North Texas shopaholics will have another legacy retail institution to mourn before too long as the Dillard’s at The Shops at Willow Bend in Plano lives out its final days this month, marking one of the mall’s last chapters ahead of its inevitable redevelopment.
The Shops at Willow Bend has been around for 25 years. Opened in 2001 by developer Taubman Centers, the roughly 1.4 million-square-foot enclosed mall was designed to attract affluent shoppers with luxury anchors, national brands, and dining options at the northwest corner of the Dallas North Tollway and West Park Boulevard.
Unfortunately for the mall (and plenty others just like it), the back-to-back blows of expanded e-commerce and a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic put a serious dent in foot traffic. There was also new competition in the form of outdoor mixed-use districts like the Shops at Legacy North and Legacy West.
Even from its early days, though, the development faced stiff competition from Stonebriar Centre in Frisco several minutes north and the Galleria Mall in North Dallas several minutes south. One social media user claims The Shops at Willow Bend has been “slowly dying from the moment it opened in 2001.”
The property changed hands a number of times before ending up in the possession of the current owner, Centennial Real Estate…