There’s a particular kind of friction that makes fitness routines hard to sustain: the getting-there part. When the gym requires a separate membership, a commute, and a fixed class time that doesn’t bend to the rest of life, the routine becomes harder to keep. One busy week is often enough to break it.

At Optima, the fitness center sits within the same building as the home, and that proximity changes how people actually use it.

Proximity as the Missing Variable

Most conversations about fitness habits focus on motivation or the right workout plan. But the simpler factor that tends to matter more is the distance. The closer a habit is to where you already are, the more likely you are to repeat it. When the fitness center is a short elevator ride away, accessible early in the morning or late at night, it stops being an event you schedule and becomes a part of your day.

This is the logic behind how Optima designs fitness amenities across its communities in Illinois and Arizona. The centers are built to be genuinely complete, not a few treadmills in an afterthought of a room, so that residents can work through a full range of training goals without needing anything else. Cardio equipment, free weights, strength training, dedicated yoga space, and often Pilates studios occupy the same connected floor, making it easy to shift between kinds of movement depending on the day.

Built for the Full Range of Fitness Goals

At Optima Signature in Streeterville, the fitness center is paired with a yoga studio, an indoor lap pool, an indoor and outdoor saunas, steam rooms, and a cold plunge. Personal training, yoga, and Pilates classes are available through an on-site partnership, and a Reform Studios Pilates location just steps outside the building adds reformer work as well.

Optima Lakeview brings that same range to the Lakeview neighborhood. The fitness center overlooks the building’s sky-lit atrium and includes cardio and strength equipment, free weights, squat racks, and a dedicated yoga and stretching studio. Complimentary towel service, weekly classes, and personal training are available, and the year-round heated rooftop pool is there for residents whose routines include swimming.

Optima Verdana in Wilmette pairs a fully equipped fitness center with a yoga studio and massage room. Fitness programming includes yoga, HIIT, Pilates, water aerobics, and personal training, so residents have organized options alongside the freedom to use the space on their own schedule.

The Scottsdale Communities

In Scottsdale, the fitness amenities reflect the scale of the buildings. At Optima Kierland Apartments, each of the towers has its own dedicated fitness spaces. The 7160 tower features a 16,000-square-foot fitness center with locker rooms, a steam room, sauna, hot and cold plunges and a massage room. Tower 7140 offers roughly 27,000 square feet of wellness amenities including indoor and outdoor fitness areas, a rooftop yoga studio, and a rooftop running track. Tower 7190 continues that with an indoor/outdoor fitness center, free weights, stretching areas, and an outdoor pickleball court and golf area. On-site massage therapy, fitness classes, and personal training are available across all towers.

At Optima Sonoran Village, the 24-hour fitness center includes treadmills, bikes, stair climbers, free weights, and Life Fitness Signature Series strength equipment alongside a basketball court and golf simulator. The glass-enclosed center looks out over the indoor lap pool, keeping the transition between training and recovery easy. Saunas, steam rooms, and a spa complete the offering.

At Optima McDowell Mountain, the fitness center includes indoor and outdoor training areas, Pilates and yoga studios, locker rooms, and spa-adjacent spaces with a sauna, hot and cold plunges and a massage room, all looking out over the landscaped courtyard.

Recovery as Part of the Routine

Steam rooms, saunas, hot and cold plunges, and spa services appear across Optima communities because recovery is treated as part of the routine. Being able to move from a workout directly into a sauna or steam room, and then back upstairs, makes it easier to keep that part of the routine intact when time is limited. Massage booking through the buildings resident services app and partner programs extends this further, without requiring a separate appointment somewhere else.

A Low-Friction Environment

What Optima’s fitness amenities offer, more than any particular piece of equipment or programming, is a low-friction environment for showing up regularly. There’s no car to park, no membership card for another place, no commute in weather that doesn’t cooperate. There’s just the elevator, a pair of shoes, and whatever the day calls for.

