A trio of prosperous malls in Dallas-Fort Worth has shown that reports on the death of massive indoor shopping centers may be greatly exaggerated.

NorthPark Center in Dallas, Stonebriar Center in Frisco and Galleria Dallas have each grown in popularity since the pandemic by giving shoppers access to stores and attractions they can’t find elsewhere. Their success illustrates Green Street’s report that mall values surged 13% across the country this month as returning shoppers drive sales for their tenants. With that growth, malls have become more desirable for investors and gained prestige among the high-end retail brands vying for space in their corridors. 

“The flight to quality is such that the retailers aren't opening that many stores, so they're only going to select the best shopping centers,” said Randy Holcombe, vice president of leasing at Brookfield Properties' retail division, GGP. “So the best malls are going to continue to get that much better.”

More shoppers are visiting DFW’s premier malls every year, and the percentage of visitors traveling more than 10 miles to get there is growing, according to Placer.ai, which uses cellphone data to compile its numbers. Those visitors include a new wave of younger shoppers drawn by the U.S. and regional retail exclusives offered by the metro’s top-tier retail destinations. 

Malls across the country have seen foot traffic return as resilient consumer spending has attracted a higher class of stores and encouraged owners to reinvest to strengthen operations. The success of Class-A malls has also attracted new investors who see a path to prosperity for DFW’s Class-B indoor shopping centers. 

“If you have a B or C mall, and it's in a great growing city, and you can hold on to it long enough, eventually something good happens,” Weitzman Director of Investment Sales Barney McAuley said in reference to the Dallas Stars’ planned $3B sports and entertainment district at The Shops at Willow Bend mall in Plano.

A Banner Year

The comeback of DFW’s Class-A malls is being fueled by Generation Z shoppers, who, according to shopping center industry group ICSC, visit stores about as often as baby boomers and more often than millennials and Gen X consumers.

Galleria Dallas and NorthPark Center are on pace to record five-year highs in visitor growth figures in 2026. The Galleria’s visits through Sept. 12 are up nearly 9% over the same period last year, while NorthPark's numbers are up more than 6%, according to Placer.ai.

Stonebriar's visitor totals have risen every year since the pandemic and were up nearly 3% through the first eight months of the year.

Nationally, Placer.ai shows that indoor malls had 5% more visitors in August than the same month last year, the format's largest year-over-year gain of 2026. 

Shoppers are also traveling farther to get to DFW's best malls. More than half of NorthPark's visitors this year came from more than 10 miles away, while nearly 65% of shoppers at the Galleria traveled at least that distance. 

Stonebriar's percentage of visitors traveling over 10 miles has been more than 42% this year, just as it was for the last three years.

The Frisco mall is owned by GGP, which has catered its tenant mix to the city’s affluent, well-educated customers, Holcombe said. Stonebriar has opened more than 90K SF of new stores over the past few years and is one of the strongest performers in GGP’s portfolio.

“Our challenge every day is just to come in and make sure that we're keeping these shopping centers relevant," Holcombe said. 

The Mall Resurgence

Nationally, mall values outpaced every other commercial real estate property sector in the past year, according to Green Street. 

DFW’s top-tier malls saw more measured growth than their national brethren over the past year, but each has appreciated significantly over the last half-decade. Stonebriar’s appraised value rose more than 17% from 2022 to $352.4M in 2026, according to the Collin Central Appraisal District. Galleria Dallas rose more than 19% during that time to $159.9M, Dallas Central Appraisal District data showed. 

However, NorthPark stands alone in North Texas, offering a luxury shopping experience visitors can’t get at any other indoor shopping center. Cushman & Wakefield appraised the more than 60-year-old mall at a value of $1.6B last year as part of a $1.2B refinancing the property's owners locked down. The DCAD appraised NorthPark at $711.7M in 2022.

The property's private ownership allows a high level of tenant curation that has allowed NorthPark to remain a retail powerhouse in the region, CBRE Vice President Elizabeth Herman Fulton told Bisnow last year. 

Stonebriar Centre and Galleria Dallas have been successful with similar tenant curation efforts but also brought in experiential retail opportunities and new stores to help attract visitors. 

Experiential retail has helped drive the mall comeback across the country, as landlords turned vacant anchor space into attractions that offer immersive and memorable shopping trips. And that success shows no signs of slowing, with the experiential retail market expected to grow by more than 300% over the next decade, according to market research firm Metatech Insights.

Galleria Dallas late last year welcomed Netflix House, where fans can immerse themselves in the worlds of the streaming giant's biggest titles. Stonebriar has had the interactive, child-sized city attraction KidZania since 2019.

“That's the only KidZania in the country, so we draw from all over the metroplex,” Holcombe said.

GGP declined to provide specific figures but confirmed its malls have recorded rent and occupancy growth over the past few years. Holcombe said the company is 99% leased across its 11 shopping centers in Texas.

The world’s largest mall operator, Simon Property Group, has had similar success with its portfolio, recording 96% occupancy at its indoor shopping centers and premium outlets at the end of the second quarter. 

“Clearly, malls, retail centers at large, are having a cultural moment,” Simon Property Group CEO Eli Simon said during a call with analysts last month. “People realize that they're not going away.”

Investor Interest

DFW has become a strong retail investment market, and private investors have shown an interest in just about everything except poorly performing malls, McAuley said. 

That interest includes the region’s Class-B malls, though those generally have two different kinds of owners. Some investors are looking to maximize net operating income, while institutions like GGP operate the Class-B Town East Mall in Mesquite. 

“They know what they're doing,” McAuley said of GGP and Town East Mall. “It's just a dominant retail force that a lot of East Texas comes in to shop, and a lot of South Dallas comes up to.”

Visits to Town East Mall have grown nearly 3% so far this year over the first eight months of 2025, according to Placer.ai. And Holcombe said GGP plans to keep reinvesting in its asset. 

Class-B mall owners trying to maximize NOI often take what McAuley called drastic measures, such as cutting back on security and cleaning or taking over outside services. That will increase operating profits in the short term, but three to five years of not reinvesting in a mall will catch up with them. 

While many of the DFW malls left are best positioned to survive, some will still face redevelopment. As shown by The Shops at Willow Bend and the former Valley View Center in North Dallas, which is set to be turned into a sports and entertainment district for the Dallas Mavericks, redevelopment can also be successful for property owners. 

“As an industry, we built malls out in the path of growth, so you'll see in some markets where it was a little too early, but now it's really maturing and getting that much stronger,” Holcombe said.