I just returned from a visit to Culdesac, the famous car-free neighborhood in Tempe, AZ. My last visit was 2.5 years ago, right when the first residential building opened.
It was so cool to see the neighborhood now with ~350 residents, way more buildings, and mature landscaping!
May 2023
Oct 2025
The neighborhood's quantity of retail particularly blew me away. Culdesac has 24 shops for ~350 residents, including a:
  • cute plant shop
  • primary care physician
  • medium Korean grocery
  • bike shop
  • coffee shop
  • mattress store
  • high-end Mexican restaurant
  • ... and more!
The quality of the retail was high too — I was especially tempted to buy something from the plant shop, but then I reminded myself that I don't live in Arizona. 🙃
The retail-to-resident ratio is absurd: 1 shop per 14.5 residents! My best guess as to how they're pulling this off is that Culdesac has become a destination. They're one of the nicest spots in the area + right on the light rail, so they draw people from beyond just residents.
Many shop buildings are live-work units, flexible spaces that can be residential or retail. Culdesac expected most would be residential, but it turned out that not only is every single one is retail, but they actually converted some of the residential units to retail & there's still a waitlist for storefront space. This is the opposite problem most mixed-use developments have!
They've been smart about lowering barriers to entry for small businesses. Culdesac designed the storefronts to be small, allowing them to charge relatively cheap rent. They also host frequent night markets to let people test concepts with low-cost stalls. Many of these stalls graduate from popups to permanent storefronts!
I can't wait to go back in a year or two once even more buildings have been opened to see how it continues to evolve and mature!