The Colorado River has been in sustained drought for more than twenty years. Its average flow has declined nearly 20% since 2000. Arizona is currently facing an 18% reduction in its Colorado River allocation. The guidelines that govern the river’s allocation among seven states are being renegotiated, and the outcome will shape the future of water in the American Southwest for decades.
These are not abstract concerns for a developer building in North Scottsdale. They are the conditions on the ground, and they are the conditions Optima McDowell Mountain was designed to address.
The Numbers
At the lower level of the 22-acre site, an underground concrete vault is designed to capture and store approximately 210,000 gallons of rainwater. That system, the largest private rainwater harvesting system in the United States, collects stormwater that falls on the site and repurposes it for on-site irrigation, removing all irrigation demand from Scottsdale’s municipal supply.
The result: residences at Optima McDowell Mountain are designed to use half as much water as the average Scottsdale multifamily residence, and a quarter as much as the average Scottsdale single-family home. In a city actively managing for a future with less water, that is not a marginal improvement. It is a different order of magnitude.
Beyond the rainwater system, Optima has secured 2,750 acre-feet of water through a partnership with the City of Scottsdale, equivalent to more than 30 years of full residential and commercial occupancy, deposited directly into Scottsdale’s water system to support the city’s long-term supply.
The Building Systems
Water conservation at Optima McDowell Mountain is embedded in the architecture, not layered onto it. The vertical landscaping system allows drought-resistant plants to cascade down the facades of all six buildings. Providing natural insulation and reducing the urban heat island effect that drives additional cooling demand. Xeriscape landscaping, drip irrigation, and native plantings across 75% of the site reduce water requirements while creating a landscape genuinely suited to the Sonoran Desert.
Optima McDowell Mountain is the first development in Arizona built under both the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), providing an additional 9% energy savings over the previous code, and the International Green Construction Code (IgCC). Solar panels, high-performance VRF heating and cooling systems, induction cooktops in every residence, 100% underground parking, and EV charging complete a sustainability program that David Hovey Jr. has described as the culmination of everything Optima has worked toward over four decades.
What It Means
The question facing developers in the American Southwest is no longer whether to take water seriously. That conversation is over. The question is how seriously, and at what scale. Optima McDowell Mountain provides one answer: seriously enough to install the largest private rainwater harvesting system in the country, and to design every building system, from the facades to the mechanical plant to the vertical gardens, around the imperative of using less.
Experience a different standard of desert living. Schedule a tour at Optima McDowell Mountain today.
