For residents inside the Park Cities bubble, the map of a good evening used to end at Mockingbird. Highland Park Village anchored the west side of the neighborhood, Knox-Henderson handled the noisier east, and the six blocks between them read as connective tissue. That is no longer true this summer.
The Knox Street redevelopment has stopped being a rendering. Cranes have come down, tenants have been named, and one of the towers is about to hand over keys. If you live in Highland Park, the question this July is not whether the corridor is coming. It is which parts of it you can already use.
The Gravity Moved Six Blocks South
The center of the change is The Lora, a 27-story, 186-unit ultra-luxury multifamily rental tower rising at the north edge of the Katy Trail. BDT & MSD Partners and Trammell Crow Company, together with their partners The Summers Group, Gillon Property Group, and The Retail Connection, unveiled an exclusive first look at The Lora, with leasing commencing this summer. The building was designed by Woods Bagot with interiors by Chad Dorsey Design, and its sculptural facade is clad in warm, terracotta-toned precast concrete and bronze detailing, with generous arches referencing the site's history along the Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad line. Residences run from one to four bedrooms, spanning approximately 800 to more than 3,500 square feet.
That last detail is the one worth pausing on. A four-bedroom rental at 3,500 square feet is not a pied-à-terre product. It is a competing floor plan to the single-family homes on the streets north of Mockingbird, offered by the same ownership group that runs Highland Park Village. For the first time, a purpose-built rental tower is aimed directly at the kind of household that has historically bought into the Park Cities and stayed.
What's Actually Open, What's Coming, What's Later
The retail lineup is easier to track as a table than a paragraph. Everything below is dated to public announcements from the developers or the tenants themselves.
| Tenant | Type | Status as of summer 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| The Lora | Residential tower | Leasing commencing this summer |
| Sant Ambroeus | All-day Italian restaurant | Confirmed, opening 2026 |
| DÔEN | Womenswear | First Texas standalone, 2026 |
| STAUD | Womenswear | First Texas standalone, 2026 |
| TOTEME | Womenswear | First Texas standalone, 2026 |
| TWP | Womenswear | Confirmed, 2026 |
| Addison Bay | Activewear | Confirmed, this fall |
| The Knox, Auberge Collection | Hotel and residences | Late 2026 debut |
| 3333 Knox | Office | Late 2026, fully preleased |
| Théa Mediterranean Rooftop | Restaurant (Sam Fox) | Early 2027 |
| The Main House | All-day restaurant | 2027 |
The joint venture partnership of BDT & MSD Partners, Trammell Crow Company, Highland Park Village Associates, and The Retail Connection announced the topping out of the Knox Street mixed-use development, spanning more than one million square feet and delivering 150,000 square feet of office space, 100,000 square feet of retail, a 27-story apartment tower, a half-acre park with a direct connection to the Katy Trail, and The Knox Hotel and Residences. The office building at 3333 Knox has been 100% preleased since fall 2024, with anchor tenant ISN Software Corporation joined by Paul Hastings LLP and BDT & MSD.
The restaurant that will define the corridor's daytime rhythm is the 7,800-square-foot Sant Ambroeus, offering all-day dining and outdoor patio seating overlooking the Katy Trail, its first Texas outpost. Anyone who has walked the trail on a Saturday morning already knows what a patio at that address does to foot traffic. The Milanese café is being placed exactly where the trail meets the park.
The Village Answered Back
Highland Park Village is not sitting still. Carolina Herrera celebrated the opening of their new Highland Park Village store in February, paired with a collaboration with Dallas-based Miron Crosby that debuted with three designs merging the aesthetics of both brands. A year earlier, Dior added something the Village had never had: a chef-driven café. Cafe Dior by Dominique Crenn, featuring a menu designed by the acclaimed chef, debuted at their store in Highland Park Village in 2025. Sadelle's has settled in for brunch, and Knox Bistro, a few blocks east, was recognized in Michelin Guide's first Texas survey, which commended the experienced team of French émigrés responsible for the Gallic charm of the bright and breezy bistro.
