For four decades, if you lived in McCormick Ranch and wanted dinner on the water, you had one answer. Chart House sat on the southeast corner of Scottsdale Road and McCormick Parkway, tucked against Camelback Lake, and it carried the neighborhood's waterfront dining alone from 1984 until it served its last guests on June 30, 2025.
That single-anchor era is ending inside an eighteen-month window. Between May 2026 and the back half of 2027, three separate projects are adding waterfront or lake-adjacent restaurant space at a scale the neighborhood has never held at once. They come from three different operator archetypes, they sit within a mile of each other, and taken together they answer a question longtime residents have been quietly asking for years: why, given the rooftops and the lakes and the money already here, has upscale water-facing dining stayed so thin?
The 40-year gap nobody quite named
The McCormick Ranch master plan is famous for what it does have. Multiple man-made lakes, golf courses, a broad greenbelt, and more than 25 miles of walking and biking paths feed steady daily traffic along the shoreline. The residential base has been established since the 1970s. What has been missing is dining that meets the water.
A recent read from a luxury brokerage covering the corridor put it plainly: McCormick Ranch has had the rooftops, the golf, the lakes, and the money for years, yet true upscale waterfront restaurant space has stayed thin — and that gap is exactly what the redevelopment is aimed at hitting. Three projects are now moving on that gap in near-lockstep.
Three openings, three operator archetypes
Each project answers the scarcity in a different way. The archetype matters, because it tells you who is betting on this corner and why.
Starfish Scottsdale — the out-of-market entrant
The first of the three is already open. Starfish Scottsdale debuted on May 5, 2026, at 8390 East Vía de Ventura, filling roughly 5,200 square feet with indoor seating and a sizable patio. It marks Starfish Hospitality Group's first restaurant outside California.
The signal here is not the menu. It is the geography. A California group whose entire portfolio sat west of the Colorado River chose McCormick Ranch as its first out-of-state address, ahead of Old Town, ahead of the waterfront corridors in Tempe, ahead of Kierland. The kitchen pulls from Thailand, Korea, Vietnam, China and Japan across more than 70 shareable plates, with a daily happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. — a service pattern built for repeat weekday visits from residents inside a five-minute drive, not tourist volume.
Lakefront at Scottsdale — the ground-up district
The most consequential of the three is not a restaurant. It is a piece of infrastructure. At 7501 East McCormick Parkway, Diversified Partners is reimagining the existing Forever Corporate Plaza into a project inspired by a modern Santa Barbara aesthetic. The firm is acquiring the 100,000-square-foot building from Forever Living Products, which will continue to operate its headquarters onsite.
The restaurant program is the number that matters. Four waterfront dining spaces are planned right on the lake, with footprints ranging from roughly 5,400 to 10,400 square feet. Three of them add large patios sized around 3,000 to 4,000 square feet, putting the water front and center for guests. The retail plan is calibrated to the local buyer, not to tourists: jewelry, a high-end salon, med spa uses, wellness studios, yoga, pilates, and boutique retail suites from 1,200 to 5,500 square feet.
Timing is the caveat. Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026, with the second phase anticipated to begin in early 2027 and continue the redevelopment of the remaining retail and office components.
The former Chart House site — the hometown rebuild
The third project is the emotional one. The Scottsdale mainstay nestled against Camelback Lake is no more, and the building will soon be razed and replaced by a new concept from the locally- and family-owned Prime Steak Concepts, owned by James Beard-nominated brothers Michael and Jeffrey Mastro, Dennis Mastro, and business partner Scott Troilo.
Two details are worth separating. First, the operator is not importing a brand — they are building a new one for this specific corner. The group has not yet announced the name or theme of the new concept, but says it will be built from the ground up with a unique menu currently in development. Second, the operator grew up inside the neighborhood. Jeff Mastro noted that he and his brother Mike grew up just a few blocks away in McCormick Ranch, and this is the perfect place for us to do something very special that fits this iconic location.
The scale is meaningful. The former Chart House site is being rebuilt into a 12,000 to 14,000 square foot steakhouse. That is roughly twice the Starfish footprint and larger than any single Lakefront restaurant pad.
The three, side by side
| Project | Address | Operator archetype | Restaurant footprint | Water access | Target open |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starfish Scottsdale | 8390 E. Vía de Ventura | Out-of-market group, first AZ location | ~5,200 sq ft w/ 1,400 sq ft patio | Lake-adjacent | Open May 5, 2026 |
| Lakefront at Scottsdale | 7501 E. McCormick Parkway | Local developer, ground-up mixed-use | Four pads, 5,400–10,400 sq ft each | On the water | Phase 1 construction Q3 2026 |
| Former Chart House site | SE corner Scottsdale Rd. & McCormick Pkwy | Hometown operator, ground-up single concept | 12,000–14,000 sq ft | On the water | Fall 2026 target, 2027 realistic |
Read across the columns and a pattern emerges. The three projects do not compete for the same seat. They compete for different parts of the resident's week. Starfish is built for the Tuesday happy hour and the shareable-plates weeknight. Lakefront is built for the Saturday errand run that turns into brunch, then a boat, then dinner. The Mastro build is built for the anniversary, the closing dinner, the out-of-town-guest night that used to belong to Chart House.
The Duffy boat detail worth pausing on
One line in the Lakefront plan sits differently than the rest. The project envisions a small marina with Duffy boat rentals, adding a resort-style amenity that enhances the lakefront setting.
For a resident, this is not garnish. It changes the definition of what the lake is for. McCormick Ranch's lake system has, for most of its life, been a visual amenity and a walking path. A rentable electric-boat marina turns it into a transit route between dining pads. If you live on the water anywhere south of Indian Bend, the shortest path to dinner in late 2027 may not be your car.
Pair that with a pedestrian-focused promenade weaving through the property and Forever Lane, a dedicated valet arrival area, and the corner starts to read less like a strip and more like a compact waterfront district.
One caveat about the calendar
Announced dates in this corridor have already moved once. The Chart House rebuild was first reported for a fall 2026 open, then a subsequent read from Mouth by Southwest placed the new concept at 2027, and a later brokerage read pegged the steakhouse at a June 2027 target. Lakefront's own phasing shifted from a June 2026 groundbreaking in early reporting to a Q3 2026 phase-one start with phase two beginning in early 2027.
For a resident, the useful read is this: Starfish is here now, one Lakefront pad will likely serve its first table in late 2027, and the Mastro steakhouse will realistically light its pilot lamp somewhere between those two dates. The 18-month window is real. It just does not open all at once.
What this changes for the current resident
If you already live inside the master plan, the practical shift is not that dinner options double. It is that the lake stops being a place you walk past on the way to dinner and starts being the place dinner happens. The Vig at McCormick Ranch keeps its role as the red-roofed neighborhood tavern. The waterfront gets four to six new addresses that did not exist in any form as of 2024.
That is a different neighborhood than the one Chart House anchored alone for 41 years, and it will be built out inside the span of one HOA budget cycle.
If you own along the greenbelt or on one of the lakes, and you would like a read on how these projects are already showing up in comparable-sale conversations along Vía de Ventura and McCormick Parkway, The Matchett Group tracks the corridor weekly and would welcome the conversation. Schedule a consultation when the timing suits you.
