Walk the block of Grand Avenue East between Alo and Sunglass Hut on any weekday evening and you will pass a storefront with paper taped over the windows. That space belonged to Nike for four years, since the store opened in 2022. It closed abruptly this summer as part of a much larger pullback that has shuttered Nike locations from Tampa to San Jose. A few doors down, construction crews are finishing out a different empty box for a Swiss running brand most Southlake shoppers have only ever bought online.
That is the real story of Southlake Town Square in 2026. It is not simply growth. Storefronts that built their identity on being physical, walk-in, mall-native brands are the ones leaving. The brands moving in to replace them are almost all companies that spent their first decade selling exclusively through a website, and Southlake is where several of them are choosing to open their very first store in Tarrant County.
The Departures Nobody Announced With a Ribbon Cutting
Three closures this year tell a consistent story if you look at them together instead of one at a time.
Nike's exit ended a four-year run at 181 Grand Avenue. The company has closed or announced closures at stores nationally this summer, in cities including Louisville, Lexington, Kansas City, Atlanta, Alpharetta and Naperville, so this was never a Southlake-specific decision. It still matters locally because Nike was one of the Square's most recognizable athletic anchors, and its clearance presence at Grapevine Mills is the nearest remaining option for the brand.
Francesca's closed its Southlake boutique after the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and launched going-out-of-business sales at every location. Like Nike, this was a national wind-down, not a referendum on the Square. But Francesca's had been a mall-format boutique in the classic sense, the kind of small-footprint women's apparel shop that used to define suburban shopping centers.
Market by Macy's closed in 2025, ending a run that had started with some fanfare in 2020 when the department store chose Southlake Town Square to debut the concept nationally. That space at 321 State Street sat empty for over a year before its next tenant was announced.
Three different companies, three different reasons for leaving, one shared trait: all three were legacy retail formats that had built their businesses around physical stores first.
What Actually Filled the Gaps
Here is where the pattern flips. The space at 321 State Street that Macy's vacated is now occupied by Crate & Barrel, which opened its new full-line store there on June 25 in a space just under 19,000 square feet. Crate & Barrel is an established retailer, but its arrival is really a story about who bid on premium mall real estate this year, and Kite Realty Group's leasing team picked a home goods brand with deep e-commerce roots over another department-store-style tenant.
The smaller storefronts tell the sharper version of the same story.
| Brand | Status | Location | What makes it notable |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rothy's | Open | 307 Grand Ave E | Sustainable, machine-washable footwear brand built almost entirely online |
| Crate & Barrel | Open since June 25 | 321 State St, former Market by Macy's space | Nearly 19,000 square feet |
| Ascension Coffee | Targeting late summer or early fall 2026 | 100 State St, former Corner Bakery space | Second Tarrant County location for the Dallas-based chain, named 2026 Coffee Shop of the Year at the CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards |
| ON Running | Targeting second half of 2026 | 415 Grand Ave E, between Alo and Sunglass Hut | First Tarrant County storefront for the brand |
| Reformation | Targeting fall 2026 | 213 Grand Ave E, near lululemon and YETI | First Tarrant County boutique for the brand |
Notice how many of those say "first Tarrant County location." Rothy's, ON Running and Reformation all built national followings by selling directly to customers online for years before opening physical stores anywhere. Southlake Town Square is the location each of them picked when they decided Tarrant County was ready for a storefront. That is not an accident of timing. It reflects a leasing strategy Kite Realty has pursued for a while now, going back to bringing in performance apparel brand Vuori and skincare concept Skin Laundry in 2023, both companies that had built strong online sales before testing a physical footprint here.
Jason Kasal, vice president and senior leasing director at Kite Realty Group, put it simply when announcing this year's additions:
"Southlake Town Square continues to attract best-in-class brands that align with the lifestyle of our community."
What that means in practice is that the Square has become a kind of proving ground. A brand that has already validated demand through online sales gets to test whether that demand holds up in person, in an affluent suburb where shoppers already know the name from their phones.
The Storefronts That Just Moved, Not Closed
Not every change at the Square is a departure or a debut. Some longtime tenants are simply repositioning.
L'Occitane en Provence is relocating within the Square, moving from its longtime spot at 1428 Civic Place to a new storefront at 1251 Main Street. The move is expected to bring a more modern, spa-like feel to the French skincare and fragrance retailer's space, though the products on the shelf will not change.
LOFT is also back at Town Square, in a different location than its previous run there. For shoppers who remember the earlier LOFT storefront, the return will likely feel less like discovering a new store and more like running into an old friend who moved to a different street.
These moves matter less for what they signal about retail strategy and more for the practical reality of shopping the Square this fall. If you are looking for a store you remember from a year or two ago, check the current address before you go. The building might still be standing right where you left it, just occupied by someone else, or the tenant you're looking for might be one block over.
What This Actually Changes About a Walk Through the Square
None of this changes the basic character of Southlake Town Square, which still functions as the town's 130-acre open-air hub for shopping, dining and the kind of evening walk that ends with ice cream at Rustin Park. What has changed is the mix of names on the storefronts, and that mix now leans more heavily toward brands whose customers already knew them before they had a physical address in Tarrant County.
Practically, that means a few things for a typical trip to the Square this fall. If Nike was your go-to for running shoes, the wait for a comparable option ends when ON Running opens its first Tarrant County store between Alo and Sunglass Hut later this year. If you used to grab coffee and a pastry at Corner Bakery, that same building at 100 State Street is being reworked into Ascension Coffee's second Tarrant County location, with a full espresso bar and rotating single-origin coffees expected once construction wraps. If you have been meaning to check out Reformation without driving into Dallas, its first Tarrant County boutique near lululemon and YETI is worth watching for a fall opening date.
The Square has always reinvented its tenant roster. What is different this time is which kind of brand keeps winning the space: not the ones that grew up as mall stores, but the ones that spent years building an audience online first and picked Southlake as the place to finally meet that audience in person.
Southlake has a habit of getting the debut before the rest of the county does. Whether that is coffee, running shoes or a boutique brand you have only ever bought through your phone, it is worth a walk down Grand Avenue this fall just to see who moved in next door.
If you are watching how a neighborhood evolves and wondering what that means for your own address in Southlake, that is exactly the kind of local read The Pistana Group builds its work around. Reach out anytime you want a conversation grounded in what is actually happening on the ground here, not just what the listing photos show.
