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The Kitchen at the Center: How Optima Designs the Heart of Every Home

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Carly

In any well-designed residence, the kitchen tends to be where the architecture is most clearly felt. It might be the way the morning light falls across the counter, or how easily guests gather around the island during a dinner party. At Optima, these qualities are the result of a design approach that treats the kitchen as the center of the home rather than a utility room with finishes layered on top. Across every Optima community, from Optima Signature and Optima Lakeview in Chicago to Optima Verdana in Wilmette and the Scottsdale communities of Optima Sonoran Village, Optima Kierland Apartments, and Optima McDowell Mountain, the kitchen has been designed with the same fundamental conviction. This is the room where daily life is most shaped by architecture, and where the modernist principles that guide Optima’s broader work find their most personal expression.

How the Space Connects

The open kitchen has become a familiar feature of contemporary residential design, but the idea behind an Optima floor plan goes back to a longer modernist tradition, one in which the kitchen, living, and dining areas are joined by sightlines and natural light rather than simply by the removal of walls. Layouts are arranged so that preparing a meal, serving it, and gathering around it each have room to happen without crowding one another, and cabinetry is built in as millwork that belongs to the architecture rather than sitting on top of it. The intent is for the kitchen to feel continuous with the rooms around it, so that someone cooking remains part of whatever else is happening in the home rather than tucked away from it.

Materials Chosen to Last

The materials in an Optima kitchen are selected for how they perform over years of daily use as much as for how they look on the first day. Quartz and natural stone countertops are specified because they hold up to the realities of cooking and hosting, and European hardware operates smoothly years into ownership with soft-close mechanisms and full-extension drawers. The palette stays restrained, with warm woods set against cooler stones and neutral tones that leave the color to the food, the flowers, and the people in the room.

Light and Appliances

Floor-to-ceiling glass brings daylight deep into the interior and changes the character of the kitchen as the day moves, while layered lighting takes over in the evening to keep the room comfortable for cooking and for company. Professional-grade appliances are integrated rather than displayed, with cooktops set flush into the counter and ovens placed where they read as part of the architecture instead of standing apart from it.

Modern apartment with open kitchen, small dining table, and living area by large windows with city views.

The Kitchen Within the Community

A residence does not exist on its own, and the kitchen at the center of an Optima home is supported by the broader life of the community around it. When you can host a larger gathering in a private residents club or stop by a community event without planning a full evening at home, the kitchen is relieved of having to do everything. It can be the place you cook for yourself on a quiet weeknight, the place you bring close friends together on a weekend, or the place you linger over coffee on a slow morning, because the community carries the gatherings the kitchen would otherwise have to host on its own.

Modern kitchen with large windows, multiple wall-mounted TVs, and a long island with a sink and pendant lights.

A well-designed kitchen tends to disappear into the rhythm of daily life, supporting cooking and gathering and morning routines without asking for attention. The Optima kitchen is designed with this in mind, An Optima kitchen is built to this standard, which is part of why it settles so naturally into the rhythm of living at home. Explore our communities to see how this approach is expressed across each of our properties.

Before and After: How Moving to an Optima Community Changes Daily Life

Posted on May 29, 2026May 28, 2026 by Carly

Most people move into an Optima community expecting a beautiful home, but what they often do not expect is how quickly the building itself becomes a partner in their day. The package waiting at the door without a single text exchange, the trainer who already knows their name by the second visit, the pool that is somehow always the right temperature, and the events calendar that gives a Tuesday evening something to look forward to are not perks layered onto a residence but rather the residence itself, reshaping what daily life feels like in ways that are hard to anticipate before the move and impossible to imagine giving up afterward.

To understand the shift, it helps to look at what an ordinary day actually contained before, and what fills it after.

Before

The day used to begin with a small inventory of things that needed handling personally, from the gym membership across town to the dry cleaner who closed before you got home, the package that needed someone home to receive it, and the repair that required three phone calls to schedule and a vacation day to oversee. None of it was unmanageable, and that was almost the problem, because it was the steady arithmetic of running a home alone, and it quietly absorbed the hours that should have gone to other things.

Social life lived on the calendar, workouts lived on the calendar, and even relaxation, when it happened, tended to live on the calendar as well, fitted into the gaps between obligations. The home was a base of operations, and the operations never stopped.

After

The first thing that changes is who is in your corner, because Optima communities are run by on-site teams who treat the building as a hospitality experience rather than an address. The concierge knows the regulars, the maintenance team responds in hours rather than days with the kind of attention to detail that keeps a small problem small, and the package room handles the deliveries that used to organize a week around them. None of this is glamorous on a brochure, but all of it becomes transformative the first time it happens to you and quietly essential by the tenth.