Explore Optima’s communities across Illinois and Arizona and schedule a tour to see the amenities firsthand.

The first months in an Optima community are about discovery, finding the best chair in the lounge, learning the rhythm of the pool deck, figuring out which elevator is fastest in the morning. But residents who have been here for years carry something different, a quieter familiarity with the building and the people inside it that turns an apartment into a home and a community into something closer to a small neighborhood with its own habits and its own sense of place.

The building becomes intuitive

Over time the building becomes second nature. Longtime residents move through it with an ease that comes from repetition, knowing which lounge is quiet in the afternoon, which corner of the pool gets the best late light, which spot in the fitness center has the best view through the glass. The architecture that first impresses through its scale and clean lines slowly becomes more personal, a set of spaces that hold the small daily rituals of life in a way that feels both designed and entirely natural.

Relationships that build slowly

The more meaningful changes are about the people. Relationships at Optima tend to build slowly, through small repeated encounters at the coffee bar or the dog run or in the elevator, until the neighbors who were once polite strangers have become genuine friends. Community here does not arrive through any single event or introduction. It accumulates through shared daily life, where you see the same people at the same times in the same places until you find yourself genuinely curious about how their week is going. There are residents who have watched each other’s children grow up across the hallway, residents who have moved within the building while staying in the community they consider home, and friendships that began with a lobby conversation neither person can quite remember the start of.

Knowing the rhythms

Staying for years also means understanding the rhythms of the place. There are weeks when the pool deck is busy in the morning and quiet by late afternoon, and seasons when the courtyards fill up or the fitness centers carry the most traffic. Longtime residents tend to know the quieter mid-week evenings worth claiming for themselves and the weekend mornings when everyone seems to gather around for coffee. This is the kind of knowledge that cannot be communicated in a tour, and it is one of the reasons residents stay as long as they do.

The staff who know you

Then there is the staff. The concierge who knows when your packages arrive, the maintenance team familiar with your apartment’s quirks, the management team who knows your name and your preferences. These relationships deepen across the years until the people running the building feel less like service providers and more like familiar faces who are part of the daily texture of home.

Art that grows with you

Living alongside the art changes with time too. The Kiwi sculpture at Optima Signature, the Curves and Voids sculpture at Optima Verdana, the Duo sculpture at Optima Kierland, the sculpture garden at Optima Sonoran Village, the atrium at Optima Lakeview, these are works that reward sustained attention. Longtime residents often notice things they had walked past for months, the way light falls on a Cor-Ten surface in the late afternoon, the way a sculpture reads differently in summer than in winter. The art is not meant to be experienced once. It lives alongside residents over years, becoming familiar in a way that opens up new attention rather than closing it off.

The deeper definition of home

What years in an Optima community look like, in the end, is a slow deepening of what the word home actually means. It is the difference between an apartment you occupy and a place you belong to, the steady accumulation of small familiarities, daily rituals that take shape without anyone planning them, and friendships built through proximity and repetition. Residents who have stayed long term tend to speak about their communities with the warmth of people who have made a real life inside a place rather than simply passing through it.

Explore our communities to find the one that fits the life you want to build.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

Every sport has a moment when it stops belonging to enthusiasts and starts belonging to everyone. Pickleball had that moment a few years ago, and it hasn’t slowed down. It’s now the fastest-growing sport in the United States, spreading onto rooftops, amenity decks, and residential buildings across the country.

The question for anyone designing places to live isn’t whether to take it seriously. It’s what it’s telling us.

What Pickleball Actually Reveals

Pickleball didn’t get popular by accident. It got popular because it quietly solved a problem residential design has wrestled with for decades: how to bring people of different ages and fitness levels into the same space, on the same side of the net, and send them home with the kind of easy familiarity that turns neighbors into a community.

Players of all ages can compete. The court fits where a tennis court cannot. And the social architecture of the game, the partners, the between-point chatter, the standing around afterward, isn’t a side effect. It’s the product.

