A Phoenix Gym Chain Picked Tucson's Three Edges, Not Its Middle
A Phoenix gym chain's first southern Arizona clubs land at Oracle and Tangerine, Old Vail and Houghton, and Twin Peaks and I-10.
Mountainside Fitness has built 22 clubs around Phoenix since 1991. Its first three in southern Arizona all sit on growth-corridor corners — Oracle and Tangerine, Old Vail and Houghton, Twin Peaks and Interstate 10.
A gym chain that has never operated outside metropolitan Phoenix just committed about $33 million to three buildings in Tucson, and skipped the middle of the city entirely. Mountainside Fitness — founded in 1991, 22 clubs around Phoenix — put its first southern Arizona locations at Oracle and Tangerine in Oro Valley, at Old Vail and Houghton on the southeast side, and at Twin Peaks and Interstate 10 in Marana. Not downtown. Not midtown. Three corners on the outer ring, chosen by a company with 35 years of practice at picking corners. Oro Valley is closest to opening, and it is the only one of the three that did not need a new building.
- 45,000 sq ft
- The vacant Ashley Furniture space at Oro Valley Marketplace
- $2,819,391
- Paid July 17 for 3.41 acres at 10084 E. Old Vail Road
- $33 million
- Estimated development cost across all three Tucson-area clubs
- 100–120
- Employees each location is projected to carry
The Empty Furniture Store Is the Whole Point
The Oro Valley club takes 45,000 square feet at the southwest corner of Oracle and Tangerine, in the space an Ashley Furniture store left behind at Oro Valley Marketplace, 12155 N. Oracle Rd. The center's own tenant directory has already made the swap — the URL that used to serve the furniture store's page now serves Mountainside's. That is the cheapest of the three buildings to deliver, and the reason is structural: the shell, the parking field, the utility service and the entitlement all already exist, so what is left is interior work. A large-format gym is also one of the few tenants that genuinely wants what a furniture showroom is: a wide, mostly column-free box with far more parking than its square footage would normally justify. The things that make a room like that hard to re-lease to ordinary retail are exactly the things a fitness operator goes looking for.
One of the Three Left a Number Anyone Can Look Up
The other two are new construction. On July 17, 2026, Tenet Equity Funding SPE II LLC bought 3.41 acres at 10084 E. Old Vail Road, inside Houghton Town Center, from Houghton Developers LLC — a Diamond Ventures affiliate — for $2,819,391. That works out to roughly $826,800 an acre, or $19.00 a square foot. A building permit has been issued and ground work is underway for a 40,579-square-foot club. The Marana location is the same idea at the northeast corner of Twin Peaks Road and Interstate 10, a 40,000-square-foot building inside the planned Cascada retail center. Development cost has been put at $11 million to $12 million per location, about $33 million across the three.
That is worth knowing as a method, not just as trivia. Almost everything a commercial project announces is unverifiable from the outside — lease terms are private and stay private, and a rendering costs nothing to publish. Two things are not: the deed, filed with the Pima County Recorder, and the building permit, filed with the local jurisdiction. Land bought and a permit pulled is a project. A press release and a site plan is an intention. When you hear that something is coming to a corner you are shopping, those are the two records to go check, and both are public.
- Oro Valley Marketplace (Oracle & Tangerine, 45,000 sq ft, Second-generation): The former Ashley Furniture box at 12155 N. Oracle Rd. Interior buildout only, no new shell, which is why it is the first of the three to reach opening.
- Houghton Town Center (10084 E. Old Vail Rd., 40,579 sq ft, $2.82M land): Ground-up construction on 3.41 acres bought July 17, 2026 from a Diamond Ventures affiliate for $2,819,391 — about $19.00 a square foot. Permit issued, site work started.
- Cascada (Twin Peaks & I-10, 40,000 sq ft, Marana): Ground-up construction inside the planned retail portion of Cascada, an 820-acre mixed-use master plan northeast of the interchange, across from Tucson Premium Outlets.
Retail Trails Rooftops. These Corners Have Rooftops Coming.
Large-format retail almost never leads residential development — it follows it, once the door count pencils. So the useful question about all three corners is what is scheduled to get built near them. At Cascada, two land deals closed in March 2026: Bourn Partners bought 143 acres for $18,427,449, roughly 100 of them for commercial use and 43 residential, and D.R. Horton bought about 132 acres for $13,072,551 for a first phase of 638 single-family homes and townhomes over three years, rebranded Tescotta. At Oro Valley Marketplace, HSL Properties and Borderland Construction broke ground on October 6, 2025 on phase one of the center's redevelopment: 320 apartments called Encantada, a pedestrian tunnel under Water Harvest Way, a public park and intersection work, with the apartments expected to finish in mid-to-late 2027.
What It Changes If You Are Shopping These Corners
For a buyer touring homes near any of the three, the concrete change is amenity distance. What lands is a large-format club: three group-fitness studios running 70-plus classes a week, indoor and outdoor workout space, a Hyrox functional-training area, locker rooms with steam rooms and infrared saunas, red light therapy, and a café. Only the Oro Valley building is close to opening. The other two are still dirt and steel, so price them as later amenities rather than move-in ones.
The near term cuts the other way. Oracle and Tangerine has an apartment build, a pedestrian tunnel and an intersection rebuild going on around it into 2027, and Twin Peaks and I-10 has a subdivision phase starting. Drive both at 5 p.m. on a weekday before deciding whether an active construction site reads as progress or as the thing outside your window for the next two years.
