What is Staybridge Suites Scottsdale – Talking Stick?
Staybridge Suites Scottsdale – Talking Stick is a 112-suite extended-stay hotel in the Pavilions at Talking Stick shopping center, set between Salt River Fields and the Home Depot. It opened quietly in October 2020, when hotels were opening into an empty market, and held its formal grand opening in May 2021.
It’s an IHG Staybridge, which means suites rather than rooms, and each one has a full kitchen with cookware. The suites run from studios to one- and two-bedrooms, with a few three- and four-bedroom units that are rare in this part of the Valley. Breakfast is included every day, guest laundry is free, and there’s an outdoor pool, a hot tub and a 24-hour gym. The hotel is pet-friendly and entirely non-smoking.
The address says Scottsdale, but the hotel stands on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land east of the Loop 101, part of the Community’s Talking Stick entertainment district. It’s also owned through the Community. Peerless Hospitality LLC, the owner, is majority-owned by the Community and operates as one of its subordinate economic entities.
Most guests come for two reasons. In March, Salt River Fields is a walk away, and a kitchen beats a week of ballpark food. The rest of the year, the hotel serves business travelers, relocating families and anyone who needs a week or a month with a kitchen near the Loop 101. It isn’t a resort. For a casino, rooftop dining and shows, Talking Stick Resort is a short drive away.
How to do the Staybridge right
Walk to the ballgame. This is the hotel’s best trick. On spring training days you can walk to Salt River Fields, watch the Diamondbacks or Rockies, and walk back while everyone else sits in traffic on Pima Road. Book months ahead for March. Every hotel near the ballpark fills.
Stock the kitchen. The Pavilions’ big boxes and grocery options are outside the door, and the full kitchen means you can eat most meals in. The included breakfast takes care of mornings, and the hotel has hosted evening guest receptions early in the week, so ask what’s on the current schedule.
Use the suite sizes. Three- and four-bedroom units are uncommon in branded hotels. For a family reunion or a team trip, they can replace several separate rooms. There are only a couple of them, so ask early.
Don’t miss the car show. If you’re here on a Saturday in the cool season, the long-running Pavilions car show fills part of the parking lot with hot rods and lowriders, and it’s free.
Explore the district. Talking Stick Resort, home to Orange Sky and Ocean Trail, is a short drive away. OdySea and Butterfly Wonderland and Casino Arizona are nearby, and McCormick Ranch and Old Town are across the freeway to the west. The big January and February events, Barrett-Jackson at WestWorld and the WM Phoenix Open, are both a short drive north.
A hotel on tribal land, owned by the Community
Pima Road is more than a street here. The Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community was established by executive order in 1879 for the Akimel O’odham (Pima) and Xalychidom Piipaash (Maricopa) peoples. It is a sovereign nation whose boundary with Scottsdale runs along Pima Road and the Loop 101. Scottsdale’s zoning and taxes stop at that line. For most of the twentieth century the land east of it stayed agricultural while Scottsdale grew to its edge.
The Community’s commercial strategy started with retail. In 1989, Scottsdale Pavilions opened at Indian Bend Road on Community land. It was one of the largest power centers in the country and one of the first major shopping centers built on tribal land anywhere. Casino Arizona followed. In 2010 came the high-rise Talking Stick Resort, and in 2011 Salt River Fields, the first Major League spring-training complex built on tribal land, paid for and owned by the Community. The Pavilions, renovated and renamed for the Talking Stick district, became the district’s shopping hub.
Hotels came next, and the Staybridge shows how the Community approached them. The hotel was developed by Bridge Hospitality, whose president Dave Ekman called the area “one of the greatest not only in the Valley of the Sun, but across the country.” It is managed by National Hospitality Services. The owner, though, is Peerless Hospitality LLC, which is majority-owned by the Community. At the 2021 grand opening, Community President Martin Harvier said businesses in the Community give members “an opportunity for employment, and that is important to us.”
Timing was the hard part. The hotel was finished into the COVID-19 shutdowns and began operating in October 2020, with no ribbon-cutting and no spring training. The 2021 Cactus League was played before limited crowds, and the grand opening waited until May 20, 2021.
IHG launched Staybridge Suites in the late 1990s as its answer to Residence Inn, an all-suite, kitchen-in-every-room brand for stays of a week or more. Putting one at the edge of a ballpark parking lot fits the district. Guests can walk to the game, and the hotel’s majority owner is the Community whose land it stands on.