What is La Quinta Phoenix Scottsdale?
The La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham Phoenix Scottsdale is a three-story, roughly 140-room hotel on Shea Boulevard just west of the Loop 101. It opened in 1996 and sits in Scottsdale’s medical and suburban east side. It’s a budget-friendly, functional hotel, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
What you get: rooms off interior corridors with a coffeemaker, desk and flat-screen TV; the free Bright Side Breakfast; a heated outdoor pool and hot tub; a 24-hour fitness room; and a small amount of meeting space. You also get a pet policy that welcomes cats and dogs up to 75 pounds, two per room, for a nightly fee. For many guests, that policy is the reason to book.
The location matters more than the building. Shea Boulevard is the east side’s main street, lined with hospitals, medical offices and the plain-looking strip malls that hold some of the city’s best restaurants. The Shea Corridor guide covers them. The HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center campus is nearby, Mayo Clinic is farther east on Shea, and the 101 puts Salt River Fields, WestWorld and the Airpark within about fifteen minutes.
Who it’s for: families visiting someone in the hospital, pet owners, youth-tournament teams, spring-training fans on a budget, and anyone who wants a clean room with a pool and doesn’t need atmosphere. Who should look elsewhere: honeymooners, golfers wanting a resort, and anyone hoping to walk to dinner and drinks. For that, Old Town is about twenty minutes southwest.
How to do La Quinta Phoenix Scottsdale right
Bring the dog. This is one of the more pet-friendly budget hotels in the city: cats and dogs up to 75 pounds, two per room. Scottsdale with dogs has the patios and parks to go with it.
Use it as a medical-stay base. If a family member is at HonorHealth Shea or Mayo Clinic, this is about as close and affordable as hotels get. Ask about rates for longer stays, and make use of the free breakfast and the pool on long days.
Eat on Via Linda and Shea. Ignore the chain restaurants by the freeway. A few minutes away are Andreoli, the Calabrian grocer and trattoria with a national following, and Chompie’s for bagels and matzo ball soup. The east side’s rule applies: the plainer the parking lot, the better the food.
Take the 101 for everything else. The freeway on-ramp is right there. Salt River Fields and the Talking Stick district are a short drive south, WestWorld and the Airpark are north, and Old Town is southwest.
Book early for spring training and February. Cactus League weeks, the WM Phoenix Open and the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show at WestWorld fill even the budget hotels along the 101. Summer is the cheapest time of year, and the pool is most welcome then.
A Texas brand on Scottsdale’s east side
La Quinta began in San Antonio in 1968, and for decades its Spanish-style motor inns were a familiar sight along Sun Belt interstates. By the mid-1990s, the brand had followed Phoenix’s suburban growth east to Shea Boulevard.
By then, Shea had changed. In the 1980s, Scottsdale Ranch, with its man-made lake and tennis center, and the neighborhoods around it turned the boulevard into the main street of a suburban east side. The hospital campus on Shea that is now HonorHealth Scottsdale Shea Medical Center brought medical offices with it, and Mayo Clinic’s Scottsdale campus anchored the far east end. The Loop 101 was on the drawing board nearby. A hotel at Shea and the freeway alignment was a bet that visitors would come not for resorts but for hospitals, offices, families and youth sports, and in 1996 this La Quinta opened on that bet. The neighboring property that is now Aiden by Best Western was built the same year.
The bet paid off once the 101 opened. Shea turned into the fastest route between the East Valley and the Airpark, and the land at the interchange became valuable. The hotel’s three-story, interior-corridor building has been renovated over the years, including a refresh around 2016. When Wyndham Hotels & Resorts bought the La Quinta brand in 2018, the property gained Wyndham’s name and loyalty program along with its sign. The arrangement is typical of hotels like this one: an international company owns the brand and sets standards, while hotels flying its flag are typically owned and run by franchisees.
The hotel is a reminder of who Scottsdale’s hotel market really serves. The city’s resorts get the attention, but much of the demand comes from people here for an appointment, a tournament, a work assignment or a visit, people who need a room with a pool and want to bring the dog. The La Quinta on Shea has been serving them for three decades.