What it is
Mesa Riverview is a big-box shopping center at the corner of the 101 and 202 freeways in west Mesa, built on cotton fields from 2006 and opened in 2007: about 1.1 million square feet of stores around surface parking, roughly 85 of them, owned by Kimco Realty. The anchors are a Bass Pro Shops, a Walmart, a Home Depot, Marshalls, Petco and a Cinemark multiplex, with the usual run of chain restaurants along the Dobson Road frontage. It is not pretty and does not try to be; a 2012 rebuild of part of the center made it easier to walk between the stores, which tells you how it was designed in the first place.
What makes it worth a guide is the corner it sits on. Across Rio Salado Parkway is Sloan Park, the Cubs’ spring-training ballpark, and between the two is Riverview Park, the city park with a lake stocked under the state’s urban fishing program, a splash pad and a large playground. On a March afternoon the three together are the East Valley’s family day; the rest of the year the center is the nearest place to the Scottsdale resorts to buy the things a resort does not sell.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
For the Bass Pro, mostly, which is the closest one to Scottsdale and is as much a roadside attraction as a store: an aquarium, a wall of taxidermy, boats parked indoors, and the best selection within twenty miles of the real sun hats, hydration packs, camp chairs and trail shoes that our packing note keeps telling people to bring and that they keep forgetting. The Walmart and Home Depot are for the rental-house errands. The parking is for the Cubs. Our shopping note covers the Scottsdale malls; this is the opposite kind of shopping and it has its uses.
The practical version
Twenty-two minutes from Old Town via the 101 and one exit on the 202. Stores keep normal hours, roughly 9 or 10 AM to 9 PM; the theater runs later. Park once; the whole center is walkable with effort. On a Cubs game day, arrive before eleven, eat on the frontage and walk over the bridge.
When to go
Any day for the errand; the center is never a destination in itself. Cubs game days from late February through late March, when the lots are the free parking and the frontage restaurants are the pregame lunch; the spring training guide has the timing. A hot afternoon with children, when Bass Pro’s aquarium and the Cinemark are indoors and Riverview Park’s splash pad is next door for the evening.
What to do
Bass Pro Shops first. Go in the front, head for the aquarium and the taxidermy, let the children lose twenty minutes, then shop the sun and hiking gear, which is why you are really here. The frontage restaurants are chains and reliable. Cinemark is a standard multiplex, useful on a 110-degree afternoon. Riverview Park, across the parkway, is the reward: the lake (bring a license if you intend to fish; the state’s urban program stocks it), the playground and the splash pad in warm months.
With kids
Bass Pro’s fish tank, the playground and splash pad at Riverview Park, and a Cubs game across the road is a complete Saturday for a family with children under ten. Our kids note covers Scottsdale’s own parks; this corner is the East Valley addition that comes with a ballpark attached.
The story
West Mesa along the Salt River was cotton until the 202 freeway came through and turned the Dobson Road interchange into one of the Valley’s crossroads. Kimco built Mesa Riverview on the fields starting in 2006 and opened it in 2007, the same year Tempe Marketplace opened less than two miles west across the river, and the two have competed for the same shoppers since. Riverview got the Bass Pro Shops, a Walmart and a Home Depot and became the errand center; Tempe Marketplace got the restaurants and the lifestyle-mall polish and became the stroll. In 2012 Kimco demolished part of Riverview to open a more walkable route through it, an admission that the original plan had been built entirely for cars.
The corner changed when Mesa voters agreed to build the Cubs a new ballpark on the city land next door. Sloan Park opened in February 2014 across Rio Salado Parkway, beside Riverview Park, and the shopping center found itself with a second life as the Cactus League’s most convenient parking lot and pregame lunch.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale has no Bass Pro and keeps its big boxes away from the resort corridors, so the Scottsdale visitor who needs a Walmart drives to one. This is the nearest full set of them to Old Town and the Camelback-corridor resorts, and the one with a ballpark attached. The spring training guide covers Scottsdale’s two parks and the Cubs’ history on Osborn Road; this corner is where that history is now.
Getting there
The 101 south to the 202 east, exit Dobson Road; the center is immediately on the right, with Rio Salado Parkway and the ballpark bridge at its south edge. Twenty-two minutes from Old Town, thirty from the Camelback corridor, forty from North Scottsdale. The light rail does not come here; our getting around note explains the Valley Metro map, and the short version is that this is a car trip.