What it is
SanTan Village is Gilbert’s mall, an open-air center of about 1.2 million square feet at Williams Field Road and the Loop 202 that opened on October 26, 2007. It was the last project of Westcor, the Phoenix developer that built Scottsdale Fashion Square and Kierland Commons, and it is owned by Macerich, which absorbed Westcor and owns most of the malls in this section. The layout is the one Kierland made standard in the Valley: outdoor streets and plazas, with Dillard’s and Macy’s at the ends, a 16-screen Harkins, and a hundred-odd stores between, including Nordstrom Rack, Apple, lululemon, HomeGoods, Dick’s, Best Buy and Barnes & Noble. The restaurants are the East Valley chain lineup, The Keg, Kona Grill, Bourbon & Bones, Thirsty Lion and the rest, with more across the road at the SanTan Village Marketplace.
The center sits inside a 500-acre district that Westcor planned around it, now offices, apartments and more retail, and the East Valley has grown so fast around the 202 that something like a million people live within fifteen minutes of the parking lot. It is a good, complete suburban mall. That is the whole description.
Why leave Scottsdale for it
You do not, on purpose. Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are the same idea fifteen minutes from most Scottsdale hotels, and our shopping note explains why Fashion Square has the luxury wing none of these have. SanTan Village earns a place in this section because it is the shopping half of a Gilbert day: Agritopia is ten minutes north, the Heritage District fifteen, and when you need a store, a movie or two hours of air conditioning after either, it is right there at the freeway.
The practical version
Forty minutes from Old Town via the 101 and the 202. Hours run roughly 10 to 8 or 9 Monday through Saturday and 11 to 6 on Sunday, restaurants later. Park on the Harkins side. An hour or two.
When to go
October through April, like every outdoor mall in the Valley; the streets are pleasant and the plaza patios work. Weekday afternoons are empty. Weekends in the cool months are busy from noon, and the Harkins lot fills on a Saturday night. Summer is the same problem Kierland has: the walk between stores is the problem, so make it short, or go after seven when the sun is off the pavement and the restaurants are the reason.
What is actually here
- Department stores. Dillard’s and Macy’s, and a Nordstrom Rack for the markdowns.
- The Apple Store, which is the single most useful thing in the center for a visitor whose phone has died at the Riparian Preserve.
- Athletic and fashion: lululemon, ALO, OFFLINE by Aerie, Warby Parker and the national mid-market.
- Big boxes: Dick’s, Best Buy, HomeGoods, Barnes & Noble.
- Harkins, 16 screens, the East Valley’s default movie house.
- The Marketplace across Williams Field Road, an outdoor village of more restaurants and retail that is often the better dinner.
Eating
Inside the center: The Keg Steakhouse, Kona Grill, Bourbon & Bones, Thirsty Lion, Blue Wasabi, SALT Tacos y Tequila, Shake Shack and Jeni’s. Most of them have Scottsdale locations. If you want a meal worth the forty minutes, drive the ten to Agritopia’s Joe’s Farm Grill or the fifteen to the Heritage District.
With kids
A mall with a movie theater and a Shake Shack is a mall with a movie theater and a Shake Shack; it works as the reward at the end of a day that started with the Riparian Preserve’s birds or Agritopia’s farm, and the Harkins is the summer afternoon’s answer to a 110-degree parking lot.
The story
Westcor built the Valley’s malls for forty years, from Chris-Town in 1961 to Scottsdale Fashion Square’s expansions and Kierland Commons in 2000, and SanTan Village was its last. The company signed the first tenants in 2005 for an open-air center on alfalfa fields at Williams Field Road, where the Loop 202 was about to arrive, and planned 500 acres around it for offices, housing and more retail. The center opened on October 26, 2007 with Dillard’s, a Harkins and about a hundred stores, a few months before the recession; Macy’s followed in the spring of 2009. Macerich, which had bought Westcor in 2002 and absorbed its name, owns it today along with Fashion Square, Kierland Commons and Chandler Fashion Center, which is why the four malls feel like siblings.
What made SanTan Village work was not the design, which is Kierland’s, but the growth around it. Gilbert went from about 110,000 people in 2000 to roughly 287,000 by 2025, Chandler and Queen Creek grew beside it, and the 202 corridor filled with the houses and offices that a regional mall needs. The 500-acre district Westcor drew on the fields is mostly built now, and the center keeps turning over its tenant list toward the athletic and direct-to-consumer brands that open-air malls attract.
The Scottsdale connection
Westcor and Macerich. Scottsdale Fashion Square, Kierland Commons, Scottsdale Quarter’s neighbor across the street and SanTan Village are the same company’s reading of the same market, and if you have shopped in Scottsdale you have walked SanTan Village’s floor plan. The East Valley got it later, cheaper and with fewer luxury tenants, which is the honest difference. Our shopping note has the full Scottsdale map.
Getting there
Loop 101 south from Old Town to its end at the 202 interchange, then Loop 202 east about twelve miles to Williams Field Road; the center is on the north side of the exit at 2218 East Williams Field Road. Forty minutes with no traffic, an hour from North Scottsdale. Parking is free and plentiful; the garage by the Harkins is shaded. From Agritopia it is ten minutes south on Higley Road and west on Williams Field; from the Heritage District fifteen minutes down Gilbert Road. No useful transit from Scottsdale.