Walk through Southlake Town Square this month and the storefront math looks uneven. Nike is gone from 181 Grand Avenue after four years. Francesca's is running liquidation sales. Eddie Bauer has shuttered. If you only counted exits, you'd assume the Square was losing its grip.
But look at who's replacing them, and the story flips. ON Running and Reformation aren't just opening stores here. They're opening their first stores in all of Tarrant County here, choosing Southlake over every other retail center between Fort Worth and the county line. That's not a shopping center backfilling vacancies. That's two national brands treating one property as the entry point to an entire county.
The Exits Are a National Story, Not a Local One
Start with what's actually leaving, because the reason matters as much as the departure.
Nike's closure at Southlake Town Square is part of a retail pullback playing out from coast to coast this summer, with the company closing or announcing closures in cities including Tampa, Kansas City, Atlanta, and Naperville, Illinois. This wasn't a Southlake problem. It was a corporate-level decision that happened to include a storefront on Grand Avenue.
Francesca's tells a similar story. The Houston-founded boutique chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and launched storewide liquidation sales at all of its locations, including the one at Town Square, as part of a wind-down covering 457 stores across 45 states. Francesca's had already survived one bankruptcy in 2020 before being acquired by TerraMar Capital and Tiger Group. This closure isn't a verdict on Southlake shoppers. It's a company that couldn't make the model work anywhere.
Eddie Bauer's exit fits the same pattern. Its departure reflects a broader shift in the brand's physical retail strategy, not a judgment on foot traffic at the Square specifically.
Here's the pattern worth sitting with: none of these three closures originated with a decision about Southlake. They originated in boardrooms responding to national retail pressure. If you're trying to read the health of Town Square from its vacancies alone, you're reading the wrong signal.
The Arrivals Are a Different Kind of Bet
Now flip to what's moving in, and the calculus changes completely.
ON Running is opening a 6,000-square-foot store at 415 Grand Avenue East, between Alo and Sunglass Hut, and it will be the brand's first location in Tarrant County. Reformation is taking a 2,007-square-foot space at 213 Grand Avenue near lululemon and YETI for its first Tarrant County retail location as well.
Read that detail again. Two brands didn't pick a Fort Worth power center or a Grapevine outlet mall for their county debut. They picked a four-block town square in Southlake. When a company decides where to plant its first flag in a market this size, that decision reflects real estimates about who shops there and what they're willing to spend, not just available square footage.
Rothy's has already made a similar bet and followed through. The sustainable footwear brand opened its storefront at 307 Grand Avenue East, near Vuori and across from Tecovas, filling a space just under 2,000 square feet. Ascension Coffee, a Dallas-born concept, is targeting a late-summer opening at 100 State Street, in the space that used to hold Corner Bakery.
None of these are speculative startups testing an unproven suburb. They're brands with existing footprints elsewhere in Texas choosing to expand into Tarrant County specifically through this address.
A Big Box Nobody Wanted to Bet On, Until Now
The Crate & Barrel opening deserves its own explanation, because the space has a history that makes the deal more interesting than a simple lease signing.
In 2020, Macy's chose Southlake Town Square as the launch site for Market by Macy's, a new concept for the department store chain. It didn't stick. The company announced in January 2025 that the location would close as part of a 66-store nationwide closure plan, and it shut down that March.
That left a nearly 19,000-square-foot hole at 321 State Street, next to Tyler's, sitting empty through most of 2025. Filling a box that size, in a spot where a national retailer had already tried and failed once, is a harder lease to sign than a small boutique storefront. Crate & Barrel opened its full-line store there on June 25, and the timing means the space sat vacant for a little over a year before a tenant with the scale to fill it stepped in. That's the kind of gap that tells you something about how selective the property has been about who gets that address next, rather than settling for whoever would take it fastest.
The Quiet Moves Say the Most
The smaller shuffles at Town Square are easy to miss, but they're the clearest evidence that this isn't a property in retreat.
L'Occitane en Provence is relocating from its longtime spot at 1428 Civic Place to a new storefront at 1251 Main Street, a move aimed at a more modern, spa-like setup. LOFT is returning to the Square after a previous run there, just in a different location this time. Mr. Winston's, a luxury grooming and barber lounge, has opened at 1251 E. Southlake Blvd, inside the Shops of Southlake.
A tenant leaving a market doesn't move to a nicer space three doors down. A tenant that's confident about its numbers does exactly that. The same logic applies to a brand choosing to come back after already testing the waters once. These aren't the moves of a struggling shopping center. They're the moves of a landlord actively repositioning proven performers while the bigger names make their entrance.
The Square Still Fills Up, No Matter Who's Behind the Glass
Retail turnover is only half of what keeps people walking through Town Square, and the calendar side of the property hasn't slowed down at all.
Oktoberfest Southlake returns October 16 through 18, 2026, marking its 25th year, with free admission and parking and live music across the weekend, including an AC/DC tribute act and a boyband tribute show anchoring the two nights. It joins a run of recurring events that already draw people downtown regardless of what's leasing space that quarter, including Art in the Square each spring, DiwaliFest each fall, the MasterWorks Concert series, and the city's Stars and Stripes fireworks celebration every July.
That calendar matters here because it explains why the storefront turnover hasn't cost the Square its pull. People aren't just showing up for whichever retailer currently occupies 181 Grand Avenue. They're showing up for the plaza itself, the recurring reasons to be there, and the assumption that whatever's new is worth a look on the way to the next event.
What This Actually Tells You
The headline version of this story is "stores closing, stores opening," and that version is true but empty. The version worth knowing if you live here is that the closures and the arrivals aren't playing the same game. Nike, Francesca's, and Eddie Bauer left because of decisions made far outside Tarrant County. ON Running and Reformation arrived because of a decision made specifically about Tarrant County, and they picked this address to make it. That's a different kind of vote than a chain simply filling a vacant unit, and it's the detail that gets lost when a shopping center update just reads like a list.
Next time you're parked near the fountain waiting for a table, it's worth noticing which kind of tenant you're standing in front of.
For more on what's changing across North DFW, including recent openings in Keller and the dual growth happening across Grapevine, the Verrett Team keeps a close eye on the communities we call home. Whenever a market update like this one leaves you curious about your own street, our neighborhood guides are a good place to keep browsing.
