A long-anticipated West Valley food and shopping hub is finally moving forward. Dozens gathered in an empty lot on the northwest corner of 83rd Avenue and Jefferson Street on a muggy Thursday morning, sipping coffee from neighboring cafe Driftwood Coffee Co. and savoring doughnuts from Novel Ice Cream.

Developers, city officials and business owners assembled on a rare gray day to break ground on The Jefferson House .

Plans for the hotly anticipated venue were announced in April 2024 . Though officials remarked on the decades it took to bring this project to fruition, there was no time to linger at the event. Heavy rain soaked the ground just as the dust from the ceremonially shoveled dirt had settled.

The Jefferson House, and the addition of a new outpost of the East Valley’s popula

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