What is the Best Western Plus Scottsdale Thunderbird Suites?
The name refers to local history. Best Western Plus Scottsdale Thunderbird Suites sits on Butherus Drive next to Scottsdale Airport, on land that was part of Thunderbird Field II, the Army flight school built on farmland north of Scottsdale in 1942. Its runway became the city’s airport, and the business district around it became the Airpark.
The hotel is a four-story stucco building with a red tile roof, built around a courtyard with a heated pool and hot tub. All 120 rooms are two-room suites, each with a refrigerator, a microwave and a separate sitting area. Hotel listings date the building to the mid-1980s and its last big renovation to 2013. A free hot breakfast buffet is served each morning, and the hotel accepts pets.
Its main advantage is location. Scottsdale Airport’s terminal is within walking distance, which is useful if you’re flying in privately or meeting someone who is. Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are both about a mile west, so dinner on Scottsdale Road is a short trip. The Westin Kierland is just beyond them.
It’s a good choice for families and small groups who want more space than a standard hotel room, people with business in the Airpark, and pet owners. If you want a resort, it isn’t one. It’s a well-located, all-suite hotel with a large pool courtyard in the middle.
How to do the Thunderbird Suites right
Use the two rooms. Two-room suites at a select-service price are the main reason to stay here. A family can spread across both rooms, and two colleagues can share one suite with a door between them.
Choose your view. Courtyard rooms face the pool and are quieter. Rooms facing the street look out on the Airpark’s offices and airport traffic. Most of the jets at Scottsdale Airport are business aircraft, and the field doesn’t have airline service.
Take the short trip to Kierland. Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are about a mile west, with many restaurants between them. The Capital Grille on Scottsdale Road works for a business dinner. The walk is fine in winter, but in summer you’ll want to drive.
Plan around the big events. January’s Barrett-Jackson auction at WestWorld and February’s WM Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale are both a short drive east. Book early for those weeks, and do the same for spring training in March.
Bring the dog. The hotel is pet friendly, and Northsight Park on Thunderbird Road is a short drive away for longer walks.
See the history. The Thunderbird Field II Veterans Memorial at the airport entrance has a 1942 Stearman PT-17 biplane, the type the cadets learned to fly in. It’s free and takes about fifteen minutes.
Built on a WWII training field
In the spring of 1942, the Army needed pilots and the Valley had flat land and clear skies. In about ninety days, alfalfa fields north of Scottsdale became Thunderbird Field II, a primary flight school run under contract by Southwest Airways, the company founded by Hollywood agent Leland Hayward and John H. Connelly. It opened on June 22, 1942, and cadets learned to fly in Stearman biplanes. At its November 1943 peak the field had 615 cadets, and more than 5,500 pilots graduated before it closed in October 1944.
After the war, the runway passed to Arizona State College and then, in 1953, to the Seventh-day Adventists, who ran a school there. In the early 1960s the church needed money and Scottsdale wanted an airport. Architect George Tewksbury proposed giving the airstrip to the city and surrounding it with a private industrial park. The city took title in 1966 for $750,000, paid by Tewksbury’s Landel Inc., which would sell the lots around the runway. The FAA approved private taxiway access from those lots, which is still a distinctive feature of the Airpark. The airport opened in 1967.
The Airpark grew slowly at first. As offices and light industry filled the streets around the runway, hotels arrived to serve their visitors. This all-suite hotel on Butherus Drive opened in that period, according to hotel listings. It took its name from the airfield, and the hotel’s own site says it stands on the grounds of the old training base. Today about 2,900 businesses operate in the Airpark, making it one of Arizona’s largest job centers, and Kierland and Scottsdale Quarter have turned the area west of the hotel into a shopping and dining district.
The Best Western brand also has a long history. It began in 1946 as a referral network among independent motel owners, and it is still a membership association of individually owned hotels rather than a chain owned by a single company. Few hotels in the city have a name as connected to local history as this one.