Peoria's Holiday Festival Doubles as Opening Night for the Downtown the City Built

For the past two years, Peoria has built restaurants and public space on downtown land it owns, one project at a time around 83rd Avenue. On Saturday, December 12, all of it will be lit up for the same four hours.

The Peoria Holiday Festival runs 5 to 9 p.m. in Downtown Peoria. Admission is free and all ages are welcome. It's the same night as December's 2nd Saturdays, which also run 5 to 9 p.m. downtown. In past years a holiday crowd downtown had a few places to go. This year it will walk past a restored 1906 schoolhouse, a new 6,600-square-foot smokehouse, a new event lawn at City Hall and a shipping-container courtyard. The city paid for all four.

What the City Owns on These Blocks

The thread through all of this is ownership. On April 2, 2024, the Peoria City Council voted unanimously to approve two restaurant, retail and event developments downtown. Both sit on land the city had acquired as part of its revitalization plan. Phoenix New Times reported that the city built both the smokehouse and the shipping container complex as part of a $15 million revitalization effort.

The table is in order of completion. The City Hall front yard came first, in March 2026. The barbecue house followed, opening on April 1, 2026, a year to the day after its groundbreaking. The remaining two projects are the ones tied to this December.

The Barbecue House Sets the Scale

Caldwell County BBQ is the first West Valley location for the smokehouse. It covers about 6,600 square feet between the Fire House Event Center and the former downtown hotel site. This is its first holiday season on Washington Street. For a festival crowd, it's the one new sit-down kitchen on the blocks that has already gone through a spring, a summer and a fall of service.

The City Hall front yard changed the open space around it. The $2.4 million project added a grassy oval and a berm designed to host community events, along with a new entryway with improved ADA access and parking. Grass that couldn't be used for programming was removed from other areas to cut water use. As a result, the lawn left downtown is lawn the city plans to fill with events, and December 12 is the first holiday festival since it was unveiled.

The Schoolhouse Opens Into the Festival

The city's August 17 update said construction at the old Central School was expected to wrap up in late October and that a grand opening was planned for December, during the Downtown Peoria Holiday Festival.

The building's history is also the history of Peoria. Residents formed the Peoria School District in 1889, and classes started in a brick building on Washington Street that had been the McLaughlin Brothers store. The two-room Central School, designed in the Mission Revival style, was finished in 1906. It is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Peoria Register of Historic Places.

The $3 million conversion began April 13, 2026. It turns the building into an arts and cultural center with exhibition space, classroom space, a reception and event room, public programming, restrooms, storage and offices. Over the summer the city held Community Conversations at Rio Vista Recreation Center, Copper Hills Church and the Mountain Vista Clubhouse. Each one asked residents what classes, performances, workshops and family activities should happen inside. If you went to one of those sessions, December is when the building you helped plan starts operating.

For someone who has driven past the construction fencing on Washington Street since April, the festival is also the first chance to see what $3 million does to a 120-year-old brick schoolhouse. Finished, the Schoolhouse gives the whole street a reference point.

Jefferson House Finishes the Block

The last piece sits on the northwest corner of 83rd Avenue and Jefferson Street. Jefferson House is a partnership between the owners of The Churchill in Phoenix and the owners of Driftwood Coffee, which is already downtown. City leaders broke ground with the team on September 18, 2025. Phoenix New Times reported that the design went from two stories to one along the way and that the project is expected to open late this year. Developer Kell Duncan told the paper:

"No more delays is what I'm hoping for."

According to the project's site, the courtyard seats more than 300 under a covered black-steel canopy with heaters, fans and misters. It also has three chef-run kitchens of 640 square feet each, six retail and eatery spaces from 160 to 440 square feet, a courtyard bar, a live music stage and a 16-foot splash pad. The heaters matter on a December evening in a courtyard with a canopy overhead.

New Times named the lineup:

• Stoop Kid, the Phoenix bagel and smashburger shop that opened in The Churchill in 2020. This will be its third location.
• Local Hive Pizza Co., a family-run mobile pizzeria with a wood-fired oven, known for finishing pies with hot honey.
• Hope's Frybread, a West Valley outpost of Hope Peshlakai's Mesa restaurant, serving sweet and savory stuffed frybread.
• Chewk's Cookies, from Uptown Phoenix, serving its cookies à la mode with soft-serve.
• JOOS, a juicery that started at Arrowhead Farmers Market, with cold-pressed juices, wellness shots and smoothies.
• Good Trouble, the courtyard bar, with 20 beers on tap and specialty cocktails.
• The Book Haul, Lovely Goods and Fade & Blade Studio, a bookshop for fantasy, romance and other fiction, a vintage and secondhand shop, and a barbershop and hair salon.

Once it opens, Jefferson House plans to keep hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday. Those are much later hours than the blocks around it keep. Updates on the opening come through @jeffersonhouseaz.

The project lists Driftwood Coffee, Caldwell County BBQ and the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts as its neighbors, with public lots and street parking around the block.

Building a December Around the Blocks

The holiday calendar downtown also runs past the festival night. Here is the order it falls in:

1. December 4 to 20: TheaterWorks stages A Christmas Carol at the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts. Pairing a show with dinner at Caldwell County BBQ before curtain makes for an evening that stays on two blocks. Show times and tickets are on the TheaterWorks site.
2. December 12, 5 to 9 p.m.: The Peoria Holiday Festival and 2nd Saturdays share the night. The city says the event map, vendor guide and performance schedule are still to come, so check the festival page before heading out.
3. During the festival: The city plans a grand opening at the Schoolhouse.

Driftwood Coffee is a useful first stop on any of these nights, and it's the business whose owners have the most invested in what this block becomes. If you're arriving for the festival, parking in the public lots around Jefferson Street and walking toward Washington Street takes you past each of the city's new projects in order.

According to Jefferson House, Downtown Peoria and Old Town Peoria are two names for the same historic district, platted in 1886. On December 12, the 1906 schoolhouse, the city-built smokehouse and the new event lawn will all be part of the festival in that district.

At Frank Realty Group, we spend a lot of time thinking about what a careful renovation does for an older building and for the street around it, and the Schoolhouse is a good example. If you own an older home near downtown Peoria and wonder what updates would add the most value before a sale, ask us for a Free Home Valuation & Renovation Plan. We'll walk through it with you.