How we count, and what we can't

Sources

City of Scottsdale building permit reports. Issued permits with date, address, square footage, zoning, declared valuation, owner and contractor. We count commercial, multi-family and tenant improvement permits and exclude single family homes, pools, fences and solar, so the numbers reflect business construction.

City of Scottsdale certificates of occupancy. Issued when a space passes final inspection. This is our openings measure, since it's the closest public record to a business actually being allowed to open.

Maricopa County food establishment permits. The active roster of food businesses with names and addresses. County records carry no issue date, so we snapshot the roster monthly and compare: names that appear are new, names that vanish have closed.

US Census Bureau geocoder. The city publishes addresses, not coordinates, so we geocode the addresses ourselves to build the map. It's the federal geocoder and it's free. It placed 849 of our 1,193 commercial permits. 336 addresses it couldn't match, usually suites, new streets or the city's own abbreviations. Another 8 came back with coordinates outside Scottsdale, which means it guessed, so we left those off the map rather than plot a permit somewhere it isn't.

Definitions

Declared value is the figure the applicant puts on the permit application. It's not final construction cost, and it's the standard measure used in permit data. Some permits declare zero, usually shell or phased work.

A permit isn't a completion. It means the city authorized work. Projects stall, change hands and get amended.

Builder and owner names are messy. The same firm appears with and without Inc or LLC, and occasionally misspelled. We strip legal suffixes and merge duplicates by hand. A firm operating under two names may still show up twice. 25 permits list the owner as their own builder and are excluded from contractor rankings.

Known gaps, stated plainly

The 2026 count is too low. Scottsdale moved to a new permitting portal in January 2026 and current-year permits appear to be under-reported in the public feed. We flag it everywhere it affects a number rather than quietly publishing a fake decline.

Permits name addresses, not businesses. A tenant improvement at a suite number doesn't tell you which restaurant is going in. Resolving that's the next thing we're building.

Closings are the hardest. No agency publishes them. Our monthly food-roster snapshots started in August 2026, so the closings series is thin now and strengthens every month.

Liquor licenses aren't in here yet. The state's license database blocks automated access. It would add pre-opening signal for bars and restaurants and it's on the list.

Corrections

If a number here's wrong about your project, your company or your address, email john@thescottsdalescoop.com and we'll fix it and say what changed.

Common questions