"I'm so excited," Esther Lubben told a KGUN9 reporter in January, describing the drive she and her neighbors currently make to reach a Costco. "We really need something like that in this neighborhood."
That reaction has been circulating around Vail and Rita Ranch for close to a year now, ever since word got out that Costco filed plans for a warehouse and fuel station at 9748 E. Old Vail Road. What has not circulated as widely is what actually happened after that filing. Between November 2025 and March 2026, the project moved through three separate city actions, each with a real date attached, and each one narrows down what residents can reasonably expect and when. It also turns out that Costco is only half of what people mean when they talk about "the Costco corner." A second retailer is tied to the same intersection, on a completely separate timeline, with no opening date at all.
What Actually Got Approved, and When
The paper trail starts with a pre-application filing logged in the City of Tucson's Property Research Online system in late 2025, describing the project simply as "New Costco coming to the Area." From there:
- On February 3, 2026, the Tucson City Council approved a $7.3 million sales tax incentive for the project, reimbursing Costco for eligible infrastructure costs.
- On March 3, 2026, the Mayor and Council held a study session on the next step, a site-specific development agreement.
- On March 6, 2026, the council formally advanced that agreement, the notice of intent that sets up final negotiations.
None of those three dates is a groundbreaking. They are the financial and administrative scaffolding that has to exist before a groundbreaking can happen. The site itself, a 22.35-acre parcel inside the Rita Ranch Commerce Center, is currently owned and being developed by Diamond Ventures, and the project requires consolidating five separate platted blocks, numbered 4 through 8, into one buildable lot before construction plans can even be finalized.
The size of the store depends on which city document you read. Most of the public reporting, including the city's own economic analysis behind the tax incentive, describes a 158,000-square-foot warehouse. The underlying zoning plan filed with the city lists it closer to 162,000 square feet. The fuel station is planned for 40 pumps. Neither number changes the practical answer for a Vail resident wondering when to expect a store, but the gap between them is a useful reminder that a project this size stays in flux on paper even after money has already changed hands.
What Still Has to Happen Before a Shovel Moves
Because the site is zoned I-2, a large retail store like Costco requires approval through the city's Mayor and Council Special Exception process, plus a separate review by the Design Review Board. City engineering has also flagged that a Traffic Impact Analysis is required, along with a Private Improvement Agreement covering additional lanes and potential right-of-way dedication along Old Vail Road.
Those steps are the reason the construction window has stayed put at early 2027 ever since the project first became public in November 2025. Work could begin as soon as this coming January, with the store completed somewhere between next June and next September. Counting forward from today, that puts a realistic opening somewhere between nine and twelve months away, not next month, not this holiday season, but not a vague someday either.
The employment numbers attached to the project have shifted around in the same way the square footage has. The city's economic analysis behind the tax incentive anticipates the store could employ up to 320 workers with a combined annual payroll of $13.5 million. A separate city memorandum used a different estimate, projecting roughly 250 full-time positions on completion. An earlier planning document split the number differently again, at 173 full-time and 147 part-time roles. All three figures describe the same store. None of them is wrong exactly, they are just drawn from different points in a process that is still being finalized.
Two Names, Two Timelines
The other name that keeps coming up alongside Costco is Sprouts Farmers Market, and it is worth separating the two clearly because they are not the same project. Sprouts is planned to anchor a different, nearby center at Houghton and Old Vail roads, one currently being marketed by developer Larsen Baker to junior tenants. That center already sits inside Houghton Town Center, the established retail hub anchored by Walmart, Home Depot, T.J. Maxx and Ross. As of the most recent reporting, no opening timeline has been announced for the Sprouts location at all, not even the rough construction window that now exists for Costco.
That distinction matters for anyone trying to plan around either store. Costco has a funding mechanism, a council vote, and a construction window on paper. Sprouts, as of now, has a lease and a location and nothing else public. Residents mentioning both in the same breath are describing two different projects at two different stages, even though they sit close enough together to feel like one announcement.
What the City Is Actually Betting On
The $7.3 million incentive did not sail through without friction. It landed during the same council session where Tucson's chief financial officer disclosed that city sales tax collections in the second half of 2025 came in 1% below the prior year, despite a budget that assumed a 2.5% increase. Some of that gap was attributed to the closures of Big Lots and Sam Levitz Furniture stores. In other words, the city approved a multimillion-dollar reimbursement for a big-box retailer in the same month it was explaining why its own revenue projections had come up short.
The math the council was working from projects the new Costco generating about $22.7 million in city tax revenue over five years, against the $7.3 million in reimbursed costs, a net positive to the city of roughly $15.4 million over that same window, assuming the projections hold. Ward 4 council member Nikki Lee, whose district includes the site, described strong community enthusiasm for the project. Vail Chamber of Commerce CEO Dr. Denice Bowls made a related point in her own comments to KGUN9, framing the store less as a single retail addition and more as a potential driver for other businesses to follow.
That framing lines up with what is happening around Vail more broadly. The town's population sits close to 16,000 and has been growing at roughly 3% a year, with the adjacent Rita Ranch area adding another 12,000 residents and hundreds of new homes currently under construction from builders including Lennar, KB Home and DR Horton. Retail in that part of southeast Tucson has lagged behind the rooftops for years, which is the same gap Costco and Sprouts are both being pitched as filling, just on different clocks.
What This Means for Now
If you live near Houghton and Old Vail today, the honest version of the timeline is this: nothing opens in 2026, and the earliest realistic construction start for Costco is January 2027, with a store possibly ready by that following summer or early fall. The Sprouts site has no public date at all. What is more likely to show up first is road work, since the Traffic Impact Analysis and the lane and right-of-way requirements tied to the Costco approval will need to be addressed before the store itself breaks ground.
The clearest way to track it going forward is the same city system that has documented every step so far, the Property Research Online portal, where the Costco entry is filed under plan number TP-ENT-0226-00004. That is a more reliable source than the version of the story that gets repeated at the mailbox or in a neighborhood group, and it is where the next real update, whether that is a Design Review Board hearing or an actual groundbreaking notice, will land first.
For a longer look at how growth like this has been reshaping housing patterns across the Vail area, our post on how Vail's growth is shaping its housing market walks through some of the same rooftop-before-retail dynamic from a different angle. You can also browse our full Vail neighborhood guide for more on what daily life looks like in this part of southeast Pima County.
If you are watching this corner of Vail because you are thinking about a move here, not just a shopping trip, Genardini Realty Solutions can walk you through what growth like this tends to mean for a specific block or subdivision, well before the first Costco sign goes up.