Preliminary planning is underway for the construction of a new 82-room boutique hotel that will go up in the Phoenix suburban town of Paradise Valley.
The hotel will be built at 7101 E. Lincoln Drive, just blocks to the east of downtown Paradise Valley.
That site is the home to the former Smoke Tree Resort & Bungalows, which was opened in 1955 and described in the book Moon Phoenix, Scottsdale & Sedona as a “quaint and private place to stay with a bed-and-breakfast vibe.”
The longest-running independent hotel in Paradise Valley, the Smoke Tree, for a variety of reasons, closed its doors in the summer of 2020.
Ever since that closing, town officials in Paradise Valley have reviewed several ideas on how to redevelop the tree-lined and manicured 5-acre site.
Last June the Scottsdale-based Walton Global, which specializes in land asset management and real estate investment, closed on a $14 million purchase of the Smoke Tree property. At the time, the company announced in a press release that it wanted to build a new boutique hotel at the site, that will “serve locals and support Arizona tourism.”
In order to build that new hotel, the existing Smoke Tree will be demolished. Additional plans call for the creation of a bistro, a fine-dining restaurant, centralized swimming pool, five guest casitas, and underground parking.
The Walton company has let it be known that it is not interested in a quick turnaround of the property, but instead envisions a process, working with the Paradise Valley Town Council and other public entities, that may take several years to be made reality.
Project architect for the redevelopment is Allen + Philp Partners of Scottsdale.
Founded in 1979, Walton Global to date managers around $3.4 billion in real estate assets internationally. In March, the company announced that it was launching a $100 million private placement fund to be used for the development of new homes across the country.
By Garry Boulard
