What it is
Phoenix Premium Outlets is Simon Property Group’s outlet center on the Gila River Indian Community, on the east side of I-10 at the Wild Horse Pass Boulevard exit. It opened on April 4, 2013, fully leased, with 90 stores in 360,000 square feet, Simon’s 76th Premium Outlet center, and it has settled at eighty-some stores since. The roster is the one you expect: Coach, Polo Ralph Lauren, Michael Kors, Armani Exchange, Brooks Brothers, Marc Jacobs, Tommy Hilfiger, BOSS, Kate Spade, Levi’s, Gap Factory, adidas, Converse, Fossil, Le Creuset. It is open-air, a single loop of storefronts around parking, with shade structures and misters for the months that need them.
The land is leased from the Community, which built the casino across the freeway and the Sheraton Grand behind it, and the outlets were planned from the start as the daytime half of a gambling-and-golf resort district. That remains the right way to think of them.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
Scottsdale has no outlet center and never will; the shopping note explains why the city’s retail runs to Fashion Square, Scottsdale Quarter and galleries. So the Valley’s two outlet malls are both a drive: this one, forty minutes south, and Tanger at Westgate in Glendale, forty-five minutes west. For anyone staying south of Shea, Phoenix Premium Outlets is closer, and it has the better neighbors. If the point of the day is outlet prices on Coach and Polo, it does the job. If the point is a shopping experience, it is a parking lot with stores on it, like every outlet center, and Fashion Square is twenty minutes from your room.
The practical version
Loop 101 to the 202, the 202 west to I-10, I-10 east to Wild Horse Pass Boulevard, forty minutes with no traffic. Stores open at ten and close at nine most days. Parking is free and enormous. Rideshare pickup is marked. Join Simon’s free VIP club on your phone for the coupon book, which is the only discount beyond the tag. Then cross the freeway: the casino, Kai, Rawhide and Koli are all within two miles, and they are the reason the forty minutes make sense.
When to go
October through April, like everything open-air in the Valley. The center is a pleasant loop in winter sun and a punishing one in July, misters or not. Weekday mornings at opening are empty; Saturday afternoons bring the casino-hotel crowd and the East Valley, and the parking lot fills from the freeway end. The two weeks before Christmas and the long Black Friday weekend have extended hours and the only real crowds the place sees. Summer weekdays are quiet and air-conditioned only inside the stores; move fast between them.
How to shop it
- Start at the anchors. Coach and Polo Ralph Lauren have the deepest stock and the longest lines later in the day; do them first.
- Shoes next. The athletic outlets, adidas and Converse among them, are where the outlet math actually works.
- Skip what you can get at full price in Scottsdale for the same money. Outlet stores carry outlet-made lines alongside last season’s overstock; check the label for the difference if it matters to you.
- Le Creuset is the one store worth a detour for new residents furnishing a kitchen.
- Eat elsewhere. The food options are what they are. The Sheraton’s casual restaurants and the casino’s are across the freeway.
With kids
An outlet mall is an outlet mall. The open-air loop is stroller-friendly and the restrooms are clean. The better plan is to leave the children at the Sheraton’s pool with one adult and send the other across the freeway for ninety minutes, which is roughly how long the place deserves.
The neighborhood
Wild Horse Pass is a resort district on open Community land with the Sierra Estrella to the west. The casino towers are the landmark. Nothing is walkable across I-10, so drive the two minutes.
The story
The Gila River Indian Community spent the 2000s building Wild Horse Pass into the East Valley’s resort district: the Sheraton in the early part of the decade, Rawhide from Scottsdale in 2006, the casino hotel in 2009, two Whirlwind golf courses. An outlet center was the daytime piece the plan was missing, and in 2012 the Community and Simon broke ground on the east side of I-10 for a project reported at about $70 million. Phoenix Premium Outlets opened on April 4, 2013, fully leased with 90 tenants, Simon’s 76th center under the Premium Outlets name. Armani, Cole Haan, J.Crew, Kate Spade and Polo followed within months.
The outlet business has consolidated since, and the center’s count has drifted down to eighty-some stores as some national chains closed outlet divisions and others, Bath & Body Works most recently, moved in. It remains the East Valley’s only outlet center and the Community’s steadiest daytime draw, feeding the casino hotel across the freeway on the weekends. The Simon machinery runs it like its other 70-odd centers, which is both the point and the limit of the place.
The Scottsdale connection
Scottsdale’s retail history runs the other direction. The city built Fashion Square into the largest luxury mall in the Southwest and decided, through zoning and inclination, that discount retail belonged elsewhere. So the outlets that serve Scottsdale sit on two tribal nations’ land, here on the Gila River and, for the Salt River Community’s part, in the big-box Pavilions at Talking Stick across Pima Road. The pattern is the Valley’s: the Communities built what the cities would not zone, and the cities’ residents drive to it. The forty minutes down I-10 is the price of Scottsdale’s taste.
Getting there
Loop 101 south to the 202, the 202 west to I-10, I-10 east toward Tucson to the Wild Horse Pass Boulevard exit, then east; the center is at 4976 Premium Outlet Way, visible from the freeway. Forty minutes from Old Town, an hour from North Scottsdale. From the Shea corridor the Loop 101 south all the way to the 202 Santan and west on I-10 avoids downtown Tempe. There is no transit. If you are coming for the evening at Kai or a show at the casino, the outlets are a two-minute detour on the way in, which is the best way to use them.