Eddie Bauer opened its doors in Southlake Town Square back in 1999, the same year the development itself opened. This spring, after its parent company filed for Chapter 11, the store ran a liquidation sale at 40 to 60 percent off before closing for good. That is not a small detail for a shopping center that markets itself on continuity and curated brands. It is one of the last original tenants gone.
What replaced the empty storefronts tells a more interesting story than the closure does. Two national brands chose Southlake Town Square as the very first store they have ever opened in Tarrant County, skipping Fort Worth entirely. A third brand took the opposite route, testing Fort Worth first and only now bringing a second Tarrant County location to Southlake. If you live here and walk Town Square on a Saturday, the mix of what left and what arrived says something about how national retailers are ranking this specific address against the rest of the county.
The Original Tenant That Didn't Make The Anniversary
Eddie Bauer's exit was not a Southlake problem. Catalyst Brands, the company that also owns Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand and Nautica, filed for Chapter 11 and began liquidating stores nationwide, Community Impact reported. Southlake's location was one of 175 stores caught in that wind-down after 49 others had already shut. The Town Square store had been part of the property since 1999, which means its closing marks the end of one of the last remaining links to opening day.
A second longtime name also left this year, though for a different reason. Peloton has been shrinking its larger-format retail footprint across the country, and its Town Square space at 213 Grand Avenue East went dark as part of that broader pullback rather than anything specific to Southlake's foot traffic.
Both closures cleared storefronts in a shopping center that turned right around and filled them with brands that had never had a Tarrant County address at all.
Two Brands Skipped Fort Worth
ON Running, the Swiss performance footwear brand known for its CloudTec cushioning, is opening its first Tarrant County store at 415 Grand Avenue East, wedged between Alo and Sunglass Hut, according to Fort Worth Business Press. Reformation, the Los Angeles fashion label with a following that includes Taylor Swift and Kaia Gerber, is taking over that vacated Peloton space at 213 Grand Avenue, near lululemon and YETI, for its own first Tarrant County boutique.
Ascension Coffee took a slower path to the same zip code. The Dallas-based chain, fresh off winning Coffee Shop of the Year at the 2026 CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards, already opened a location in Fort Worth's West Bend back in 2020. Southlake is only its second Tarrant County cafe, arriving this August at 100 State Street in the space Corner Bakery used to occupy.
That gap matters. Two apparel and footwear brands treated Southlake as the entry point into the entire county. A coffee brand used Fort Worth as its proving ground first and Southlake as its second bet. Whether that pattern holds for the next round of tenants is worth watching, but for this specific wave of openings, Southlake beat Fort Worth to two firsts.
| Brand | Tarrant County status | Square footage | Address |
|---|---|---|---|
| ON Running | First location in county | 6,000 sq ft | 415 Grand Avenue East, between Alo and Sunglass Hut |
| Reformation | First retail location in county | 2,007 sq ft | 213 Grand Avenue, near lululemon and YETI |
| Ascension Coffee | Second location in county | 4,223 sq ft | 100 State Street, former Corner Bakery space |
| Crate & Barrel | Returning brand, new format | 18,945 sq ft | 321 State Street, adjacent to Tyler's |
The Math Behind The 30,000 Square Feet
Southlake Town Square added more than 30,000 square feet of new retail space through this round of tenant changes. Add up the four confirmed additions and the total lands close to 31,175 square feet. Crate & Barrel alone accounts for roughly 60 percent of that number.
That split tells you where the real estate decision was made and where the brand decision was made. Crate & Barrel's 18,945-square-foot flagship is the physical anchor of the year, a full-line home store returning to a center it left in 2011 when its original, smaller storefront in the space now occupied by Tyler's proved too tight for the brand's current format. But the smaller footprints, ON Running's 6,000 square feet and Reformation's 2,007, are where the more telling decision got made. Those two companies had every Tarrant County suburb to choose from and picked Southlake first.
"Southlake Town Square continues to attract best-in-class brands that align with the lifestyle of our community," said Jason Kasal, vice president and senior leasing director at Kite Realty Group, which owns and operates the center.
What You Can Already Walk Into
Some of this is no longer future tense. Crate & Barrel opened June 25, 2026, according to Community Impact, which puts it a little over six weeks old as of this writing. The renovation reportedly cost around $3 million, and the new store is a full-line format, the same reasoning company officials gave in 2011 when they closed the smaller original location to focus on larger stores, a detail Southlake Style covered when the return was first announced.
Rothy's, the machine-washable footwear brand, is already open at 307 Grand Avenue East near Vuori and across from Tecovas. A few blocks outside Town Square proper, at the separate Shops of Southlake development on East Southlake Boulevard, Mr. Winston's luxury grooming lounge has also opened its doors, a detail worth noting only because it is easy to conflate the two shopping centers if you are reading headlines quickly.
ON Running is expected sometime in the second half of 2026. Reformation is targeting a late 2026 debut. Ascension Coffee's opening window is this month, which means the espresso bar at 100 State Street could be pulling shots by the time you read this.
What This Turnover Actually Means If You Live Here
None of this is decline dressed up as news. A shopping center losing a bankrupt outdoor brand and a shrinking fitness retailer while gaining a returning home-goods anchor and two brands' first county address is a center that is getting more selective, not less relevant. The closures were forced by decisions made at corporate headquarters in other cities. The openings were choices made by brands with plenty of other suburbs to pick from.
For anyone who already treats Town Square as an extension of their living room, the practical upshot is straightforward. The Corner Bakery you used to grab breakfast at is becoming a coffee bar with a chef-driven menu. The Peloton showroom is becoming a fashion boutique. And the home-goods anchor that left in 2011 is back in a full-line format, less than two months into its second run. Southlake didn't have to fight to keep any of these brands interested. It had to decide which version of itself to keep building toward, and the tenant list answers that question better than any press release does.
If you're thinking about what a neighborhood like this signals for the long term, whether that's for your own move or someone you know weighing North Texas suburbs against each other, Move 2 DFW tracks these shifts because they show up in resale value and buyer demand long before they show up in a listing description. Book a consultation with Linn Contreras to talk through what a changing retail corridor like Southlake Town Square actually means for property values in the surrounding neighborhoods.