Quick reference (August 25, 2026): Mountainside Fitness — founded 1991, 22 Phoenix-area clubs — is opening three Tucson-area locations. Oro Valley Marketplace, 45,000 sq ft in the former Ashley Furniture space at Oracle and Tangerine, 12155 N. Oracle Rd. Houghton Town Center, 10084 E. Old Vail Road, 40,579 sq ft ground-up, land recorded July 17, 2026 at $2,819,391. Cascada at Twin Peaks and I-10 in Marana, 40,000 sq ft ground-up. No firm opening date for the Oro Valley club had been reported as of this writing beyond trade coverage on August 11 referencing an August 2026 target, and construction schedules move — check the company directly before planning around one.
A Signed Lease Is a Forecast Somebody Paid For
The thing worth taking from this is not the gym. It is that an out-of-market operator with 35 years of site-selection practice looked at Tucson, and the three corners it was willing to spend $33 million on were the Oracle-and-Tangerine edge, the Old Vail-and-Houghton edge and the Twin Peaks interchange. Those are forecasts with money behind them, filed in permit records and deeds that anyone can pull. When you are trying to work out which parts of a metro are adding rooftops, the retailers signing 40,000-square-foot leases have already done that math, and unlike a projection, their answer is on the record.
Sources
Real Estate Daily News — "Tenet Equity Acquires Houghton Town Center Site for $2.82 Million for Mountainside Fitness" — realestatedaily-news.com/tenet-equity-acquires-houghton-town-center-site-for-2-82-million-for-mountainside-fitness — accessed August 25, 2026 (for the July 17, 2026 close, the $2,819,391 price, the 3.41 acres at 10084 E. Old Vail Road, the buyer Tenet Equity Funding SPE II LLC, the seller Houghton Developers LLC as a Diamond Ventures affiliate, the approximately $826,800-per-acre and $19.00-per-square-foot pricing, the issued building permit and ground work underway, and the planned 40,579-square-foot fitness center).
Real Estate Daily News — "Mountainside Fitness Expanding into Southern Arizona" — realestatedaily-news.com/mountainside-fitness-expanding-into-southern-arizona — accessed August 25, 2026 (for the 1991 founding, the 22 Phoenix-area clubs, the 45,000-square-foot Oro Valley Marketplace space at the southwest corner of Oracle and Tangerine formerly occupied by Ashley Furniture, the 40,000-square-foot ground-up buildings at Houghton Town Center and at Twin Peaks Road and Interstate 10, the $11 million to $12 million per-location development cost, the roughly $33 million total, and the 100 to 120 employees per location).
Greater Phoenix In Business Magazine — "Valley Fitness Brand Enters Tucson with Multi-Site Expansion Across Oro Valley, Houghton, and Twin Peaks" — inbusinessphx.com/growth-enterprise/valley-fitness-brand-enters-tucson-with-multi-site-expansion-across-oro-valley-houghton-and-twin-peaks — accessed August 25, 2026 (for the three-location expansion, the 45,000 and 40,000-square-foot building sizes, the Cascada retail center location, the indoor and outdoor workout space, the three studios and 70-plus weekly classes, the Hyrox functional training area, and the locker rooms with steam rooms and infrared saunas).
Real Estate Daily News — "Bourn Partners and D.R. Horton Close on Major Land Deals at Cascada Marana" — realestatedaily-news.com/bourn-partners-and-d-r-horton-close-on-major-land-deals-at-cascada-marana — accessed August 25, 2026 (for the March 2026 closings, Bourn Partners' 143 acres at $18,427,449 with roughly 100 commercial and 43 residential acres, D.R. Horton's approximately 132 acres at $13,072,551, the 638 single-family homes and townhomes over three years, the Tescotta rebranding, the 820-acre Cascada master plan northeast of Interstate 10 and Twin Peaks Road, and its location across from Tucson Premium Outlets).
Real Estate Daily News — "Phase 1 Construction Underway at Oro Valley Marketplace Redevelopment" — realestatedaily-news.com/phase-1-construction-underway-at-oro-valley-marketplace-redevelopment — and KOLD News 13 — "Oro Valley Marketplace breaks ground on new construction" — kold.com/2025/10/07/oro-valley-marketplace-breaks-ground-new-construction — both accessed August 25, 2026 (for the October 6, 2025 groundbreaking, HSL Properties and Borderland Construction, the 320-unit Encantada apartments, the pedestrian tunnel under Water Harvest Way, the public park and intersection improvements, and the mid-to-late 2027 apartment completion).
Oro Valley Marketplace — center tenant directory — orovalleymarketplace.com/directory/store/mountainside-fitness — accessed August 25, 2026 (for the center address at 12155 N. Oracle Rd., Oro Valley, AZ 85737, and the Mountainside Fitness directory listing; the directory URL formerly assigned to Ashley HomeStore now serves the Mountainside Fitness entry).
All details are current as of August 25, 2026; opening dates, construction schedules, amenities and development plans change, so readers should confirm current information before relying on any single figure. This post is for informational purposes only and is not an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to purchase real estate. Kyle Berglund and Tierra Antigua Realty fully support and comply with the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act.
Topics
- New Business
- Mountainside Fitness
- Oro Valley Marketplace
- Oro Valley
- Houghton Town Center
- Cascada
- Marana
- Vail
- Commercial Real Estate
- Tucson
- 85737