Optima Was Already Ahead

At Optima, sport has never been an amenity line item. It’s part of how the buildings were designed to feel.

The rooftop running tracks at Optima Kierland exist because the architects thought about how residents might want to spend a morning. The Olympic-length rooftop pools at Optima McDowell Mountain are there because daily practices are what give a community its rhythm. Movement isn’t layered onto the experience of living here. It is the experience.

Pickleball arrived at Optima before the broader conversation caught up:

• Optima Kierland — 7190 Tower features a covered outdoor pickleball arena, one of the first at a luxury community in North Scottsdale, plus a full indoor basketball court striped for pickleball.
• Optima McDowell Mountain — Indoor and outdoor courts will be built into every one of the six buildings, alongside rooftop pools, running tracks, and fitness centers with views of the Sonoran Desert.
• Optima Sonoran Village — The indoor basketball and pickleball court anchors a 19,000-square-foot residents’ club designed for the kind of daily, unplanned use that builds real connection.
• Optima Lakeview & Optima Signature — Indoor courts keep play going through Chicago winters, where indoor sport space isn’t a luxury; it’s what makes an amenity actually usable.
• Optima Verdana — On the North Shore, the fitness facilities carry the same intent: give residents every reason to stay active, together, as part of the daily rhythm of the building.

The Community a Sport Builds

The most useful thing pickleball has done for residential design isn’t adding courts. It’s making something visible that was always true: shared spaces are only as good as the life inside them.

A pickleball court is a rectangle with a net. A pickleball court where Tuesday games start on their own, where residents who’d never met become regular partners, that’s something no architectural drawing can fully capture.

From Old Town and North Scottsdale to the edge of the Sonoran Preserve to Chicago and the North Shore, Optima has always treated sport as one of the most reliable paths to that outcome. Pickleball is just the latest expression of a philosophy that’s been there from the start: the best amenity is the one that brings people together, not once, at the grand  opening, but every week, for as long as residents choose to call the place home.

Come see the spaces that bring people together. Explore Optima communities and experience the details that define each one.

A great morning doesn’t happen by accident; it’s built from small habits that feel good enough to return to. The secret most people overlook? Your environment matters as much as your willpower. At Optima, we design for both.

Start with Light

Natural light within the first hour of waking regulates the circadian rhythm and produces the alert, energized feeling that coffee tries to replicate. At Optima, light is never something residents have to seek out. Floor-to-ceiling windows fill Optima Sonoran Village and Optima McDowell Mountain residences with warm desert morning light, while the soaring atrium at Optima Lakeview makes the transition from night to day feel effortless. For those who want to take it outside, the rooftop sky decks at Optima Kierland Apartments offer open-air sunrise views that make early rising feel like a reward.

Move First

Even 20 minutes of morning movement improves mood, focus, and reduces anxiety for hours after. The challenge is never the movement; it’s the energy to get there. When world-class fitness amenities are steps from your front door, that barrier disappears. Residents across Optima communities wake up adjacent to state-of-the-art fitness centers, resort pools, and indoor basketball & pickleball courts.

Find the Stillness

The most grounding morning habits are sometimes the quietest, a few minutes of journaling, meditation, or simply sitting somewhere beautiful before the day takes over. The key is a space that makes slowing down feel natural. At Optima Sonoran Village, the lushly landscaped courtyards offer a serene desert morning that’s hard to rush through. Optima Lakeview, a quiet corner of the atrium with light filtering through the greenery above, is all it takes. At Optima Signature, the views make pausing effortless.

Life at Optima

The most important insight from habit science is simple: we don’t rise to our intentions; we fall to our environment. At Optima, every design decision, from building orientation to courtyard placement to window quality, is made with the lived experience of morning in mind. Because a day that starts well, in a space designed to support it, tends to stay that way.

Start your day in a space designed to elevate everyday living. Schedule a tour at an Optima community today.