The day then begins to rebuild around what is actually available within the building itself. The fitness center is downstairs, which means morning workouts stop competing with the commute, while heated pools turn swimming into a year-round practice rather than a seasonal hobby, and the saunas, steam rooms, and spa spaces give the body somewhere to recover that is not a separate appointment in a separate part of town. The work-from-home days have an actual office to retreat to, with conference rooms and quiet spaces designed for focus, so the kitchen table goes back to being a kitchen table.

The smaller conveniences are quieter and more constant in their effect, with dog wash rooms removing the chaos of a muddy afternoon, demonstration kitchens turning a dinner party into something you host rather than orchestrate, and outdoor lounges, fire pits, and rooftop terraces giving the warm evenings somewhere to go. Guest suites mean visiting family no longer requires giving up the couch, and curated events ranging from wellness classes to art tours to social gatherings fill the calendar with things the on-site team has already planned, so connection stops requiring effort to arrange.

The Building Knows You

This is the part that is hardest to convey before someone has lived it, because at Optima the staff is not a service tier but a relationship. The front desk team greets you by name, the wellness team remembers what you are training for, and the leasing and management teams know the rhythms of the building because they are in it every day, which translates into a level of care that is almost impossible to find in a residence of any other kind. A request rarely needs to be explained twice, a favor is often already done, and the building begins to feel less like a property and more like a place that knows you, which is a different and rarer thing entirely.

That sense of being known is what residents come back to when they describe the Optima difference. The fitness center, the pool, the lounges, and the terraces are all part of the picture, but the deeper truth is that life at Optima has been thoughtfully organized around what actually makes a day feel good, with ease, beauty, health, and connection in place of the small frictions that used to fill the hours between them.

What Residents Notice First

Sleep tends to improve within weeks, as the space is quieter, the light is better, and the body is moving more because moving has become easier than not moving. Social life expands as well, because the events are already on the schedule and the friends are often a few floors away, while the weekends open up because the maintenance that used to fill them is being handled by people whose work that is. The cooking gets better in kitchens that were made to be cooked in, and the work gets calmer in workspaces that were made to be worked in, and none of these shifts are individually dramatic, yet together they amount to a different life entirely.

What It Adds Up To

The before-and-after of moving into an Optima community is not really about square footage or finishes but about how much of a life gets spent on living, once the systems and people and spaces around you start doing their part. Residents come for the architecture, and they stay because the building, the team, and the daily experience of being there continue to give back long after the novelty of any single amenity has settled into routine.

Explore our communities and discover what the quiet promise of Optima feels like from the inside.

The Pool Is Always Open: How Optima Builds for Year-Round Outdoor Living

Posted on May 27, 2026May 27, 2026 by Carly

At most residential buildings, the pool is open for a few warm months and closed for the rest. At Optima, the pool is built to last the year: heated, designed for the climate it sits in, and meant to hold its place in daily life rather than disappear for half of it. Across every Optima community, the same teams develop, design, construct, and manage each building, which means the pool is considered from the first sketch rather than added at the end. Each one reflects the specific light, weather, and rhythm of where it sits.

A Pool That Works in Every Season

A heated pool is a small detail that changes everything around it. It means the water is usable when the air is not warm enough to suggest a swim, which turns the pool from a summer event into a regular habit. A swim before work in the cooler months. Laps after a long day, when the deck is quiet and the city or the desert has settled into the evening around you.

It also changes how the space around the pool behaves. When the water stays warm, the deck stays alive, and the lounge chairs, fire pits, and shaded seating that surround it remain part of the daily landscape rather than props waiting for a season.

Chicago and the North Shore: Designing Around Winter

In Chicago, the pool has to answer a hard question, which is what to do about winter. At Optima Signature, the answer is a heated indoor pool that stays open throughout the year and an outdoor pool for the warmer months, all set within fifty-seven stories above Streeterville with Lake Michigan to the east.

At Optima Lakeview, the rooftop pool is heated for the same reason, a deliberate choice that keeps the deck working regardless of what a Chicago winter decides to do. The pool sits above the neighborhood with a panorama that reaches from the lakefront toward the ballpark, with fire pits, lounge seating, and barbecue areas arranged for a quiet swim at dawn or a gathering at dusk.

On the North Shore, Optima Verdana takes a different approach. The rooftop lap pool is glass-enclosed and heated, with retractable walls that open to the outside air on the right kind of day and close to keep the water usable on the colder ones. The view above it reaches across the Wilmette treetop canopy toward the Bahá’í Temple to the east.

Scottsdale: The Desert as an Amenity

In Scottsdale, the climate flips the logic. Here the question is less about staying warm and more about designing water that makes the desert feel like something you live inside rather than look at. At Optima Sonoran Village, outdoor life unfolds across more than six acres of landscaped grounds with two resort-style pool areas, each surrounded by spas, saunas, outdoor kitchens, fire pits, and lounge seating. Inside, a lap pool sits within the fitness center for the days that call for swimming out of the sun.

