What it means
The Quarter is Scottsdale Quarter, the open-air district of shops, restaurants, offices and a cinema on the east side of Scottsdale Road at Greenway-Hayden Loop, about three miles north of Shea Boulevard, on the western edge of the Airpark. It is laid out like a small downtown: streets and sidewalks, a fountain plaza, stores at ground level and offices above, all fed by a parking garage.
You almost never hear it alone. “The Quarter and Kierland” is how locals describe north Scottsdale’s other shopping district, the counterweight to Fashion Square in the south. Kierland Commons, its older twin, faces it across six lanes of traffic, and from the sidewalk the two look like one place. Legally they are not, which is the most useful thing to know about the word.
The Scottsdale Quarter guide covers the stores, restaurants and parking. The Kierland and the Quarter neighborhood guide covers the district around them. This page is about the name and the line.
Where you’ll meet it
Dinner plans (“Dominick’s at the Quarter”), the shopping guide, directions from the Westin Kierland, and every argument about whether a Scottsdale address means Scottsdale.
Where the word came from
The Quarter opened in 2009, into the teeth of the recession, on the Scottsdale side of the road opposite a center that had been there for nearly a decade. Kierland came first: the Herberger family’s 730-acre master plan was approved in 1991, Kierland Commons opened its first stores in 2000, and the Westin Kierland resort followed in 2002. All of that sits west of Scottsdale Road, in Phoenix.
Why “Quarter”? The developer never put an explanation on the record that we could find, so the honest answer is that nobody has claimed it. The word is the old English and French one for a district of a city, the French Quarter being the example everyone knows, and it fit the pitch: not a mall, a neighborhood with streets. “Scottsdale” in front of it did a second job. On a corner where the older, better-known center was technically in Phoenix, the new one announced which city it belonged to.
Locals did what locals do and cut it to one word. “The Quarter” is now as settled as “the Commons” across the road, and the pair is usually spoken as a unit.
What it is not
It is not Kierland Commons, and it is not in Phoenix. It is also not the Old Town “Entertainment District” or any other downtown quarter; in Scottsdale, “the Quarter” means only this one, on Scottsdale Road in the north.
The fine print
The line between the Quarter and the Commons was drawn long before either existed. On January 30, 1964, Scottsdale and Phoenix adopted matching resolutions fixing Scottsdale Road as their boundary from Cactus Road north to Jomax Road. West of the road went to Phoenix, east to Scottsdale. That is why the Commons and the Westin Kierland pay Phoenix sales tax while the Quarter pays Scottsdale’s, and why both carry “Scottsdale, AZ 85254” addresses: the Postal Service draws its own map.
The Quarter’s tenant list changes often enough that any roster dates quickly. Its own site currently lists an Apple store, Sephora, RH, lululemon, Culinary Dropout, Dominick’s Steakhouse, True Food Kitchen, Puttshack and a Landmark Theatres cinema. Restaurant openings at the Quarter are treated as north Scottsdale news, which says something about how central the place has become.
One more distinction: “Kierland Quarter” is a name this site uses for the whole district straddling the road, not an official one. Neither city uses it, and you will not find it on a street sign.