Galleria Dallas snags Uniqlo, Texas tenants compete for retail space

Japanese fashion giant Uniqlo’s highly anticipated debut in North Texas will include a store at Galleria Dallas. 

Spanning two floors and approximately 20,000 square feet, the fast-fashion retailer will open its Dallas store in October, the Dallas Business Journal reported 

Uniqlo’s arrival aligns with the Galleria’s broader strategy to enhance its retail offerings in a market where tenants face a lot of competition for premium spaces. The store will be positioned near fellow international fashion retailer Mango, which opened last fall.

Uniqlo’s Dallas location is part of a broader Texas expansion, which includes five stores across the state. Besides the Galleria, Uniqlo will open locations at The Parks Mall in Arlington, Stonebriar Centre in Frisco, and two stores in the Houston area. The retailer aims to have 200 stores across North America by 2027. 

The mall, which opened in 1982, was previously owned by UBS Realty Investors until a unit of Metropolitan Life purchased the 1.9-million-square-foot property in 2022. 

The mall’s management, Trademark Property, has been upgrading its offerings and appearance, attracting tenants like The Royal Standard and Lindsay Nicholas New York, as well as expanding existing stores like Lululemon. 

Its biggest lease this year was Netflix’s experimental concept Netflix House, which will span 110,000 square feet at the former Marshall Fields department store. It will offer themed dining, games and retail when it opens in the fall of next year.

Other markets have struggled to rebound since the pandemic placed reliance on e-retailing. For example, another MetLife building, on Chicago’s famed Magnificent Mile, recently lost Sephora as a tenant.

But Texas retail is next-level because of the enormous growth in population and jobs.

Dallas-Fort Worth has maintained a record-high 95.2 percent occupancy rate, according to Weitzman. The region never had occupancy higher than 89 percent throughout the 1990s, when there was less space to fill. 

About 1.9 million square feet of retail is expected to be under construction by the end of this year, according to Weitzman. Most of that is focused on large anchor stores “with a miniscule amount of peripheral shop space,” Weitzman analysts wrote. “Expanding concepts find themselves competing for the best-located spaces.

— Andrew Terrell

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