At Optima Kierland, the pool is a private amenity rather than a shared one. Each tower has its own, which turns a rooftop into something that genuinely feels like yours. The most recent tower carries an Olympic-length heated pool on the roof alongside a running track that follows the perimeter, a spa and cold plunge, fire pits, and an outdoor bar and kitchen, all set against unobstructed views of the McDowell Mountains.

At Optima McDowell Mountain, the rooftop pool sits high above the desert floor with the McDowells to the east, Camelback to the south, and Pinnacle Peak to the north, surrounded by lounge seating, fire pits, and outdoor kitchens built for the evenings that make the desert worth it.

Why the Pool Becomes the Center

A pool can be the most photographed thing in a building and still not be the heart of it. What turns water into the social center of a community is everything around it, and the way those things are placed. The fire pit close enough to the lounge seating to make conversation easy. The shade arriving where the afternoon sun lands. The bar within reach of the water. The view oriented toward the pool rather than away from it. None of that happens by accident, and at Optima none of it is left to chance, because the people who design the pool are the same people who design the building it sits on.

That is what makes the pool more than a place to swim. It becomes the place where a Sunday afternoon turns into something worth looking forward to, where neighbors become familiar, and where the city or the desert reminds you why you chose to live where you do.

Explore our communities and discover a pool that fits your daily life.

Why Optima Residents Choose to Rent

Posted on May 20, 2026 by Carly

Ownership isn’t the only way to put down roots anymore, and for a growing number of residents, it isn’t the preferred way either. An Optima community offers something different, a way of living that feels complete on its own terms. The reasons are layered, but they share a common thread: residents are choosing freedom without compromising on quality, design, or community.

A Lifestyle Designed Around You

Optima has spent more than four decades refining what residential living can be. Each community is developed, designed, constructed, and managed in-house, which means every detail, from the architecture down to the resident events, reflects a singular vision. That vision spans two regions and six distinctive communities. In Chicago and the North Shore, residents find Optima Signature in Streeterville, Optima Lakeview in the heart of Lakeview East, and Optima Verdana in downtown Wilmette. In Scottsdale, Optima Sonoran Village anchors the Old Town neighborhood, while Optima Kierland and the newest community, Optima McDowell Mountain, define modern living in North Scottsdale. Across every location, design, service, and lifestyle are inseparable. For residents, the result is simple: homes that are well designed and easy to live in. Floor-to-ceiling windows, open floor plans, signature vertical landscaping, quality appliances, and thoughtful finishes are part of every home.

Amenities That Make a Home Feel Limitless

One of the clearest reasons residents choose to rent at Optima is what waits just beyond the front door. Resort-style amenities turn the building itself into an extension of home, and each community brings its own distinct character to the experience. At Optima Signature, the 57-story tower in Streeterville offers four full floors of amenities, including indoor and outdoor heated pools, a basketball court, and co-working suites, plus indoor access to Whole Foods. Optima Lakeview, a rooftop sky deck delivers panoramic city views alongside a heated pool and spa, BBQs, fire pits, and a glass-enclosed party room. At Optima Verdana on Chicago’s North Shore, lush vertical landscaping wraps a rooftop Sky Deck and residents’ club designed around a hospitality-infused quality of life.

Optima Residents enjoy a rooftop pool at sunset with lounge chairs, city views, and a glass-enclosed structure—choose to rent this urban oasis.

In Arizona, Optima Sonoran Village stretches across more than five acres of landscaped gardens, terraces, and courtyards, with two outdoor pools, a 19,000-square-foot fitness center, and indoor basketball and pickleball courts. Optima Kierland raises the bar with an Olympic-length rooftop pool, an outdoor pickleball arena, an indoor golf simulator, and a rooftop running track. And at Optima McDowell Mountain, the 8-story towers frames sweeping views of the McDowell Mountains, Pinnacle Peak, and Camelback, surrounded by world-class wellness amenities, rooftop sky decks, and an indoor/outdoor fitness center.

Outdoor gym with weight plates, squat racks, and exercise equipment on artificial grass under a covered roof.

At Optima, amenities aren’t an afterthought. They’re part of the original design, shaping communities where residents can swim, train, gather, host, and recharge without ever leaving home.

Service That Returns Your Time

The other side of renting at an Optima community is what residents don’t have to do. There are no roof repairs to schedule, no landscapers to manage, no appliances to replace. In their place is a layer of service designed to give time back: on-site maintenance, in-home package delivery, housekeeping, dry cleaning, grocery delivery, and a 24/7 concierge. It’s a model rooted in hospitality. Many residents describe the experience less like an apartment and more like living inside a private resort, one that happens to be in the heart of Chicago, the North Shore, Old Town Scottsdale or North Scottsdale.