Read those three moves together and a strategy emerges. The Village is no longer competing on square footage or tenant count. It is competing on the caliber of the operator behind each door. A capsule collection with a boot maker two blocks away, a menu by a two-Michelin-star chef inside a fashion house, a bistro pulling French kitchen talent from Lyon. This is a curation posture, not an expansion one.
The interesting thing about summer 2026 is not that Knox Street is being built. It is that the same ownership group is building it. Highland Park Village Associates, now Gillon Property Group, is on both sides of the ledger.
That single fact reframes the corridor. When the Village's management arm is also the retail leasing lead for a million square feet of new development next door, the two are not rivals splitting one wallet. They are one estate, extended.
Still Behind Fencing
Not everything is walkable yet. If you are timing dinner reservations or a Saturday out, the following are still under construction as of this writing:
- The Knox, Auberge Collection. A 140-room hotel and 47 ultra-luxury condominiums ranging from 2,500 to over 15,000 square feet, designed by Martin Brudnizki Design Studio, with signature restaurants, bars, lounges, expansive event spaces, and a full-floor spa connected to an outdoor pool and bar. Debut expected late 2026. The private residences are nearly sold out well ahead of completion.
- Théa Mediterranean Rooftop. A new rooftop restaurant coming to Knox Street from Sam Fox, founder of Fox Restaurant Concepts, opening in early 2027. The concept debuted in 2023 atop The Global Ambassador in Phoenix, where it earned a Conde Nast Traveler "Best New Hotel Restaurants in the World" listing.
- The Main House. Taking over the former Mashburn space at 3333 Knox St., Ste 145, at the corner of the Katy Trail, slated for 2027. From Western Addition Restaurant Group, the group behind il Bracco and Bobbie's Airway Grill, it will serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner — the first Western Addition spot to offer breakfast.
- The half-acre park. A public green space with a direct Katy Trail connection, delivering as part of the wider project.
The pattern is unmistakable. What opens this summer is residential and daytime. What opens later is nighttime and hospitality. If you want to see the corridor as it will actually live in a year, come back after the hotel takes reservations.
A Walkable Evening, Right Now
The practical question for a Highland Park resident in July 2026 is what to do about it this weekend. A route that uses only what is open today:
Start at Highland Park Village. Coffee or a late lunch at Sadelle's café side, then a walk through the newly opened Carolina Herrera to see the Miron Crosby capsule in person. Cross to Cafe Dior for a mid-afternoon pastry if you want to see what Dominique Crenn's menu actually looks like translated into a retail setting.
Then walk east and south down Preston, cross Mockingbird, and pick up the Katy Trail at Knox. The half-mile stretch between there and Cole is where the construction fencing thins out enough to read the buildings. The Lora reveals itself best from the trail side, where the arched facade is designed to be seen at a pedestrian pace. Turn onto Knox proper for dinner at Knox Bistro, which is still the only Michelin-recognized address on the street until Sant Ambroeus opens its doors.
The route is short. That is the point. In 2019, walking from the Village to Knox meant crossing through space that felt like edge, not spine. In 2026, it is the spine.
The Real Story For Homeowners
The story that matters for anyone who owns north of Mockingbird is not which handbag brand arrived. It is that the retail and dining strategy sitting a few minutes from your front door has been consolidated under one operator and expanded by a factor of ten. A neighborhood whose walkability once ended at a 45-store Village will, by the end of 2027, extend across more than a million square feet of coordinated retail, restaurant, office, and hospitality.
That kind of long-horizon shift tends to show up in property values before it shows up in listing photos. Whether you are considering a sale, a purchase, or a renovation timed to the corridor's completion, this is the moment to have the conversation with an advisor who is tracking the changes block by block.
For a private valuation and a candid read on how the Knox Street corridor is shaping demand on your street, Christian Smith Real Estate Group can walk you through it. Request Your Personalized Home Valuation.
