Outside this week, the National Weather Service put a number on what everyone already felt. Temperatures could peak at 117 degrees daily through Sunday, Aug. 9, with extreme heat forecast through the weekend for Maricopa and Pinal counties. Nobody is lingering on a patio for that. But walk the Avenue of the Fountains anyway, and you'll notice the storefronts are doing something the thermometer isn't: changing.
Four different businesses along or just off the Avenue have made moves in recent weeks, and they don't all point the same direction. Read them together and a pattern shows up that no single announcement gives away on its own.
Two Different Bets on the Same Four Blocks
Here's the claim: the Avenue isn't having one moment of change, it's having two, and they're aimed at completely different customers. One bet is on the person who already shops there in daylight and wants more of what they came for. The other is on the person who shows up after dinner, or brings kids, or is looking for something that didn't exist in town six months ago. The town's own rebrand, meanwhile, isn't driving either of these. It's playing catch-up to both.
That distinction matters if you live here, because it tells you something the "downtown is revitalizing" headline doesn't: growth on the Avenue right now is coming from two directions at once, which is a healthier sign than one business expanding while everything else stays flat.
The Daytime Bet: Doubling Down on the Regular
Good Living Greens, Fountain Hills' own healthy grocery that features clean, local products, officially reopened after a relocation and expansion that nearly triples the store's footprint from 1,300 to almost 3,000 square feet. The new spot is a few doors down the same corridor at 16845 E. Avenue of the Fountains D104, open Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
This is not a business chasing a new audience. It's the opposite. Good Living Greens began when its founders started growing microgreens at home, and what began as a small home project quickly gained traction as neighbors asked to buy the greens, with interest surging during the coronavirus pandemic, eventually leading to a brick-and-mortar store. The same regulars asking for more shelf space finally got more shelf space. That's a daytime bet: the store already knew its customer, and expansion was about capacity, not discovery.
The town's economic development office framed it the same way. Amanda Jacobs, Economic Development Director for the Town of Fountain Hills, said Jill and Jeremy had dreamed of expanding Good Living Greens and relocating to the Avenue of the Fountains for several years. The dream wasn't a new location strategy. It was more room for what was already working.
The Evening Bet: A College Kid's Ice Cream Shop and a Consignment Rack for Teens
The second bet looks nothing like the first. The Town of Fountain Hills has announced the grand opening of Snowbird Ice Cream Co. on Saturday, Sept. 13, founded by 21-year-old town resident Izaak Wontorski, with a lineup of flavors produced by the Chocolate Shoppe in Madison, Wisconsin.
"The inspiration for Snowbird came from my time playing ice hockey, where post-game ice cream trips became a regular tradition," said Wontorski. "After travelling across the country to try different types, I knew that I had to bring the deliciousness of Chocolate Shoppe to Arizona."
That's not a grocery-run purchase. It's an after-dinner, after-practice, walk-the-kids-over kind of stop, timed for exactly the part of the evening when the heat finally breaks and the Avenue fills back up.
A few blocks off the Avenue, the same evening-and-weekend logic shows up again. A new boutique aiming to provide affordable clothes from high quality brands to kids and teens in town, Cuties Consignment, recently opened at 11827 N. Saguaro Blvd. Consignment for kids' and teens' clothing isn't a daytime commuter stop either. It's a family errand, the kind that happens on a Saturday when everyone's already downtown for something else.
Neither of these businesses is trying to out-compete Good Living Greens for the same shopper. They're building for the version of downtown that exists after 5 p.m. or on a weekend, which is a different Avenue than the one the grocery expansion is betting on.
The Town Is Catching Up, Not Leading
Public investment usually gets credit for setting a neighborhood's direction. Here it's arriving after the fact. The Town of Fountain Hills has installed nine new murals throughout Downtown, further enhancing the community's public art program and sense of place, and partnered with The Inspiration Academy and local artist Laura Thurbon to install a new student-created mural celebrating the Sonoran Desert landscape. Around the same time, the town unveiled a brand new logo and dedicated social media pages for Downtown Fountain Hills as part of its long-term Downtown revitalization efforts.
None of that created the Good Living Greens expansion or brought Snowbird to town. Both of those were already in motion. What the murals and the rebrand do is give the corridor a visual identity that matches what's already happening at street level, block by block, storefront by storefront.
The Fountain Hills Artists' Gallery is doing something similar on a smaller scale. Fresh Paint on Friday, Oct. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m. will roll out the red carpet for six incredible new artists, which is one more evening anchor lining up on the same calendar as Snowbird's grand opening. Downtown's evening bet is getting reinforcements before it's even had its first weekend.
Here's a quick reference for what's actually landing on the Avenue and its side streets this fall:
| What's New | Where | When |
|---|---|---|
| Good Living Greens, relocated and expanded | 16845 E. Avenue of the Fountains, D104 | Open now |
| Cuties Consignment | 11827 N. Saguaro Blvd. | Open now |
| Snowbird Ice Cream Co. grand opening | Downtown | Saturday, Sept. 13 |
| Fresh Paint at Fountain Hills Artists' Gallery | Downtown gallery | Friday, Oct. 3, 5-7 p.m. |
| New downtown murals, including Sonoran Desert student mural | Throughout Downtown | Installed this year |
What It Means for Anyone Walking the Avenue This Month
If you're used to timing your Avenue trips around the Wednesday farmers market, adjust your calendar. The market's 2025-26 season ran from Nov. 5 through April 29, 2026, with hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., which means it's on its summer break right now and, based on that same yearly pattern, isn't likely to return until the fall. That's exactly why the timing of Snowbird's September opening and the gallery's October event matters. Downtown isn't waiting for the market's return to have something going on. It's building a second calendar around evening and early-fall foot traffic that doesn't depend on cooler Wednesday mornings.
None of this is a coincidence dressed up as a trend piece. A grocery store expanding to serve people who already shop there, and two new businesses built for the after-work and weekend crowd, are two separate economic decisions made by different people at different times. What ties them together is that both bets are being made on the same four blocks in the same season, which says more about the health of the Avenue right now than either one would alone.
If you're the kind of person who notices when a storefront changes hands or a new mural goes up, you already know Fountain Hills better than most market reports give you credit for. That local read is worth something when the conversation eventually turns to what your own place on or near the Avenue is worth. When it does, Common Sense Real Estate 101 will give you a straight answer and a free home valuation, no pressure to do anything with it until you're ready.