Community Without Obligation

There’s also something to be said for the sense of community that forms inside an Optima property. On-site resident coordinators curate events, clubs, and gatherings, from book clubs and kid’s clubs to cocktail evenings on the sky deck, guided hikes, and cooking demonstrations, turning everyday encounters into real friendships. Residents can engage as much or as little as they like. The community is there when you want it, and your private residence is there when you don’t.

The Freedom Factor

Underneath all of this is the simplest and most powerful reason residents choose to rent: flexibility. The ability to move with a career, a season of life, or a change of scenery, between Streeterville, Lakeview, Wilmette, Old Town Scottsdale, Kierland, and North Scottsdale, without the friction that comes with owning a home.

A Different Definition of Home

Choosing to rent at Optima is choosing a life that’s been thoughtfully designed on every level: the building, the amenities, the service, the community, and the freedom to live the way you want to live. It’s not about renting instead of owning. It’s about living more, with less holding you back. That’s what makes Optima feel like home. Visit a community and experience the difference firsthand.

The First Thing You Notice: Art, Furniture, and the Objects That Define Optima’s Lobbies

Posted on May 18, 2026May 18, 2026 by Carly

Walk into most apartment buildings and your eyes drift toward the elevator. Walk into an Optima community and they land on something specific and stay there.

Optima Signature: Kiwi

In the plaza outside Optima Signature stands Kiwi: a 15-foot, bright yellow steel sculpture by David Hovey Sr., FAIA. The piece began as freehand drawings, layered into a tall stacked form, reminiscent of an animal but ultimately abstract. The yellow pops against the building’s red podium, giving it an identity visible from blocks away. Walking into Optima Signature means being greeted by a piece of original art before you’ve even reached the door.

Optima Lakeview: The Cloverleaf Sofa

At the base of Optima Lakeview’s skylit atrium sits the Cloverleaf Sofa, designed by Verner Panton in 1969–1970 for his Visiona 2 exhibition. Four connected circular seats in a snake-like configuration, a piece of design history, a work of sculpture, and an extraordinarily welcoming place to sit down. Walking into Optima Lakeview means arriving somewhere with a place to stop and stay, not just a corridor to move through.

Optima Verdana: Curves and Voids

At Optima Verdana in downtown Wilmette, the southeast plaza holds Curves and Voids, an eight-foot David Hovey Sr., FAIA sculpture. Sweeping steel curves interrupted by laser-cut voids that catch the North Shore light differently in every season. Inside, an Eames Lounge Chair anchors the library lounge. Walking into Optima Verdana means encountering something that changes with the time of day, a building that rewards a second look.

Optima Kierland: Modular Color

At Optima Kierland in Scottsdale, the arrival experience is shaped by color. In the lounges, modular SOFTLINE PLANET sofas in saturated tones invite residents to convene or retreat, while the Barcelona Chair anchors residents’ clubs across all five towers. Walking into Optima Kierland means stepping into a space that adapts to how you want to be in it, together or alone.

Optima Sonoran Village: A Sculpture Garden

At Optima Sonoran Village, the sculpture garden holds five original David Hovey Sr., FAIA works in natural Cor-Ten steel, Silver Fern, Duo, Triangles, Intersecting Arches, and Curves and Voids, are distributed through the courtyards, so art is encountered on the way to the pool. Walking into Optima Sonoran Village means living alongside art every day, not visiting it on a schedule.

Optima McDowell Mountain

At Optima McDowell Mountain in North Scottsdale, glass-enclosed 15-foot ground-floor levels make the lobbies feel transparent to the desert beyond, with the McDowell range framed through the glass and the central courtyard close at hand. Walking into Optima McDowell Mountain means arriving at a place where the desert is part of the room.

Why It Works

The Barcelona Chair by Mies van der Rohe and Lilly Reich appears at every Optima community. So does the Eames Lounge Chair. On the walls, Calder, Picasso, Miró, and Klee. None of it is there for prestige alone, it’s there because residents, walking home on a grey November afternoon or a bright Scottsdale morning, deserve to pass through a space that has been thought about.

Explore our communities and experience the arrival for yourself.

The Science of the Good Night: How Your Home Affects How You Sleep

Posted on May 13, 2026May 11, 2026 by Carly

Sleep is often treated as something the body does on its own. But sleep researchers see it differently. Sleep is shaped by the environment around you, and the room you sleep in plays a real role. Light, temperature, sound, and air quality all send signals your nervous system is reading.

A well-designed home is quietly working in your favor every night.

Light

Light is the strongest cue for the body’s internal clock. Morning daylight anchors the circadian system and sets the timing for melatonin release later in the day. Homes with abundant daylight give that system a clearer signal. This is part of what makes a community like Optima Lakeview feel restorative from the inside out: a landscaped atrium runs through the building’s seven-story core, drawing daylight deep into spaces that might otherwise stay dim. At Optima Kierland, the vertical landscaping system is visible from every residential unit, keeping natural light and greenery within view throughout the day. Optima Signature takes a different approach to the same principle, wrapping its 57-story Streeterville tower in floor-to-ceiling windows with sweeping views of Lake Michigan and the Chicago skyline.

