The part of Phoenix the city plans as the Arcadia Camelback Special Planning District: where its lines run, how the 1919 plat set it up, the historic houses, how far it sits from the other places in these guides, and what kind of housing the county's parcel records show inside it.
The City of Phoenix plans the area through the Arcadia Camelback Special Planning District Plan, adopted by the City Council on June 16, 1999. Its boundaries run from 44th Street to 64th Street, and from Indian School Road north to the Stanford Drive alignment. The plan places the district in the northeast of the city's Camelback East Village and describes its setting at the foot of Camelback Mountain. This guide uses that boundary.
The city's history of the area, written into the plan and into its 1993 Arcadia historic survey, describes the area commonly called Arcadia as north of the Arizona Canal and south of Camelback Mountain, between 44th Street and Scottsdale Road. The part east of the Phoenix city line is in Scottsdale.
The first tract platted in the area, recorded in June 1915: 25 lots running north to south, each with its southern edge on the Arizona Canal.
Lots of about five acres west of 56th Street and about ten acres east of it, laid out to be sold as small citrus orchards.
The Arcadia Water Company, formed in 1919, built pumping plants in Paradise Valley able to supply 2,100 acres. By 1924 crews had laid fifteen miles of underground concrete pipe.
Section 652 of the city's Zoning Ordinance adds a rule for the district: along Camelback Road, from 44th Street to the eastern city limits, walls and setbacks may vary to reduce the road's impact on adjacent residential property.
The City of Phoenix keeps a list of historic properties with each one's register status. These inside the district are listed on the Phoenix Historic Property Register, the National Register of Historic Places, or both.
The city's 1993 Arcadia Historic Residential Property Survey documented 20 rural estate houses and recommended all 20 as potentially eligible for both registers. Some of them:
Distance to the other guides. Straight-line miles from the Shemer Art Center, 5005 E. Camelback Rd., to each address, using the Maricopa County Assessor's address locator. Road miles and drive times run longer and change with traffic.
Counted from the Maricopa County Assessor's parcel records inside the district boundary, each parcel typed the way the Assessor's own parcel pages type it. A condo parcel is one unit. An apartment parcel can hold a whole building, so its count is buildings, not units. The year is the construction year in the Assessor's records.
Lot size, the construction year and any historic listing sit in the parcel and city records. Send me the addresses and I will pull them.
Boundary, adoption date and village: City of Phoenix, Arcadia Camelback Special Planning District Plan (final City Council adoption June 16, 1999), Phoenix Zoning Ordinance Sections 652 and 668, and the Zoning Overlays layer of the city's public GIS. Village housing: City of Phoenix, Camelback East Village. History: the plan's Appendix D and the City of Phoenix Arcadia Historic Residential Property Survey (Woodward Architectural Group, 1993), which agree on every history date and figure used here. The 1919 date of the Shemer Art Center house is also in the art center's own history. Historic buildings: the Historic Properties layer of the city's public GIS (register status) and the 1993 survey. Places: Shemer Art Center, City of Phoenix G.R. Herberger Park. Distances: Maricopa County Assessor address locator, straight-line from the Shemer Art Center. Housing stock: Maricopa County Assessor parcel map service (construction year, land size) and parcel pages (parcel type), parcels whose published point falls inside the district boundary. All checked 16 October 2026. Hours, classes and programs change, so confirm with each one before you go.