The quality of life in Peoria is one of the highest in Arizona, ranking the city among the top 100 places to live according to Money magazine.
To regular vacationers and smart home buyers, Peoria, Arizona, has long been one of the most desirable locations in the Grand Canyon State. With its desert vistas, beautiful mountains, master planned communities with lakes, country clubs and golf courses, Peoria has a lot to offer including diverse housing opportunities with record levels of affordability. According to Arizona State University’s Center for Real Estate, the median price for an existing home in Peoria is $142,255, and for a new home is $227,500.
Some of the more popular neighborhoods in Peoria include Vistancia, Westwing Mountain, and Cibola Vista.
Vistancia
Vistancia’s three villages offer resort-style living in homes that range from modest starters to upscale villas. With ancient arroyos, burrowing jackrabbits and captivating desert vistas around every bend, the trail at Vistancia offers new opportunities for discovery everyday. At Vistancia, the best amenities are masterfully woven throughout this accessible and intimate living environment, allowing residents an active lifestyle right at home. From the aquatic park to golf set within tall native grasses to brisk morning walks along the Discovery Trail, Vistancia offers everything you could ever ask for from a community.
Westwing Mountain
Westwing Mountain is minutes from downtown Phoenix, yet surrounded by the breathtaking scenery of the high Sonoran Desert, this master-planned community allows its residents to enjoy the best of both worlds. Comprised of approximately 2,000 homes on 1,300 acres, Westwing Mountain features a 340-acre mountain preserve lined with miles of hiking and mountain bike trails. In addition, the community has loads of features to entice residents to spend even more time outside, including grassy parks, playgrounds for the little ones, picnic tables and ramadas, sports areas, grilling facilities and a community center complete with a splash pad for cooling off on those warm summer days.
Cibola Vista
Cibola Vista is a community that offers a resort hotel, tennis and swimming, trails, a river master plan, all on 198 acres of pristine land. This innovative new neighborhood offers a distinctive approach to sustainable living through Meritage Homes. Meritage is the only top-10 homebuilder that’s 100% ENERGY STAR® qualified at no additional cost. Every home they build comes with the best energy-efficient features, materials, and appliances – standard.
Education
Peoria is the newest location for a BASIS charter school, a premier school that has been recognized as a top 10 school in the nation by Businessweek, Newsweek, US News and World Report, and the Washington Post. BASIS was created as a college preparatory school that would educate American students at the same level as their international peers in top performing countries such as Finland, Canada, and Japan. The guiding philosophy was simple: implement a rigorous liberal arts curriculum, hold students and teachers accountable for results, and recruit and retain teachers who are knowledgeable in their discipline and effective at communicating difficult concepts in an understandable way. For more information, go to www.basisschools.org.
The Northwest Valley offers a plethora of opportunities for higher education. ASU’s West Campus, the Thunderbird School of Global Management, Midwestern University, and Western International University provide the spectrum of education and training from international business to osteopathic medicine.
Furthermore, Peoria Unified School District, the third largest school district in Arizona serving 38,000 students, consistently beats state and county test scores. PUSD received Gold Medal recognition and was rated in the top 17 percent of the 1,500 top-ranking school districts nationwide by Expansion Magazine
Arts & Culture in Peoria, Arizona
Peoria has quietly built a reputation of bringing arts and culture to the West Valley.
Peoria’s two theaters, the Arizona Broadway Theatre and the Center for the Performing Arts, bring critically acclaimed theatre year-round to the community. The Arizona Broadway Theatre located in the Peoria 83 (P83) Entertainment District, is a professional fine dining theater that produces Broadway shows. The Center for the Performing Arts is located in the City’s Old Town area and is a community theater.
The Challenger Space Center of Arizona is a working memorial to the astronauts that lost their lives in the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger flight on January 28, 1986. As a premier learning hub, the Center has a unique affiliation with the Smithsonian Institute, offering access to national quality museum exhibits right here in Peoria.
Sports & Recreation
Professional Sports
Home to the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners since 1994, Peoria Sports Complex draws nearly 230,000 fans for Major League Baseball Spring Training every year. The Complex, which has become the model for multi-team facilities that are being built today, is comprised of a main stadium and six and a half practice fields for each team. The unique setup is ideal for adult, college, high school and youth baseball tournaments and championships and is also available for community events, concerts, art exhibits, car shows, and charitable functions.
Situated on our southern border are the homes of the Phoenix Coyotes and the Arizona Cardinals. Jobing.com Arena hosts numerous music and non-hockey events and University of Phoenix Stadium hosts the Fiesta Bowl and is also on the rotation for future Super Bowls as well as college football’s National Championship games. Also, a short drive away is the Phoenix International Raceway, home to a variety of NASCAR events throughout the year.
Year-round Lakeside Activities
Peoria is home to Lake Pleasant Regional Park, a desert reservoir of more than 10,000 acres of water and 13,600 acres of land. In addition to being a full- service facility offering rental watercrafts, boat slips, fishing supplies, and sunset dinner cruises, the lake is the perfect place for water sports, desert camping, hiking and wildlife watching.
Parks and Recreation
Rio Vista Park is a 52-acre park in the heart of Peoria that boasts an urban fishing lake, top notch skate park, volleyball and softball fields, batting cages, ramadas, and a state of the art recreation facility.
Included in the City’s overall Master Plan is the integration of a trails system that will link north and south Peoria. Peoria currently has over 26 miles of trails to enjoy. Whether leisurely strolling in a riverbed, exploring an ancient civilization or climbing a challenging mountain trail, Peoria has you connected to the outdoors.
