Named one of "America's Top-Rated Smaller Cities", and one of the "Ten Most Playful Towns in America" for its superb cultural and outdoor recreation amenities, Oro Valley’s wonderful desert climate and quality of life attract winter residents from all over the US. Rapid growth has brought the population to close to 40,000, an increase of almost 30% since 2000, and the town is noted for the excellence of its schools, medical facilities, and golf courses.
Location
Oro Valley is situated 11 miles N of Tucson, Arizona in the western foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains at the base of Pusch Ridge. The Tortolita Mountains lie to the north of the town and the Tucson valley stretches to the south.
Geography/Terrain
At an elevation of 2,620 feet above sea level, Oro Valley is bisected by the Cañada del Oro riverbed in Arizona’s desert country. The river’s eastern banks rise dramatically to the Santa Catalina Mountains while to the East there is a gradual incline to a plateau and the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains further north.
Distance to 3 closest major cities
The city of Casas Adobes is six miles away, Tucson is 14 miles, and Phoenix is approximately 100 miles distant.
Jobs
Currently home to more than 10 high-tech firms, Oro Valley is emerging as a regional center for the biotech industry. Principal employers include Integrated BioMolecule Corporation; Ventana Medical Systems, whose international headquarters are located in the city’s high-tech Innovation Park; Northwest Medical Center-Oro Valley; Honeywell; and Sanofi-Aventis, the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical company. The resort industry is also a major employer. Household income in Oro Valley is nearly 50% higher than the U.S. median.
Housing
Owners occupy 84% of the housing units in Oro Valley, and most homes are relatively new. The town is a very desirable location for homebuyers, with many excellent homes currently available, including homes in the many superb retirement and golfing communities in the area. In recent years, houses in Oro Valley have shown the highest appreciation in the Tucson area.
Parks/Sports/Recreation/Golf
With several celebrated State and National Parks on its borders, the City of Oro Valley also boasts some excellent recreational areas within its boundaries. The oldest, James D. Kriegh Park has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, recreational fields, and racquetball courts, while the Cañada del Oro Riverfront Park features tennis and basketball courts, recreational fields, walking trails, and connections to equestrian trails along the Cañada del Oro river. In Cañada Hills, the West Lambert Lane Park is a nature park with a number of hiking trails.
The Coronado National Forest, in the Santa Catalina Mountains, forms the eastern boundary of Oro Valley. Catalina State Park is located within the National Forest and offers superb desert and canyon scenery and natural attractions, with miles of trails for horse and mountain bike riding or hiking and the ruins of a thousand year-old native American village. The park is particularly noted for its birdlife, and over 150 species can be seen by the sharp-eyed enthusiast.
A little further, North, near the town of Oracle, the 4000 acres of Oracle State Park contain a wonderful diversity oak grassland, woodland, and mesquite scrub habitats for desert plants and wildlife. The park has been developed as a wildlife refuge and environmental learning center, and offers educational programs devoted to deepening understanding of the ecology and natural values of the area, which has been home to indigenous people for many thousands of years. A seven-mile section of the Arizona Trail, which will eventually run from Mexico to Utah, passes through the park, and is open to the public for hiking, mountain biking, and horseback riding.
More than half of the 30 golf courses in metropolitan Tucson are located near Oro Valley, with seven located within the town’s borders. Ranging from the small Quail Crossing public course to spectacular country club canyon courses like Stone Canyon and The Gallery, they offer some of the finest golfing and the most glorious scenery in the world.
Special Attractions/Events
Rich in history, technology, and natural beauty, the Tucson area, including Oro Valley, offers an astonishing range of attractions and events for visitors and residents alike.
Just minutes from downtown Oro Valley, the fabulous Biosphere 2 is one of the technological and engineering marvels of the world. Built a decade ago at a cost of over $150 million, the 3.15 acres enclosed by this beautiful and revolutionary structure contain controlled environments including tropical savanna; a 40 foot ocean cliff overlooking a million-gallon tropical ocean; mangrove and tropical rainforest and thorn-scrub environments; and a coastal fog desert. Daily guided tours are available on a trail inside the structure, and there are self-guided tours and environmental education programs available on the outside.
For baseball fans, the Kino Sports Complex, home of Tucson Electric Park Stadium, is the perfect setting for their favorite game. With its intimate atmosphere, including family- style lawn seating, the park offers commanding views of the stunning Santa Catalina Mountains, and is a great place to enjoy the spring training sessions of 2001 World Champions, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox, or to take in a game featuring home team the Tucson Sidewinders, affiliates of the Diamondbacks.
With a colorful history extending back to 1925, the annual Tucson Rodeo Parade is the world's longest non-motorized rodeo parade. Also known as La Fiesta de los Vaqueros, the Parade keeps alive the Old West spirit in exciting and dramatic fashion with all manner of horses, buggies, cowboys and Indians, and great community fun. A fantastic rodeo is part of the Fiesta, and visitors love to see the Museum, which features over 150 horse-drawn buggies, coaches, and other artifacts from the days of the pioneers.
Interesting Facts/Historic Buildings and Places
Like most parts of Arizona, Oro Valley has a rich and well-preserved history. For several thousand years, the area was home to various groups of Native American peoples, including the Hohokam and the better-known Apache. Hohokam artifacts, some dating back almost 2000 years, continue to be unearthed in Honeybee Village, in the foothills of the Tortolita Mountains north of Oro Valley, offering evidence of continuous occupation by these prehistoric people for many centuries.
The Apache arrived in the area early in the 16th Century, only a few decades before the first Spanish Conquistadors, who soon established forts and imposed their rule on the region. A German immigrant farmer named George Putsch was the first “American” to settle in Oro Valley, establishing a cattle ranch there in 1874 and giving his name to Putsch Ridge, whose massive cliffs tower above the present-day city of Oro Valley.
The early European history of the area, including the development of ranching and the wars against the Apache has been fictionalized and captured for posterity in innumerable Western movies and TV shows at the famous Old Tucson Studios, just a short drive from Oro Valley. On this working film, set Western legends like John Wayne and Glen Ford, as well as modern stars like Leonardo DiCapprio have acted in some of the most memorable movies of our time. Visitors today can be part of this uniquely American history in studio tours and daily live entertainment that includes stunt shows, gunfights, and colorful saloon musicals.
- NUMBER1EXPERT™ 
