the chef-driven restaurant an extra season, because at PV, that's just how the clock runs.
Watching how a corner of your own city gets rebuilt, restaurant by restaurant and quarter by quarter, is its own kind of homework. If you're thinking about what that kind of change means for property nearby, or you're weighing a move somewhere else in the Phoenix area entirely, Sacha Blanchet Fine Homes is glad to talk through it. Request a free consultation or home valuation whenever you're ready.
