Tenants at the Shops at Willow Bend were formally notified that it’s time to pack it up, as the Dallas Stars are on their way.
The keys are due to the management office by Aug. 31, according to the Dallas Business Journal, who cited a letter from Centennial Real Estate vice president of property management Tory Glossip to all affected tenants.
Centennial and Cawley Partners are preparing to raze most of the mall to build a new mixed-use development, anchored by a new arena and sports entertainment district for the National Hockey League franchise the Dallas Stars.
Initial plans for the arena site pegged the cost at $3 billion, and the city of Plano agreed to key tax abatements and $700 million in funding for the arena to lure the Stars away from Dallas. Traffic studies on the surrounding area are expected to commence soon as well.
Up next are key voter referendums on venue-related taxes this fall. If everything gets approved as planned, including a 5 percent car rental tax and a 2 percent hotel occupancy tax, the infrastructure work for the development could begin in 2027. That would put the arena on pace to be completed by 2031 to coincide with the Stars’ expiring American Airlines Center lease.
Under the current agreement, the Stars would keep all arena revenue, even though the city would technically own the arena and the land.
Over the past few months, Downtown Dallas’s loss has been Plano’s gain. The downtown area of Dallas lost the Stars, the Mavericks and its anchor Neiman Marcus store in its shopping district just days in between each other. Plano, on the other hand, has been thriving: the new Stars arena looks set to go through, AT&T is building out a 53-acre campus in city limits and Samsung is relocating its North American headquarters to the city from New Jersey.
— Hunter Cooke
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