Galleria Dallas is getting a big new tenant — one that’s perhaps better known for its role in the entertainment scene than the retail scene.
Netflix has chosen the North Dallas mall to house one of the company’s first Netflix House locations. The “experiential entertainment venue,” per a news release, will offer immersive experiences based on iconic Netflix titles, such as themed dining and live entertainment including food, beverages and merchandise.
“Imagine waltzing with your partner to an orchestral cover of a Taylor Swift song on a replica of the set of Bridgerton and then walking around the corner to compete in the glass bridge challenge from Squid Game,” reads a post on the company’s blog.
The 107,436-square-foot Galleria edition will be among the first Netflix Houses in the country, with another location planned in King of Prussia, Pa. Both locations are slated to open in 2025.
“Netflix selected the locations because they are part of two of the most popular shopping centers in America, boasting hundreds of retailers, high foot traffic, and proximity to major cities,” the post reads.
The company has been tight-lipped about the upcoming venue, said Terry Montesi, who is the CEO of Trademark Property Co., which has managed Galleria Dallas since 2018.
“In some ways, there is some trust happening because honestly, we can’t visit one,” Montesi said. He said that from his understanding, there won’t be too many Netflix House locations opening across the country within the next few years. Netflix will evaluate the performance of its first two locations to determine the possibility of new locations, a Netflix spokesperson wrote in an email to The Dallas Morning News.
At the Galleria, Netflix House will add another element to experience-based offerings. The mall had five to six other offers for experiential concepts, Montesi said, but the Netflix House is “head and shoulders above all the others.”
“There’s no question that post-Covid, people really focus on experiences,” he said. “You read about millennials and Gen Z and how much they spend on experiences rather than clothing or whatever — so the experience economy, I think, is here to stay.”
Malls have gone heavy into experiential offerings as online shopping has cut into the competition for traditional apparel sales. In North Texas, the Shops at Willow Bend has the Crayola Experience. Grapevine Mills has the Legoland Discovery Center, Sea Life Aquarium and the Peppa Pig World of Play to appeal to families, and experiential art venue Meow Wolf for a broader audience.
The trend isn’t new — Galleria Dallas has had an ice rink since 1982 — but it has accelerated as department stores such as Belk, Macy’s and JCPenney have closed locations and vacated anchor spaces.
While Galleria Dallas has food and beverage options, Netflix House will add something “completely different” to the Galleria, he added, and take the mall to a “whole other level.”
“We’re not tiptoeing in it, we’re diving — we’re diving into it in a big way,” Montesi said.
Netflix’s latest annual report states that Netflix is “expanding our offering of consumer products and live experiences.” The company has dabbled with pop-ups in the past, though the Netflix House concept, which was first reported on last year, will be a more permanent commitment to live experience and entertainment. Netflix House will also help the company in regard to its marketing, which has been critiqued as being “inadequate” in the past.
The company has in recent years cracked down on password sharing and added a low-cost subscription option with advertising, which boosted Netflix’s previously lackluster performance, though investors were caught off-guard by the company’s decision in April to stop reporting subscriber numbers beginning next year. Streaming platforms like Netflix, Max and Disney+ have in the past competed with one another for subscribers.
Still, the brand is “powerful,” Montesi said.
“I mean, Netflix is like [what] Kleenex has become for tissue, Netflix is for streaming, content providers,” he said. “So we’re really excited to be associated with that brand.”
Locally, the Galleria has seen a “gradual renovation” over the past few years, Montesi noted. In an email, Montesi wrote that the mall has seen six million visits over the last 12 months and sales have increased 59% since April 2021.
Within the past year alone, the mall debuted a new entrance with street vendors and patio seating, saw the opening of the first H&M Home in the Southwest and had Louis Vuitton double the size of its onsite location, among other upgrades.
City of Dallas Council Member Jaynie Schultz said that Netflix House will also fit into the city’s vision for the Dallas International District, which she has been a proponent of, as a regional economic hub. The district is a 450-acre area anchored by the mall in the Valley View-Galleria vicinity designated for redevelopment, according to the City of Dallas Economic Development site.
“And because the Galleria has already done such a great job in branding themselves internationally, it’s going to attract the wide variety of residents that we have from all over the world in this area,” Schultz said.
Schultz was not part of the discussions between Netflix and the Galleria, she said, but has discussed the International District concept with “both of those sets of folks.” There were no economic development incentives involved in the deal, she added.
Netflix House will occupy the first and second floors of the Galleria’s former Belk department store, which left the mall in 2020.
Correction 6/19/2024: Councilwoman Jaynie Schultz’s last name is spelled “Schultz”. An earlier version of this story misspelled Schultz’s last name as “Shultz” twice after first reference.
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