Temperature

Core body temperature drops as you fall asleep, and that drop is part of what triggers sleep. The Sleep Foundation recommends a bedroom temperature between 65 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit, with a broader range of 60 to 67 often cited for adults. A room that holds a steady nighttime temperature, without large swings, supports deeper, more continuous sleep. Optima communities are designed with thermal stability in mind, from well-insulated building envelopes to thoughtful glazing choices like the bird-friendly glass and green concrete used at Optima Verdana, which achieved Green Globes certification in 2023. In Arizona, where heat management matters even more, Optima Sonoran Village uses shaded glass, lush landscaping, and underground parking to moderate interior temperatures, while Optima McDowell Mountain brings sustainability strategies into its first completed tower to support a stable interior climate against the desert backdrop.

Acoustics

The brain continues processing sound during sleep, which is why intrusive noise can disrupt rest even when you don’t fully wake. Good acoustic design isn’t about silence but about reducing unpredictable sound, through dense materials, careful wall assemblies, and quiet mechanical systems. Across Optima communities, concrete-framed construction and considered unit-to-unit detailing help keep the everyday sounds of a building from becoming the soundtrack of a restless night. At Optima Sonoran Village, 5.5 acres of landscaped courtyards create a soft buffer between the residences and the surrounding city, and at Optima McDowell Mountain, the open desert setting and generous space between phases keep the soundscape calm even as the community continues to take shape.

Air and Atmosphere

Indoor air quality and humidity affect breathing and comfort throughout the night, with humidity in the 30 to 50 percent range generally considered ideal. Connection to greenery and natural light also matters: research links these elements to reduced stress and better sleep, likely because the nervous system reads them as signals of ease. Optima’s biophilic approach is visible across communities, in the lush plantings and vertical gardens at Optima Kierland, the interior atrium at Optima Lakeview, the residential courtyard and rooftop sky deck at Optima Verdana, the plant-fringed balconies and Camelback Mountain views at Optima Sonoran Village, the desert landscape framing Optima McDowell Mountain, and the 1.5 acres of amenity space at Optima Signature, including indoor and outdoor pools, saunas, and a yoga studio. Each keeps that connection to nature and ease woven into daily life.

Designed for Rest

Optima describes biophilic design as the deliberate integration of natural elements, light, greenery, organic materials, and open air, into the built environment. The result, for residents, is a place where the variables that govern sleep are considered as part of the home itself, rather than left for residents to solve on their own.

Explore our communities to see how a home built around light, comfort, and connection to nature can change the way you rest.

How to Choose Your Optima Community: A Guide to Finding the Right Fit

Posted on May 11, 2026May 11, 2026 by Carly

For more than four decades, Optima has been designing and building luxury residential communities across Arizona and Illinois. Today, the portfolio spans six distinct communities, each offering its own scale, setting, and way of living. What unites them is Optima’s unmistakable design philosophy: Modernist architecture, bold geometric forms, carefully curated materials, open-concept living, and the brand’s signature vertical landscaping. What makes each one different is the lifestyle it creates. The right Optima community comes down to where you want to wake up, how you want to spend your weekends, and what kind of place feels most like home.

Here’s a guide to all six.

The Chicago and North Shore Communities

Optima Signature: Streeterville, Chicago

Optima Signature rises above Chicago’s skyline as a 57-story luxury apartment tower in Streeterville, featuring 490 residences and 58,000 square feet of street-level retail and commercial space. If your ideal life involves walking to the lakefront in the morning, working downtown, and coming home to skyline views from a high floor, Optima Signature is built for you. The amenity experience is equally elevated, featuring resort-style indoor and outdoor heated pools, sauna and steam rooms, basketball, squash, and bocce courts, and a golf simulator. Within the Optima portfolio, it offers the most dynamic urban high-rise lifestyle.

Best for: Anyone drawn to skyline living, world-class amenities, and immediate access to the Loop and the lakefront, the most urban, high-rise experience Optima offers.

Optima Lakeview: Lakeview, Chicago

Optima Lakeview is a seven-story, transit-oriented residential community at 3460 N. Broadway, featuring 198 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments along with 14,000 square feet of street-level retail in the heart of Lakeview. The defining architectural feature is the landscaped interior atrium that rises through the building’s seven-story core, capped by a fixed skylight that draws natural light deep into the residence experience. Its 40,000 square feet of amenities include a rooftop sky deck with a year-round heated pool and spa, an indoor basketball court, a golf simulator, a yoga and stretching studio, a dog park and pet spa, and a demonstration kitchen.

