Marley Park, Surprise, Arizona

Marley Park is a master-planned neighborhood in Surprise that DMB, its developer, says it created in partnership with the Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation and opened in 2005 (DMB Development).

DMB's own portfolio page gives two different sets of size figures for Marley Park, and both are live on the page today. Its At A Glance box lists 956 total acres, 1,500 planned residential units, 18 parks covering 72 acres and a 5,800 square foot Heritage Club (DMB Development). The narrative on the same page describes nearly 1,000 acres entitled for approximately 3,800 homes in Surprise, and more than 140 acres of parks and open space, including fifteen distinctive themed parks connected by an Arbor Walk, while another paragraph counts 18 uniquely themed parks. The page does not explain the gap, so these are the developer's figures as published, not city or county counts.

DMB describes the Heritage Club and Pool House in Marley Park as a private recreational facility for residents, with a recreational play pool, a fitness pool and a splash pad (DMB Development). Last verified: October 19, 2026, for this Marley Park guide, against the Surprise CFD page and its FY2026 budget resolution, the Maricopa County FY2026 levy table and Treasurer calendar, NCES and Census records, and DMB's own page.

The Marley Park Community Facilities District is a special purpose district and separate political subdivision that can levy taxes and issue bonds independently of the City of Surprise, with the Surprise City Council serving as its board (City of Surprise).

The City of Surprise says it has no liability for the district's debt, even though the district is reported as part of the city's primary government because its governing body is substantively the same as the council and city management runs its operations (City of Surprise, Marley Park CFD). Financing can take the form of general obligation, revenue or assessment bonds, or a maintenance and operation property tax. The city's page posts official statements for Marley Park bond sales in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2016, 2019 and 2022, with district agendas and minutes on the city agendas page and the Surprise City Clerk at 623.222.1200.

The same Marley Park page keeps a paper trail that runs back more than a decade: adopted budget resolutions for every fiscal year from 2016 through 2026, a May 6, 2014 tentative budget resolution and the FY2014 adopted budget, the district's formation documents, a 2017 specimen bond and Resolution MPCFD 2017-05 (City of Surprise, Marley Park CFD). Anyone comparing Marley Park tax rates across years can pull those resolutions directly rather than relying on summaries.

The district's FY2026 budget resolution records that the Mayor and Council of the City of Surprise formed the Marley Park CFD on February 12, 2004, by Resolution 04-51, and that a primary purpose was to finance public infrastructure for the development known as Marley Park through ad valorem taxes on property inside the district (Marley Park CFD, Resolution MPCFD2025-03). The board adopted that final budget on June 3, 2025, after a tentative budget on May 6, 2025, and the resolution is signed by Kevin D Sartor as chairman of the district board.

The Marley Park CFD secondary property tax rate is 2.7294 per $100 of assessed value for both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, according to Maricopa County and the district's own budget (Maricopa County, FY2026 adopted levies).

The two official records disagree slightly on the dollar levy for Marley Park. The county's adopted levy table for fiscal year 2026 (the 2025 tax levy) shows a levy of $2,063,877 on a net assessed value of $75,616,500, and $1,946,840 on $71,328,479 for fiscal 2025 (Maricopa County). The district's FY2026 budget forms show a secondary property tax levy of $2,067,700 for 2026 and $1,963,000 for 2025 (Marley Park CFD budget). Neither document explains the difference, so both Marley Park figures are reported here as published.

Most of the Marley Park CFD's spending is debt service: the FY2026 budget puts $2,116,700 in the bond debt service fund and $227,300 in parks and recreation, for a total of $2,344,000 against $2,271,900 budgeted the year before (Marley Park CFD budget). For payment timing, the Maricopa County Treasurer's calendar shows first-half 2026 taxes due October 1 and delinquent after 5 pm on November 2, 2026 (Maricopa County Treasurer).

Besides the CFD, Maricopa County's adopted levy table lists eight Marley Park street light improvement districts in its Surprise group of municipal districts, four listed under Marley Park names and four with an SU prefix (Maricopa County).

For fiscal 2026 the county lists Marley Park Phase 4 #140 SLID at $50,000, SU-Marley Park Ph 1 at $19,100, Marley Park Phase 3 SLID at $14,400, SU-Marley Park Ph 1, 5&6 at $12,500, SU-AZ Marley Park Ph 2 at $12,200, SU-Marley Pk Ph 1, 7&8 at $8,400, Marley Park P 12 at $5,600 and Marley Park Plaza 91 at $2,000 (Maricopa County levy table). Four of the Marley Park districts carry a rate of 1.0000 marked with an asterisk, and the county footnote for the Surprise group explains that assessments of these districts are charged in relation to benefits received, and the rate of $1 each is a mechanism to achieve this. The other four show a rate on net assessed value, such as 0.2176 for SU-AZ Marley Park Ph 2 on $5,607,793. The table does not say which parcels sit in which Marley Park district.

The Census tract containing Marley Park Elementary, a public school at 15042 W Sweetwater Ave, is Census Tract 610.37 in the Census Bureau's geocoder (Census Geocoder).

The tract is a Census statistical area and is not the Marley Park boundary; the figures below describe the tract containing the school, not the neighborhood. In ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates the tract counted 6,502 residents (margin of error 618), with a median age of 35.2, 28.2 percent under 18 and 10.6 percent aged 65 and over (Census Bureau, DP05, Census Tract 610.37). Surprise city as a whole had 154,948 residents, a median age of 41.4, 23.1 percent under 18 and 22.2 percent 65 and over in the same survey (Census Bureau, DP05, Surprise city).

Marley Park Elementary, a public PK-8 school at 15042 W Sweetwater Ave in Surprise, had 1,023 students in the federal Common Core of Data, phone (623) 523-8200 (NCES Common Core of Data).

NCES lists the Marley Park school in Maricopa County; its directory details are preliminary 2025-2026 data and its student count comes from official 2024-2025 data (NCES). DMB's page says Marley Park Elementary School and Legacy Traditional School sit at the heart of Marley Park, and describes Marley Park Plaza, the neighborhood shopping center at 15210 West Sweetwater Avenue, as home to a supermarket, personal services and dining (DMB Development). Those two lines are the developer's description; the school figures come from the federal record.

For a Marley Park buyer, the public records are the city's CFD page for the district's budgets and bond statements (City of Surprise), the county levy table for the CFD and street light lines, and the NCES listing for the school; the parks and amenities descriptions come from the developer. The Surprise communities hub lists this guide alongside the Sun City Grand guide.