Elena Bourke remembers the corn field near her west Plano neighborhood — and the coyotes that used to scurry around.
In the 30 years since Bourke moved to the Glen Meadows development, she’s seen the symbols of slow, suburban life disappear. An apartment complex cropped up. So did a park. The Shops at Willow Bend, which she admits has been convenient for whenever she decides to go shopping, opened in 2001 at the northwest intersection of West Park Boulevard and the Dallas North Tollway. These days, Bourke said, Plano feels less residential.
“Change is inevitable, I understand that,” said Bourke, who lives a 15-minute walk away from the mall. “… But I do feel that there is this push to develop, develop, develop.”
A proposed overhaul of the Shops at Willow Bend mall confirms Bourke’s suspicion.
Dallas-based real estate investment firm Centennial purchased the mall last May with New York-based Waterfall Asset Management and Cawley Partners of Dallas. The initial plan as filed with Plano’s planning department is to convert part of the 107-acre space into an 18-story hotel, a seven-story office building and 960 apartments spread across three five-story buildings.
“I’ve been curious for a while since first hearing about it sometime last year and then a little horrified when I saw the tentative plan,” Bourke said.
The push for continued evolution characterizes modern day Plano, which city leaders hope to keep thriving and relevant as it matures into its 150th year. Among their strategies to achieve this goal is revitalizing aging spaces like The Shops at Willow Bend to make them new and vibrant.
“Any plan that keeps Willow Bend a place where people want to visit is a good plan,” Peter Braster, director of special projects for Plano, told The Dallas Morning News. " … That’s what well-run cities do. They’re proactive. They don’t wait for the problems to occur. They march out ahead and pave the way for the success.”
Apartments and office buildings challenge the suburban status quo, but mixed-use developments are the way of the future, according to Braster. He said retail centers across the country are adopting that model, which morphs existing space into “mini town squares,” to become more successful — and stay alive.
“We absolutely have a perfect example of what happens when a mall dies,” said Braster, who added that Plano does not want the Shops at Willow Bend’s fate to mirror that of the Collin Creek Mall. “It affects everybody.”
Unlike city officials who say they feel hopeful the remodel will resurrect the dwindling retail space, Bourke and other residents worry about the traffic and community changes the project may bring.
Looking to the future, learning from history
Former Plano Mayor Pat Evans moved to the city in the early 1970s, the initial years of the bedroom community’s boom.
About two decades before Evans became Plano’s mayor from 2002-2009, the Collin Creek Mall opened in 1981. She said they used to play soccer on the field where it was built. The first major shopping center in Collin County, the mall symbolized and advanced Plano’s growth.
Evans said back then, everyone went to that mall. Eventually, the retail space declined. Now under redevelopment, Collin Creek no longer exists in its original state.
When Centurion American Development Group completes the $1 billion project, the mixed-use space will include 500 single-family homes, 2,300 multi-family homes, 308,000 square-feet of retail space, 40,000 square-feet of restaurant space, eight acres of park space and 1.6 miles of walking trails, according to the developer.
“Even when I was mayor, we were still trying to save it,” Evans said.
The former mayor said city officials had numerous new design ideas and strategies to turn it into a city center like the one it will become. “But nobody was interested at that time,” Evans said.
Braster said the mall’s stagnant state hindered the success of the east side of the city for years. “It didn’t help it go forward,” Braster said.
Reinvestment, Braster said, has bolstered older parts of Plano, like the downtown area. While Braster said the fringes around the Collin Creek Mall managed fine, the institution itself didn’t. He said it recalled “the broken window syndrome.”
“If you have a window that gets broken and you don’t fix it right away, then more broken windows happen,” Braster said.
Jason Daniel, a Glen Meadows resident since 2005, said in its earlier days, the Shops at Willow Bend was known for catering to a wealthier demographic. Daniel said he often wouldn’t even enter many of the stores in the mall for this reason.
But the Apple Store seemed to be a popular draw, Daniel said. Once it left the mall as part of a larger exodus from Collin County, a significant downturn resulted.
Daniel said creating a solution that would attract people to the area is a net positive. “I was worried that if the mall were to completely fail, it would bring down our property values for a while,” Daniel said.
Braster said residents living near the Collin Creek Mall were excited about the redevelopment of Plano’s first mall.
“They understood what a dead mall did to their neighborhood,” Braster said.
Development and its discontents
Since Brittany Henderson moved to Glen Meadows in 2020, she’s seen a consistent decrease in the number of stores at the Shops at Willow Bend. Not much draws her family there, Henderson said.
“As more places have left, it’s just kind of uneasy being in there,” she said. “It feels kind of apocalyptic.”
Henderson said that change is necessary and a dead mall wouldn’t bode well for the quality of the area. “The status quo can’t stay that way,” Henderson said. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have concerns about the influx of traffic and people that the new development could introduce to the community.
“There are certain things that will change the whole look and feel of that entire area,” Henderson said.
The apartments concern Bourke.
“I don’t know how well these apartments will be managed,” she said. “It’s just a lot of questions. Primarily the population of the area, it’ll just be untenable.”
While Plano’s growth isn’t booming like it did in the past — the city grew 9.5% from 2010 to 2020 and currently boasts over 288,000 people, according to a 2022 community profile — it is evolving.
In 2022, Plano issued 2,028 multi-family unit permits compared to 157 single-family units and 365 independent living units, according to the city’s economic development department.
“If there was too many, it would be cheap,” Braster said. " … If you look at it from a free market perspective, the marketplace is telling us what the demand is.”
Braster said the apartments in the Willow Bend redevelopment likely won’t be cheap. For reference, he pointed to the high-end Sloane Street apartments nearby.
Regarding traffic, Braster said he’s not sure if it will be problematic.
“We know from studies up in Legacy that traffic becomes an issue if everybody leaves at the same time,” Braster said. “We just know that in apartments, not everybody leaves at the same time.”
Still, Braster said Plano will engage with community members to hear their concerns as the redevelopment project runs through the planning and zoning process. That is Bourke’s wish, that Plano listens to the residents.
“I’m kind of guessing they’ve reached upwards in these numbers of office buildings, hotel, apartments,” Bourke said.”Maybe that they went to the maximum so that they’ll have room to negotiate.”
Of course, the last three decades of development near Bourke’s neighborhood won’t be undone. It’s unlikely the corn field or coyotes will return again, but the longtime resident does entreat the city to reevaluate its priorities and identity.
“I guess there’s a way to do it that is more in keeping with the original thoughts of this city of excellence,” Bourke said. “I don’t know if we’re just going to be a city of excellent business or it’s just going to be still a great place to live … I question the balance between the two.”
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