Best for: Residents seeking a design-driven community with exceptional amenities, a connected neighborhood atmosphere, and effortless access to transit and the best of Chicago.

Optima Verdana: Wilmette, IL

Located in the heart of Wilmette, Optima Verdana brings Optima’s design-forward approach to the North Shore with 100 luxury rental residences and 8,000 square feet of street-level retail, positioned directly across from the Metra station for seamless commuter access. Inside each residence, elevated finishes meet thoughtful functionality, with premium kitchens, flexible spaces designed for working from home, and expansive private terraces framed by Optima’s signature vertical landscaping. Over 60 acres of lakefront, including beaches and a sailing harbor, are within walking distance. Anchoring the entry plaza is Curves and Voids, a sculpture whose laser-cut steel arcs catch the North Shore light differently in every season.

Best for: Residents who want suburban scale and lakefront access without giving up urban convenience or design quality, and who value an easy commute into the city.

The Arizona Communities

Optima Sonoran Village: Old Town Scottsdale

Sonoran Village is the largest existing community in the portfolio: a 10-acre, 5-building, 768-residence mixed-use community in Old Town Scottsdale with 13,000 square feet of commercial space and over 5 acres of lushly landscaped courtyards. Its sculpture garden alone houses five original Cor-Ten steel works, Silver Fern, Duo, Triangles, Intersecting Arches, and Curves and Voids, distributed through the courtyards so residents encounter art on the way to the pool, not in a gallery setting. The location puts you in the middle of everything Old Town Scottsdale has to offer.

Best for: Residents who want walkable Old Town Scottsdale energy, a true community feel across multiple buildings, and the most immersive art-and-architecture experience in the portfolio.

Optima Kierland: Kierland, Scottsdale

Located in the heart of North Scottsdale near Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter, Optima Kierland is a five-tower luxury community that brings together both for-sale condominiums and luxury rental residences in one of Arizona’s most design-forward urban neighborhoods. Spanning approximately 9.5 acres, the community blends striking modern architecture, sweeping desert and golf course views, and Optima’s signature vertical landscaping that wraps each tower in living greenery.

What makes Optima Kierland unique is its building-by-building approach to lifestyle. Rather than relying on one centralized amenity deck, each tower features its own private residents’ club and rooftop wellness experience. The community includes two condominium towers alongside three apartment towers, 7160, 7140, and 7190, with 579 rental residences across the apartment collection. Across the community, residents enjoy rooftop pools and spas, state-of-the-art fitness spaces, golf simulators, pickleball, landscaped courtyards, and Arizona’s first rooftop running track. Inside, residences feature floor-to-ceiling glass, expansive private terraces, and gourmet kitchens designed to blur the line between indoor and outdoor living.

Best for: Residents who want a high-rise rental experience in North Scottsdale with proximity to premier shopping and dining, and who value being able to choose the tower that best matches their lifestyle.

Optima McDowell Mountain: North Scottsdale

Optima McDowell Mountain is the newest Optima community in North Scottsdale, set on 22 acres of desert with sweeping views of the McDowell Mountains, Pinnacle Peak, and Camelback. Tower 7220 offers 210 luxury rental residences from studios to three-bedrooms, and Tower 7230 brings condominium ownership with residences now selling.

Life at 7220 is centered around wellness, outdoor living, and connection to the desert. Residents can start the day with a rooftop workout or coffee overlooking the McDowell Mountains, spend afternoons relaxing by the rooftop pool, playing pickleball, or working remotely from thoughtfully designed coworking spaces, then end the evening with a sunset spa session or dinner on a private terrace surrounded by Optima’s signature vertical landscaping.

What makes the experience especially unique is the scale of what surrounds it. With 75% of the site dedicated to landscaped open space and one of the largest private rainwater harvesting systems in the United States, even the first tower feels connected to a much larger vision, one that blends architecture, sustainability, and the year-round outdoor lifestyle that defines North Scottsdale.

Best for: Anyone drawn to sweeping desert views and the newest construction in the portfolio, with the option to rent at Tower 7220 or own at Tower 7230.

How to Decide

A few questions to narrow it down:

Where do you want to live?

Illinois (Optima Signature, Optima Lakeview, Optima Verdana) or Arizona (Optima Sonoran Village, Optima Kierland, Optima McDowell Mountain)? Within those, do you want urban core (Optima Signature, Optima Lakeview). Suburban-with-transit (Optima Verdana). Downtown walkability (Optima Sonoran Village), or a quieter neighborhood feel with mountain views (Optima Kierland, Optima McDowell Mountain)?

What scale of community do you want?

Choices range from intimate (Verdana at 100 residences) to mid-sized (Lakeview at 198, Signature at 490, Kierland at 579) to neighborhood-scale (Sonoran Village at 768, McDowell Mountain at 1,330 when fully built).

What matters most in your daily life?

