Drive up to the food court side of Chandler Fashion Center this month and the entrance you have used for years to swing in, drop someone off, and circle back out is gone. The covered driveway that ran along the front of the food court, the one every Chandler parent has used a hundred times to unload kids before a movie at Harkins, is being closed to cars for good. In its place: a covered gathering space with lawn games.
Most of what has been written about this project focuses on the restaurants still to come. Din Tai Fung. A Wagyu House. The kind of names that make a press release. But the part actually reshaping how you move through the mall right now has nothing to do with menus. It is happening to the pavement, the drop-off lane, and the splash pad your kids already know, months before any of those marquee kitchens open a single door.
What's Already Different
Macerich, the company that owns Chandler Fashion Center, began construction on the south side of the property near Harkins Theatres in January 2026, starting with outdoor space improvements while keeping every business open through the work. A second, larger phase of construction on the dining and entertainment district began in August, according to the center's general manager, Monica Greenman, who described the project to Axios Phoenix as a rebuild of the area from the ground up.
Here is what that actually means for anyone walking through this fall:
- The porte-cochere outside the food court, previously open to car traffic, is closing permanently to become a covered gathering space with lawn games.
- The stretch between the food court and the movie theater is becoming a park, with an expanded splash pad and room for live music.
- The mall's existing splash pad, the one families already use, is relocating as part of that same rebuild.
- A new entrance is being built on the south side to replace the access points lost in the redesign.
None of this shows up in the tenant announcements. It shows up when you're circling the parking lot looking for the drop-off lane you used last spring and finding lawn instead.
The Restaurants Are Still a Year Out
The names generating the headlines are real, and worth knowing, but they are not close to opening. Din Tai Fung will take over the mall's former BJ's Brewhouse space plus two adjoining spaces for a 14,000-square-foot restaurant, Greenman told ABC15's Southeast Valley team, with an opening still slated for 2027. The Wagyu House going in nearby, an all-you-can-eat Japanese steakhouse, will be the first of its kind in this market, according to Axios, and it shares that same 2027 runway.
ABC15 frames the full build-out as running through September 2027, which puts the marquee dining district roughly a year and a half away from a grand opening even as the road closures and park construction are already underway. If Din Tai Fung is the reason you're watching this project, the honest answer is that the wait outlasts the current school year and the one after it.
What has already arrived moves faster. J.Crew Factory has opened. Johnny Rockets and Popeyes joined the food court this summer. And on July 30, 2026, Seafood City opened its Chandler location inside part of the former Sears footprint, a 66,000-square-foot supermarket that is the chain's 39th store and its largest anywhere in North America, according to 12News. The store includes a seven-restaurant dining hall alongside its seafood counters and Filipino grocery selection, following more than six years of planning before the doors opened.
That gap between what's open and what's still under construction is the real shape of this year at the mall. The biggest single anchor, by square footage, is already running. The two names generating the most attention are still a year away.
Why a Mall Spends This Much on Restaurants
Chandler Fashion Center opened in 2001 on 320 acres that had been farmland along Chandler Boulevard near Loop 101, and it delivered Arizona's first Apple Store and the state's second Nordstrom, according to Axios's history of the property. Twenty-five years later, the mall is investing in restaurants and gathering space rather than more retail square footage, and there's a straightforward reason for the shift.
E-commerce made up 3.9 percent of total U.S. retail sales in 2000, the year before this mall opened. By 2025, that figure had grown to 16.4 percent, according to Census Bureau data cited in a report on the redevelopment. A mall built the year online shopping was still a rounding error is now competing in a market where roughly one in six retail dollars never touches a storefront. You cannot order a bowl of Xiao Long Bao or an all-you-can-eat Wagyu dinner through an app and have it arrive the way you can a sweater. Food, and the space to sit down and eat it, is the one category a mall can still offer that a phone screen cannot replace. That is the logic behind closing a drive-through lane to build a lawn instead of leasing it to another storefront.
Macerich's own leasing team has said as much directly. Senior vice president Kim Choukalas told AZ Big Media the project reflects a shift among shoppers who want to spend a day at their favorite stores and then wind down with a meal worth staying for, rather than treating the mall purely as a stop for merchandise.
If You're Headed There This Fall
If your routine already includes Chandler Fashion Center, a few things are worth knowing before your next trip. The food court drop-off you're used to is disappearing into a lawn-games plaza, so plan your parking accordingly, especially if you're dropping off for a movie at Harkins. The splash pad your kids know is being relocated as part of the same construction, and a new one is planned as part of the park going in between the food court and the theater, though the timeline for that specific piece hasn't been separately confirmed beyond the broader 2027 target. Seafood City's dining hall is fully open now, seven restaurants under one roof, if you want to see what the finished version of this kind of project looks like before Din Tai Fung and Wagyu House arrive. And if those two are the reason you're watching this project, the honest timeline points toward 2027, not this holiday season.
Businesses on the property have stayed open through both phases of construction so far, according to reporting at the start of the year, and there's no indication that will change as the bigger dining district takes shape. The mall isn't closing. It's rerouting itself in real time, one lane and one lawn at a time, while the restaurants everyone is talking about finish taking shape behind the fencing.
If you've noticed the changes at Chandler Fashion Center and you're curious what else is shifting in the neighborhoods around it, from Ocotillo to the streets near downtown, Kim Weber would enjoy the conversation. Let's Connect.
