Update:
Timeline updated to reflect new information about The Shops at Willow Bend.
A timeline for The Shops at Willow Bend
The Plano mall, which as of last year has local owners, has started submitting plans to the city.
Over the years, Plano’s Shops at Willow Bend has struggled to find its place. Two prior owners made major investments to try to turn the property around.
Mall developer Taubman Centers opened Willow Bend in 2001 with 75% of its space leased and it never was able to gain the shoppers and tenants it needed to be a vibrant mall. Starwood Retail couldn’t refinance its loan and had to turn the mall over to its lenders in 2020. The sale of the mall to local owners closed in May 2022. Here’s a look at how it got here:
2001: Michigan-based Taubman Centers spends $200 million to build The Shops at Willow Bend in Plano at West Park Boulevard and the Dallas North Tollway. It was one of the last enclosed malls to be built in the U.S. and the last one in Texas. The mall was anchored by Dillard’s, Foley’s (later renamed Macy’s), Lord & Taylor and Neiman Marcus. It was the identical lineup of the anchors in Prestonwood Town Center, which closed in North Dallas that same year.
2003: Several retailers close and file lawsuits over a lack of customer traffic. A Dallas restaurant, The Mercury, closed. Lord & Taylor leaves as the retailer pulls out of Texas and other states. Saks Fifth Avenue delays its opening at the mall.
2004: Saks Fifth Avenue opens a 120,000-square-foot store.
2008: A FlowRider wave machine for customers to test surfing is added as part of a new 11,500-square-foot Adrenalina store. It closed a couple years later, leaving a large space empty next to a sparse food court.
2010: Saks closes several U.S. stores, including the one at Willow Bend.
2011: Crate & Barrel moves into Willow Bend, and Restoration Hardware commits to the mall as it takes on a strategy to be a furniture destination. It also adds Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams and Z Gallerie.
2014: Taubman sells Willow Bend and six other U.S. malls for $1.4 billion to Chicago-based Starwood Capital Group.
2016: The Saks Fifth Avenue store is torn down to make way for a $125 million redevelopment of the Shops at Willow Bend that includes an outdoor restaurant area.
2018: The Crayola Experience opens and Plano Children’s Theatre moves into the mall. The 60,000-square-foot outdoor addition opens with space for eight restaurants. Four spaces remained empty.
2019: Equinox fitness club opens. A Cinépolis movie theater and a 200,000-square-foot office building were delayed. The mall’s Apple store, the first one in Texas, moved to Galleria Dallas.
2020: Starwood is delinquent on its loan backed by the mall. Construction on the movie theater stops. Lenders take over the mall.
2021: Syracuse, N.Y.-based real estate firm Spinoso Real Estate Group starts operating the mall and tries to bring in new retailers. Traffic continued to decline even as other regional mall traffic was recovering in the second year of the pandemic.
2022: The mall is sold to a group led by Centennial, a Dallas-based real estate company with investors Dallas-based Cawley Partners and New York-based Waterfall Asset Management.
2023: Initial redevelopment plans for the 107-acre mall site are filed in April with the city of Plano. Included are an 18-story hotel, a seven-story office building and three five-story buildings with a total of 960 apartments.
SOURCE: Dallas Morning News research
Twitter: @MariaHalkias
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