Lakefront walks and skyline views? A landscaped atrium and a transit stop? A sculpture garden between you and the pool? An Olympic-length rooftop pool with desert views in every direction? Each Optima community is custom-designed to its physical location, so the question isn’t really which one is best, it’s which one is best for you.

Explore Optima’s communities further and discover even more of the details that make each one unique.

Optima McDowell Mountain Floor Plan Spotlight: The 2B-39 Residences

Posted on May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 by Carly

One of the most desirable apartment residences at 7220 Optima McDowell Mountain is the 2B-39 floor plan. These spacious two-bedroom homes offer the perfect balance of expansive indoor living and exceptional outdoor space, ideal for couples, roommates, or anyone who wants generous room to entertain in the desert.

Key Features:

Open-Concept Living Area: With approximately 1,835 square feet of interior space and a generous 272 square feet of exterior terrace, the 2B-39 is built for indoor–outdoor living. Floor-to-ceiling windows with sunscreening roller shades fill the home with natural light and frame stunning South-facing views.
Gourmet Kitchen: This culinary centerpiece features a sleek peninsula with counter seating, quartz countertops, chrome Kohler fixtures, an induction cooktop in polished granite, a wine refrigerator, an appliance garage, and premium stainless-steel appliances, all designed for refined entertaining and everyday ease.
Dual Bedrooms with 2.5 Baths: A spacious primary suite features dual vanities and elegant finishes, while a well-proportioned secondary bedroom and full second bathroom provide flexibility for guests, a home office, or a roommate. A separate half bath adds welcome convenience for entertaining. Blackout shades in the bedrooms ensure restful, private comfort.
Smart Storage & Conveniences: A dedicated laundry closet with full-size washer and dryer, custom millwork closets, and integrated smart-home technology bring everyday luxury to a beautifully organized home. Elegant 10″ luxury plank flooring runs throughout.

The 2B-09 reflects Optima’s approach to design, practical layouts, modern finishes, and a strong connection to the outdoors that suits the North Scottsdale setting.

The Optima McDowell Mountain Lifestyle

Every apartment at 7220 Optima McDowell Mountain is enhanced by a service-driven community experience. From a 24-hour concierge dedicated to personalized support, to on-demand pet-care services, package handling, and tailored fitness and wellness offerings, every detail is designed for effortless living. Vibrant community events foster connection, while thoughtfully designed amenities, including a fitness center, pickleball and basketball courts, and lush indoor–outdoor spaces, elevate daily life. This is more than a home; it’s a lifestyle where comfort, convenience, and luxury living come together in the heart of North Scottsdale.

Contact us today to schedule a tour and discover why Optima McDowell Mountain is becoming the pinnacle of residential living in Scottsdale.

Click here to view our floor plans & current availability.

The Art of the Celebration: How Optima Communities Come Alive Through Events

Posted on May 7, 2026May 7, 2026 by Carly

A beautifully designed building is a starting point. The courtyards, the sky decks, the residents’ clubs and rooftop pools, these spaces are built to support a certain quality of life. But the quality of life they produce depends on something architecture alone cannot deliver: the people inside them, and what brings them together.

At Optima, resident events have always been understood as the living expression of the design philosophy. The same care that goes into the placement of a planter on a rooftop terrace goes into the calendar of events that fills that terrace with people on a Saturday evening. The two are inseparable. One creates the stage. The other is the performance.

The Events That Define a Community

Across Optima communities, the events calendar is as varied as the communities themselves. In Scottsdale, rooftop movie nights on the sky decks draw residents together under the desert stars. Wine and cheese evenings in the residents’ club create the kind of unhurried, low-stakes social environment where the neighbor you have passed in the corridor for six months becomes someone you actually know. Fitness classes on the rooftop, led by instructors who know the community by name, turn a morning workout into a social ritual that residents build their week around.

At Optima Sonoran Village, the heart of the events calendar is the community itself, six acres of lushly landscaped courtyards, two resort-style pool areas, and a 19,000-square-foot residents’ club that gives the management team the spaces to create events worth showing up for. Poolside gatherings on summer evenings. Holiday celebrations in the residents’ lounge. Fitness classes that move between the rooftop and the pool deck with the seasons. At Optima Sonoran Village, the Old Town Scottsdale location means the neighborhood is always part of the story, with the energy of one of Arizona’s most vibrant communities right outside, and the calm of the courtyard waiting when residents return.

At Optima Kierland, each of the towers runs its own dedicated events calendar, exclusive to that tower’s residents, organized around the specific character of the sky deck and residents’ club that belong to that building. A movie night on the 7190 rooftop is a different evening than one on the 7140 deck, with a different group of neighbors and a different view of the North Scottsdale skyline. That specificity of community, the sense that these events belong to your building, not just the broader property, is part of what makes the Optima Kierland experience genuinely unlike living anywhere else in North Scottsdale.

