Welcome to Avondale: where three rivers meet and Coldwater became a city

Avondale turns 80 this year. The city was incorporated on December 16, 1946, and it has spent 2026 looking back at where it started while it keeps adding neighborhoods, parks and places to eat. Whether you unpacked your boxes last month or have lived here for decades and want to see the place fresh, here is how the city fits together.

Where the rivers meet

Avondale sits in the southwest Valley, at the spot where three rivers come together. The Salt, the Gila and the Agua Fria join at Tres Rios, Spanish for "three rivers," and the riparian habitat there draws bird watchers and hikers. The Agua Fria also gave the first settlement its name: when Billy Moore settled beside it in 1880, he called the place Coldwater, after the river and a nearby spring. The name Avondale came later, from the ranch where the post office moved.

Look south and the Estrella Mountains fill the horizon. Mountain View Park, the city's first park, was named for that view, and it was renovated in 2024. Monument Hill and the Base and Meridian Wildlife Area round out the desert landscape that locals point to when friends visit.

How the city is laid out

Avondale is easiest to understand as a handful of districts strung along its main roads.

• Old Town runs along Western Avenue between Central Avenue and Dysart Road. It is the historic core, with family businesses, murals and the Sam Garcia Western Avenue Library. Atomic Dog Pet Grooming sits on Western Avenue too, a handy stop for newcomers with a dog or cat who needs a bath and a trim.
• The BLVD lies just south of Interstate 10 at Avondale Boulevard, the city's main entrance and the road to Phoenix Raceway. It is a walkable district of apartments, hotels and restaurants around a lake with a splash pad. New Penny Cafe, a locally owned spot for breakfast, brunch, lunch and coffee, is a regular morning meeting place there.
• McDowell Road is the city's health corridor. The West Valley Health Quarter stretches from 99th Avenue to Dysart Road and is anchored by two hospitals, and the 60-acre Friendship Park sits just north of the freeway.
• The Civic Center campus brings City Hall, the Civic Center Library, the Avondale Aquatic Center and an outdoor amphitheater together in one place.
• North Avondale, along Dysart Road, Indian School Road and Rancho Santa Fe Boulevard, is home to Estrella Mountain Community College and the Crystal Gardens wetland trails, 8.75 miles of paths around 14 lakes. Modern Grind Coffee, a community-minded coffee shop on Rancho Santa Fe Boulevard that Avondale residents have voted their People's Choice more than once, is a good place to meet the neighbors.
• South Avondale, along Lower Buckeye Road and beyond, is home to the Cashion neighborhoods, Festival Fields Park and newer communities such as Alamar, Three Rivers Ranch, Entrada and Verde Trails.

Getting around is mostly by car, but not only. Valley Metro buses run along Van Buren Street, McDowell Road and Indian School Road, and an express route leaves from the Avondale Transit Center at The BLVD. WeRIDE, the on-demand shared ride service Avondale started with Goodyear in November 2022, passed half a million trips this year and is booked through an app. For walking and biking, the paved Van Buren path runs 1.75 miles between 113th and 127th avenues, and the Agua Fria path follows the river levee.

A year that follows the sun

Life here keeps time with the heat. Monsoon season runs from mid-June through the end of September and can bring sudden storms, dust and street flooding, so it is worth signing up for Avondale ALERT, the city's emergency notices. From May through September the Avondale Resource Center on East Riley Drive doubles as a cooling site, and both libraries serve as hydration stations.

When the weather turns, the calendar fills. Billy Moore Days, a heritage celebration held since 1954, brings a carnival to Festival Fields Park and a parade through Old Town each October. WinterFest lights the Civic Center in early December (this year on December 5), and the Avondazzle light show plays there nightly through New Year's Day. The Tres Rios Nature Festival returns to the wetlands on February 27, 2027.

Places that make Avondale itself

Phoenix Raceway hosts two NASCAR race weekends a year, and the city's Fourth of July fireworks go up over the track. Old Town is getting a new plaza at Western Avenue and Dysart Road, now under construction, with public art, history panels and a time capsule meant to be opened at the city's 100th birthday in 2046. And this fall the Goodyear Farms Historic Cemetery, resting place of the farmworkers who planted the area's cotton fields, joined Monument Hill on the National Register of Historic Places.

Your first errands

City services start at the Civic Center. The AviWise app takes service requests, and the My Avondale Services map shows your trash and recycling days and your homeowners association details by address. The library has two branches, the Civic Center Library, home to the new Civic Center Art Gallery, and the Sam Garcia Western Avenue Library in Old Town. Its Rec and Read program, which brings storytimes and free books to city parks, won a statewide innovation award from the Arizona Library Association in October.

For news, the city publishes RAVE Review, its community guide to activities and events, three times a year. The West Valley View, a weekly paper, covers the wider southwest Valley and puts out a newcomers' guide.

Start with a cool-morning walk down Western Avenue, and you will see the town Coldwater became.