Peoria, Arizona Peoria is located to the northwest of downtown Phoenix and is the fourth largest city in the state in square miles. The current population is approximately 45,000 and growing. Money magazine listed Peoria in the “top 100 Places to Live”. Although Peoria is primarily a bed room community for Phoenix it does offer some distinct cultural, educational and recreation facilities that give it, its own identity. The Challenger Space Center of Arizona offers an exciting space based learning environment where school children, families, senior citizens, corporate teams and others can fly simulated space flight missions. You can simulate flight crew, mission controllers or scientists. In 2007 Peoria completed the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts, a 20,000 square foot facility. For outdoor recreation Peoria has Lake Pleasant Recreation area just to the north of the city, In fact Peoria annexed most of the land just outside the state run recreation area for future growth. Lake  Pleasant is the second largest lake within Arizona, it has two marinas, a 10 vehicle boat ramp plus another 4 vehicle ramp up the lake. Because of its size the lake is great for all water sports including: sailing, power boats, wave runners or just fishing. It also offers several campgrounds, picnic areas, a restaurant, hiking trails etc. Peoria has the Peoria Sports complex which is the spring training home of the San Diego Padres & Seattle Mariners baseball teams. When not in use for spring training the complex is used for various trade shows and concerts. To the southwest of Peoria is Luke Air Force Base one of the largest Air Force training bases in the country. Luke Air Force Base is instrumental in training our forces prior to both the gulf wars and the war in Afghanistan. Although Luke is close to the city the flight paths tend to go to the west of Peoria and even though you may still hear the jets it is still a comfort in these times of terrorist attacks to know they are on the job. Click Here to view homes for sale in Peoria. |