At Optima McDowell Mountain, the drama of the Sonoran Desert setting gives events a quality of place that is difficult to replicate anywhere else. Group sunrise hikes from the front door into the desert, organized by the management team and attended by residents who discover that the person who lives two floors above them shares the same appreciation for early morning desert light. Community barbecues on the sky deck where the views of the McDowell Mountains provide the setting and the only obligation is to show up.

In Chicago, events take on the character of their neighborhoods. At Optima Lakeview, the proximity to Wrigley Field means game-day gatherings on the rooftop sky deck that become annual traditions, the kind of event that residents plan their summer around and bring friends to. Holiday parties in the glass-enclosed party room. Summer rooftop dinners with the Chicago skyline as the backdrop. At Optima Signature, the setting of 57 stories above Streeterville makes resident events feel genuinely unlike anything available anywhere else in the city, from Club 52 sky terrace gatherings for Apex residents to building-wide celebrations that make the most of one of the most extraordinary residential addresses in Chicago.

At Optima Verdana on the North Shore, the scale of 100 residences gives events an intimacy that larger communities cannot replicate. A wine tasting in the library lounge becomes an evening where every face is familiar. A rooftop gathering with the Bahá’í Temple visible to the north becomes the kind of evening that residents describe when they explain why they chose to live here.

The People Behind the Events

None of this happens without the people who make it happen. At Optima, the property management teams who run our communities, the managers, the leasing teams, the resident coordinators who know residents by name and take the experience of living here personally, are the architects of the events calendar. They understand what each community needs because they are present in it every day. They know which residents are new and need an introduction, which events reliably draw people out, and which moments in the calendar deserve something more than the ordinary.

This is what Optima means by community management: not the administration of a building but the cultivation of the life inside it.

Why It Matters

There is a particular feeling that comes with living somewhere that takes your experience seriously enough to celebrate it. The opening of a new tower. The holidays that mark the turning of the year. The ordinary Tuesday evening that becomes extraordinary because the team organized something worth showing up for. These moments accumulate. Over time, they are what residents remember about a place, not the square footage, not the finishes, but the evenings on the rooftop with neighbors who became friends, the mornings that started with a group hike into the desert, the sense that the community they live in is genuinely alive.

At Optima, the art of the celebration is part of the art of building. The spaces are designed to be worth gathering in. The events ensure that the gathering actually happens. And the result is communities that feel, in the truest sense of the word, like home.

Come experience the lifestyle firsthand. Explore Optima’s communities and discover the events, amenities, and moments that make each one distinct.

The New Home Office: How Optima Designs for the Way We Work Now

Posted on April 29, 2026April 28, 2026 by Carly

The way people work has changed more in the last five years than in the previous fifty. Remote work, hybrid schedules, and the collapse of the hard boundary between office and home have fundamentally altered what people need from the places they live. The home office is no longer a luxury addition. It is a primary space, one that needs to function as well as any professional environment, and feel as considered as every other room in the home.

At Optima, that shift wasn’t a surprise. The integration of work into residential communities has been part of the design philosophy since 2010, when Optima Camelview Village introduced the first on-site commercial business suites into a luxury residential community. The thinking behind that decision has only become more relevant with time.

Designed for Work, From the Inside Out

Every Optima floor plan is designed to accommodate a dedicated workspace. That separation matters, a defined work zone improves focus, reduces distraction, and makes it easier to close the day and return to the rest of life. Floor-to-ceiling glass fills every residence with natural light throughout the working day. And the views, the McDowell Mountains, the Chicago lakefront, the Old Town Scottsdale rooftops, are working conditions that most offices cannot replicate.

When You Need to Step Outside the Apartment

Across Optima communities, business centers, conference rooms, and private huddle rooms provide professional-grade settings for the calls that need a quiet room and the workdays when the apartment needs a rest. At Optima Signature, fully furnished commercial business suites, available to both residents and non-residents, take that offer further: private offices ranging from single-desk to multi-workstation, all with access to Optima Signature’s full amenity program.

At Optima Lakeview, the seven-story skylit atrium functions as the most restorative change of environment a building can provide, no commute, just light and greenery and the ambient life of the community. At Optima Sonoran Village, Kaleidoscope Juice provides the coffee-shop moment without leaving the building. At Optima Signature, Egg Harbor Cafe and on-site concierge handle the rest. The vertical landscaping visible from every Optima terrace, shown by research to reduce cortisol and improve focus, turns a work-from-home morning into something genuinely different from a conventional office day.

The Home You Work In

Optima communities have met the shift to remote and hybrid work not because work-from-home amenities were added in response to demand, but because the design philosophy, that a home should support the full complexity of the life lived inside it, was already pointing in the right direction. Not as a feature. As a foundation.

Come see the spaces that make working from home genuinely work. Explore Optima communities and experience the details that define each one.