The Grand at Papago Park Center, the last parcel awaiting development in one of Arizona's largest business parks, was unveiled this week at an opening celebration hosted by Salt River Project.

The total project site — 58 acres of urban mixed-use property — will add 8,000 employees and residents to the existing base of more than 10,000 people working or living at Papago Park near the center of the Tempe-Phoenix area.

Once complete, the Grand will offer more than 3.2 million square feet of commercial development, including office space, two hotels, 550 apartments and retail and restaurant space. The project could take 20 years to complete.

The Grand is named after the Grand Canal, a waterway developed in the 1870s to bring water from the Salt and Verde rivers to the Salt River Valley area. It is the oldest remaining pioneer canal on the north side of the Salt River.

Mitch Rosen, development manager of Papago Park Center Inc., said the Grand Canal has been redirected and turned into a focal point for the project, which will include a simulated water release as a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt Dam and the dam’s place in Arizona history.

“The Grand Canal and Roosevelt Dam were vitally important to the initial growth of the Salt River Valley, just as they are to the sustainability today of our more than 4 million residents,” Rosen said. “Without a reliable water supply that came from investments made more than a century ago, Phoenix would not have the kind of economic development that we enjoy today.”