Every East Valley submarket is growing right now, but Gilbert is growing differently. It isn't backfilling old space — it's building an entirely new layer of grocery-anchored, mixed-use retail almost from scratch, and national tenants are lining up to get in early.
If you haven't underwritten a deal in Gilbert in the last year or two, the market has moved. What used to be a bedroom community anchored by a couple of legacy power centers is now one of the more competitive retail submarkets in Arizona — and the pipeline of new construction, grocery openings and brand debuts shows no sign of slowing.
Grocery is still writing the story
Grocery-anchored product remains the clearest signal of where rooftops and retail demand are colliding. Thompson Thrift's 35-acre Gilmore development opened its 64,000-square-foot Safeway anchor in early August, with more than two dozen restaurant and retail leases signed around it. A few miles away, the Signature at SanTan Village project paired a Whole Foods with a Dick's House of Sport, and Aldi added a 50th Valley store this year at Gilbert Road and Baseline — its momentum in Gilbert and neighboring Mesa hasn't paused even as it fills big-box space across the rest of the Valley.
For landlords with an older Gilbert center, this is both an opportunity and a warning. A fresh grocery anchor two miles away raises the trade area's overall draw — but it also resets the comparison tenants and lenders will use when your center comes up for renewal or refinance.
National and regional brands are moving in fast
What's notable about Gilbert right now isn't just the anchors — it's the speed at which smaller-format national and regional concepts are following them in. A few examples from just the past several weeks:
- Cavender's Boot City is taking the former Big Lots box at SanTan Village, part of a broader Arizona push that also includes a new Tucson store.
- 7 Brew Coffee is adding a drive-thru location at a Fry's-anchored center at Baseline and Gilbert roads, continuing its East Valley expansion alongside new sites in Mesa.
- 16 Handles, a New York-based froyo concept, picked south Chandler and Gilbert among its first Arizona locations — evidence that even smaller-footprint concepts see the East Valley as worth entering early.
None of these are anchor-scale deals, but together they tell you something an anchor announcement can't: demand is broad enough that value, quick-service and specialty retail all want in, not just the grocers chasing rooftops.
What it means if you own, lease or invest here
Owners with existing Gilbert product should get a current read on where your center sits relative to the new supply — square footage, co-tenancy and rent comparables all shift once a Safeway or Whole Foods opens nearby. Waiting until a renewal is on the table to find out is the expensive way to learn it.
Tenants evaluating Gilbert should move with real information, not last year's demographics. Trade areas that looked marginal two years ago are now supporting multiple grocery anchors and a deep bench of QSR and specialty retail — the sites worth having rarely make it to a public listing before they're spoken for.
Investors underwriting Gilbert retail should weigh the strength of current demand against how much of it is still tied to rooftop growth that hasn't fully matured. A center leased today on the strength of a new Safeway is a different bet than one with five years of stabilized in-place income — price and structure accordingly.
