For a decade, the strip between the Dallas North Tollway and Preston Road along LBJ has been described, generously, as potential. A Preston Hollow paper once called it "a collection of unrealized dreams and partially finished projects", which is the kind of sentence a neighborhood does not want written about it twice. 2026 is the year that description stops being accurate. Not because the corner has been transformed, but because three separate things are happening at once, and if you live here you can see them from your car.
The thesis is small and specific: the LBJ-Tollway-Preston triangle is finally moving, and the interesting stops are no longer the ones the guidebooks list.
The Corner That Finally Started Moving
Anthem Development broke ground last November on the mixed-use Premier at Dallas Midtown project on the site of the former Valley View Center mall, a six-story project that will include 296 luxury multifamily units and 13.5K SF of ground-floor retail at the corner of Dilbeck Lane and Preston Road. Vertical construction was scheduled to begin early this year, with a roughly two-year build and the Premier slated to open in 2027.
That is the first physical piece of what the city has been calling, since 2013, the Dallas International District. The full ambition is larger than the Premier suggests. Dallas Midtown is part of the city's 450-acre International District, located north of Interstate 635 and east of the Dallas North Tollway, planned to include international chambers of commerce, a business center and a STEAM Academy from Dallas Independent School District. A 20-acre central park is planned at the heart of it, and Dallas voters approved a bond proposition in 2024 that will put $20M toward the district.
Whether all of that materializes is a fair question. What matters for a Far North Dallas resident right now is smaller and more concrete: after years of watching the Valley View lot sit empty, there is finally a crane on it, and the address is Dilbeck and Preston. If you take Preston Road home from work, you will drive past it.
Galleria Dallas, Mid-Reinvention
Across the tollway, the Galleria is in the middle of its most active retail turnover in years. Trademark Property Company, which manages the property, announced eight new retailers this spring alongside a broader refresh. Galleria Dallas is a 1.4 million-square-foot icon that has held a prominent position in Dallas' retail landscape for more than 40 years, and Trademark announced eight new retailers, several store relocations, and renovations across the property.
The context for those additions is a real subtraction. In March 2026, Nordstrom announced it would fully close its anchor store on May 16th, leaving Macy's as the property's sole remaining full-line department store. The interesting move Trademark made is not replacing Nordstrom with another department store. It is replacing the idea of a department store altogether.
Here is what is filling the space, both literal and figurative:
- Netflix House. Opened on December 11, 2025, an experiential retail location run by the streaming company, in the bottom two floors of the former Belk anchor store. Only the second in the country.
- Le Petit Chef. A projection-mapped dinner theater concept now open on Level 2 of The Westin Galleria Dallas. Guests dine under 3D projection mapping that blends art, flavor, and a touch of Lone Star charm.
- Alo. Premium activewear and athleisure for women and men, now open, next to Sephora on Level 1.
- Aritzia. Women's clothing ranging from evening dresses to activewear, opening this fall.
- Patissery. Authentic French baking using traditional techniques, expected to open its first retail location at Galleria Dallas this spring.
- Watson, Helzberg 1915, Urban Planet by Charlotte Russe, Kids Foot Locker, Rolife. All new, all opened or opening this year.
The Ice Rink Level is getting its own overhaul. The next chapter focuses on the Ice Rink Level beneath Level One, with new party rooms already open opposite the skating center, and the area around the rink set to receive new flooring, lighting, and seating in coming months; the rink's teal-colored glass enclosure will be replaced and given an off-white finish. If you have not been inside the Galleria since your kids aged out of birthday parties at the rink, the color palette you remember is on its way out.
A useful number for context: Galleria Dallas welcomes more than 12 million visitors annually across a collection of more than 200 retailers, restaurants and experiences. That is the traffic base Trademark is betting Netflix House and a projection-mapped dinner will hold onto now that the traditional anchor is gone.
Two Quiet Openings Worth The Detour
The two most interesting food openings in Far North Dallas this summer are not at the Galleria and not on any best-of list yet. Both are the kind of thing you only hear about from a neighbor.
The first is Shi-Ya Modern Asian Cuisine, which opened in late June inside kosher steakhouse Meat Point at 7114 Campbell Rd. #102 in far North Dallas, a speakeasy-style restaurant accessed via an unmarked entrance inside Meat Point, featuring sushi, sashimi, rolls, and other modern Asian dishes prepared under kosher standards. A kosher sushi lounge hidden behind an unmarked door inside a steakhouse is not a thing most cities have one of. Far North Dallas now has the only one in Dallas.
The second is Ghost Pizza, a new BYOB pizzeria that opened this year at 10675 Northwest Hwy. #1635, from Frank Nuccio, part of the family that owned the venerable Marco's Pizza and My Family's Pizza local chains, serving pizza, salad, and pasta with a BYOB policy. The Nuccio name is old Dallas pizza lineage. That the third generation is opening a bring-your-own-bottle neighborhood pie shop on Northwest Highway, rather than another mid-Cities strip-center location, says something about where the family sees the audience.
Meet your neighbors in Far North Dallas and explore ways to improve walkability around Addison, UT Dallas, Meandering Way, Galleria Mall, and the new 'International District' (the old Valley View Mall).
That framing, from a Dallas Urbanists neighborhood meetup notice held at Moon Wolf Provisions this summer, captures the shift better than any press release. The hyperlocal conversation covered walkability around Addison, UT Dallas, Meandering Way, Galleria Mall, and the new International District, with Bryan Tony from Dallas Housing Coalition speaking about how zoning may affect walkability in Far North Dallas. Residents are already talking about the corner as if the connective tissue is real. In many places, it still is not. In a couple of years, it may be.
What It Adds Up To
Three things are worth holding in mind together.
One, the Valley View lot has moved from renderings to a foundation. The Premier is one building of many the district envisions, and previous phases have famously stalled, but the specific fact that work has started on the empty lot that was once the site of the former Valley View Center mall, closed in 2023, and is being transformed into a six-storey project called The Premier at Dallas Midtown is a change in kind, not degree.
Two, the Galleria is deliberately shifting from a department-store model to a dwell-time model. Netflix House and Le Petit Chef are not shops. They are reasons to spend three hours somewhere on a Saturday. The renovation of the rink level continues that thread.
Three, the neighborhood food scene is picking up openings that used to skip past Far North Dallas on their way to Uptown or Frisco. A kosher omakase-style room hidden inside a steakhouse and a third-generation family pizzeria on Northwest Highway are both signals that operators believe there is a resident audience here worth serving directly.
None of this changes the character of Far North Dallas. The tree-lined streets off Meandering Way are still tree-lined streets off Meandering Way. What changes is the answer to the question of where to take an out-of-town guest on a Wednesday night, or where to spend a rainy Saturday with the kids. For most of the last decade, the honest answer was "drive to Uptown." That answer is loosening.
If you are thinking about how any of this fits your own next move, whether that means a home closer to the corridor's new gravity or a quieter street farther from it, Krista Cheatham is available for a private conversation. Let's connect.
