What is Aiden by Best Western Scottsdale North?
Aiden by Best Western Scottsdale North is a mid-1990s suites hotel on 89th Place, a side street off Shea Boulevard beside the Loop 101, updated for a younger crowd. The building dates from 1996. Over the years it has operated as a Country Inn & Suites and as Scottsdale Suites on Shea, and review sites and maps still show both names. After a renovation that hotel listings date to 2020, it now carries Best Western’s Aiden brand, a boutique-style label pitched at what the hotel calls “creative travelers and digital nomads.”
There are about 164 rooms, and roughly 90 are suites. Many of them open onto private patios facing the courtyard and pool, which is the property’s best feature. Around that courtyard are a heated pool and hot tub, a fire-pit terrace and a grass amphitheater for live music and events. Inside are a restaurant and full bar with a small-plates menu, a fitness room and a boardroom.
The location fits the Shea Corridor: a freeway interchange, the HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center campus about half a mile away, and plain-looking strip malls hiding Chompie’s and, a few minutes south on Via Linda, Andreoli. Salt River Fields is about 3 miles south and WestWorld about 6 miles north.
Who it’s for: travelers who want a suite with a patio and a bar downstairs at a midrange price, spring-training and horse-show visitors, remote workers, and families visiting the hospital. Who should look elsewhere: anyone after a full resort, a walkable nightlife district or a quiet hotel on an amphitheater night.
How to do Aiden Scottsdale North right
Ask for a poolside patio suite. Of the roughly 90 suites, the ground-floor rooms that open onto the courtyard are the ones to get. Morning coffee on your own patio is the main thing that sets this hotel apart from the chain hotels along the 101.
Check the amphitheater calendar. The lawn amphitheater and fire-pit terrace host live music and private events. That’s great if you’re there for it and noisy if you aren’t, so ask about the schedule when you book and request a room away from the lawn if you want quiet.
Plan around WestWorld. The Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show in February and Barrett-Jackson in January draw big crowds about 6 miles north, and the hotel has offered event rates for the horse show. For March, spring training at Salt River Fields is about 3 miles away.
Eat at the bar once, then go out. The bar’s small-plates menu is fine for an evening in. For dinner out, Shea and Via Linda have some of the best strip-mall restaurants in Scottsdale. See the Shea Corridor guide.
Use the freeway. The Loop 101 on-ramp is around the corner. The Airpark, Kierland and Talking Stick are each a short drive, and Old Town is about twenty minutes southwest.
Several names, one building
The building on 89th Place went up in 1996, part of the mid-1990s wave of hotels along Shea Boulevard’s eastern stretch. The La Quinta a block away opened the same year. Shea had become the main street of Scottsdale’s suburban east side after the 1980s build-out of Scottsdale Ranch, its lake and its tennis center. The hospital campus that is now HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center and its medical offices sat half a mile away, and the Loop 101 was planned close by. A suites hotel there was a bet on visitors who would stay several nights: medical families, consultants and relocating employees.
The hotel’s names over the following years track the hotel industry more than any local story. It ran for a time as Country Inn & Suites Scottsdale, under Carlson’s Country Inn & Suites flag, and also as Scottsdale Suites on Shea, a name that reads like an unflagged operation. The order and dates of those names are hard to pin down from public records, so we don’t guess. What’s clear is the pattern: a well-built three-story suites hotel in a good location, kept up and reflagged as owners and brands changed.
The latest change was the biggest. Best Western, long known for roadside motels, created boutique-style brands to compete with lifestyle hotels, and Aiden is one of them. These brands are aimed at converting existing hotels with good bones rather than building new ones. This property fit that profile: a large share of suites, ground-floor patios and a courtyard with room for a lawn. After the renovation that listings date to 2020, that courtyard holds a grass amphitheater and a fire-pit terrace, the hotel has a full bar, and the rooms have a more design-forward look.
The result says something about Scottsdale’s 2020s hotel market. Travelers now expect a bar, an outdoor gathering space and some style even at midrange prices, and the cheapest way to deliver that is to renovate a 1990s building rather than build a new one.