At  Optima McDowell Mountain , wellness is more than an amenity—it’s a way of life. With thoughtfully designed yoga amenities located both at grade level and on the rooftop sky deck, plus weekly morning yoga classes guided by experienced instructors, residents enjoy an environment that supports movement, mindfulness, and community. Whether you’re flowing indoors in a calm, temperature controlled studio or practicing outside with sweeping views of the McDowell Mountains, Optima offers a uniquely flexible and inspiring yoga experience.

A Calm Retreat Indoors: Climate Controlled Yoga Studios

Optima’s indoor yoga spaces—available on both the ground level and integrated within the rooftop sky deck—offer residents tranquil environments perfect for year round practice. These studios feature:

• Soft natural light filtering through expansive windows
• Premium mats, blocks, straps, and bolsters
• Acoustically calm ambiance
• Consistent climate control for comfort in all seasons

Residents often pair indoor practice with the community’s weekly morning yoga classes, which use these serene interior spaces during warmer months. Early sessions help set the tone for a grounded, focused day—right at home.

Yoga Elevated: The Rooftop Sky Deck Studio

One of the most breathtaking wellness features at Optima McDowell Mountain is the rooftop sky deck yoga studio. Overlooking the valley, this elevated open air studio offers:

• Panoramic views of the McDowell Mountains
• Fresh airflow and abundant natural light
• Beautifully designed, ideal for energizing vinyasa or quiet sunrise flows

There’s something magical about practicing at sunrise—the colors shifting across the desert sky, the quiet hum of the morning, and the sense of expansion that comes from being elevated above it all.

Outdoor Yoga Experiences: At Grade & Elevated Above the Desert

For residents who enjoy connecting their practice with the natural environment, Optima McDowell Mountain offers two distinct outdoor yoga areas—each thoughtfully designed to bring the calm and beauty of the desert landscape into every session.

• At grade level, residents can unwind in peaceful, shaded yoga areas nestled within Optima’s lush, landscaped courtyards. These grade level spaces feature:
• Shaded platforms surrounded by greenery, ideal for slow flows or stretching
• Thoughtful desert plantings that create a soothing, nature immersed atmosphere

Above it all, the rooftop sky deck outdoor yoga area provides a breathtaking elevated alternative. Here, residents practice with:

• A serene, expansive rooftop sky deck area designed for group and solo flows alike
• Panoramic views of the McDowell Mountains
• Open air fresh breezes and warm desert sunlight

Weekly Morning Yoga: A Wellness Ritual

To support a consistent wellness routine, Optima McDowell Mountain offers weekly morning yoga classes led by trained instructors. These classes are designed for all levels—from beginners to seasoned practitioners.

This helps residents build regular practice supported by professional guidance and a sense of community.

Weekly morning yoga provides a number of benefits:

• Helps establish a steady, energizing wellness ritual
• Encourages social connection among neighbors
• Supports physical strength, mobility, and flexibility
• Enhances mental clarity and stress relief at the start of the day

For many residents, these classes become a foundational part of their weekly rhythm.

The Benefits of a Multi Level Yoga Experience

Having access to such a range of yoga environments gives residents unmatched flexibility and inspiration. This variety supports:

• Year-round, weather proof practice
• Mind body balance through changing environments
• Connection with nature and community
• Consistency supported by weekly classes
• Enhanced mental clarity, mood, and sense of belonging

Where Wellness and Design Align

Optima McDowell Mountain takes a holistic approach to wellness, ensuring residents have spaces that uplift the mind, body, and spirit. With indoor and outdoor yoga studios, a breathtaking rooftop sky deck, and weekly morning yoga classes that bring neighbors together, Optima has created an environment where yoga becomes more than a fitness activity—it becomes a lifestyle.

Contact us today  to schedule a tour and discover why Optima McDowell Mountain is the perfect place to call home.

Click here to view our floor plans & current availability .