The premium doll brand opened its Galleria store in 2007 and the 15-year lease expires this year. American Girl is planning a big move in Dallas out of the Galleria and into the Shops at Park Lane next year.
The popular and pricey doll brand has plans to open a 15,400 square-foot, two-level store at The Shops at Park Lane, according to planning documents filed with the state. The cost of the project is estimated at $9 million, and construction would begin in August and end in late January.
The store is scheduled to open in early 2024, said Julie Parks, spokesperson for American Girl. It will include a full-service restaurant, personal shopping, and both doll and girl hairstyling, manicures, and ear piercing at the signature Dolled Up Salon, she said.
“As we proudly celebrate more than 16 years in the Dallas market, the American Girl store at The Shops at Park Lane is the ideal location to reach new and existing fans in a unique, upscale, and family-friendly environment,” Parks said.
The Shops at Park Lane is across N. Central Expressway from NorthPark Center. A bridge over the highway connects the two properties. The area is one of Dallas’ main shopping districts extending a couple of miles east and west along Northwest Highway to Abrams Road and Preston Road.
Galleria Dallas declined to comment. American Girl’s lease expires this year. The landmark North Dallas shopping center had been planning a redevelopment, but now that’s going to take a new owner. Ownership of the 1.9 million square-foot, three-level mall and attached to the Westin Hotel was transferred to lenders in December.
The American Girl store at Park Lane will be located across from HomeGoods, next to Nordstrom Rack. Northwood Retail, owner and operator of The Shops at Park Lane, has been looking for “the right concept to fill this prominent two-story end-cap,” a spokeswoman said. The experience-filled store will draw a local and regional shoppers, she said.
“We are excited to have them as a neighbor,” a NorthPark spokeswoman said.
The Galleria store may remain open through the key Christmas shopping season for toy retailers. It’s the brand’s only store in Texas.
American Girl opened in the Galleria in November 2007 with people camping out overnight to be the first of thousands who showed up. It was one of the first stores to open in select cities in the mid-2000s. Mattel has owned American Girl since 1998, and the premier doll brand has continued to operate from Middleton, Wisc., where it was founded in 1986.
The retailer permanently closed several stores during the pandemic and as its leases, typically for 15 years, expired. It has 10 stores in the U.S. and six in Canada.
In Los Angeles, a new store is opening this summer in the Century City Westfield Mall after closing in The Grove shopping center in April 2022. The Grove store opened in 2006, a year before the Galleria location, and had a 15-year lease that was renewable annually.