What is the Courtyard Scottsdale Old Town?
The Courtyard by Marriott Scottsdale Old Town is the kind of hotel guidebooks skip and travelers end up booking anyway. It’s a five-story, 180-room Courtyard on Scottsdale Road, just north of Osborn, at the south end of Old Town. Nothing about it is flashy. It has clean, renovated rooms, a heated pool and whirlpool, a 24-hour gym, and The Bistro, the Courtyard brand’s lobby café, which serves Starbucks coffee and breakfast in the morning and dinner and cocktails at night.
The reason to know about it is the ballpark. Scottsdale Stadium, where the San Francisco Giants have trained since 1984, is a few blocks east. For a week of Cactus League games, you can walk to batting practice in the morning, nap in the afternoon, and walk to Old Town for dinner. In March the lobby is full of orange and black.
It also suits travelers with dogs. Marriott allows up to three pets per room here, each up to 100 pounds, which is generous by Old Town standards. And for business travelers and families, it’s a sensible mid-priced option: big-brand points, predictable rooms and a central location at the price of a select-service hotel.
Who should look elsewhere: travelers who want a resort (there’s no spa or golf), a nightlife hotel (the Entertainment District is a long walk or a short ride north), or free breakfast — The Bistro charges. Otherwise this is a practical base: south enough to be calm at night, close enough to walk to everything that matters downtown.
How to do the Courtyard Scottsdale Old Town right
Book spring training early. This is the closest big-brand hotel to the Giants’ ballpark, and that’s no secret. March weekends fill first, and rates follow demand. If you’re coming for baseball, book as soon as you have dates, and read our spring-training guide for how to work the lawn seats. Outside March, the stadium area is quiet, and the Left Field Day Park is open as a neighborhood green.
Pick your side. Scottsdale Road is a busy arterial with traffic into the night. Light sleepers should ask for a room away from it.
Walk north for dinner. Old Town’s restaurants and galleries start about ten minutes north on foot. Follow our Old Town walking guide or ride the free Old Town trolley when it’s too hot to walk. The Civic Center lawn and library are on the way.
Use The Bistro for what it’s good at. It’s the right place for a coffee, a quick breakfast before a game, or a drink at the end of the day. For a real dinner, walk into town.
Bring the dog. Up to three pets, each up to 100 pounds, are allowed for a daily fee plus a one-time cleaning fee. The Indian Bend Wash greenbelt is a short drive east for a long walk.
Groups, take note. The hotel has motor-coach parking and small meeting rooms named for the local pro teams, which is why youth teams, tour groups and wedding blocks show up here.
Old Town’s south end and the ballpark effect
The stretch of Scottsdale Road around Osborn was the edge of downtown for most of Scottsdale’s history. The town grew out from Main Street, and by the 1950s Osborn marked roughly where shops gave way to houses and lots. What turned this corner into hotel land was baseball.
Scottsdale built its first ballpark on the site in the 1950s, and major-league teams began training there soon after. The modern era began in 1984, when the San Francisco Giants arrived, and was cemented in 1992, when the city rebuilt the stadium into the brick ballpark that still stands at Osborn and Drinkwater. The Giants’ four-decade tenure turned them into Scottsdale’s adopted home team every March, and it created a steady demand that downtown hotels had to meet: thousands of fans arriving for a week at a time, wanting to walk to the game and then walk to dinner.
The Courtyard answered that demand from just up Scottsdale Road. Industry listings put its construction around 1999, at the end of a decade that also saw the Valley’s hotel market expand quickly, especially in select-service brands. Marriott had created Courtyard in the 1980s as a hotel for business travelers who wanted a good room and a decent breakfast without paying for a full-service hotel, and the format suited the edge of a downtown that was becoming a year-round business district. Spring training filled it in March; corporate travel, conventions and summer rates filled the rest of the year.
The hotel completed a full guest-room renovation in September 2015, keeping it competitive as Old Town added new hotels, from the AC and REMI towers to the converted Fairfield across Drinkwater. It has kept its place by doing the basics well and staying close to the stadium.
The corner’s history is a reminder that Scottsdale’s visitor economy runs on more than resorts. Spring training brings fans every year, and they need somewhere to sleep. The ballpark changed the south end of Old Town, and the Courtyard is one of the clearest signs of that change.