Walk through this month and you will pass a freshly finished, almost 18,000 square foot shell with the paper still on the glass. Down the corridor, past the food court, there is a toddler-height playground with the Care-A-Lot logo stenciled into the flooring. Neither of these things existed a year ago. Neither of them is the thing most Barton Creek residents are actually waiting for.
The thing they are waiting for is the old Sears box. It has sat empty long enough that most people who live here have stopped checking on it. Dick's Sporting Goods announced in 2026 that it would turn the space into one of its large-format Dick's House of Sport concepts, but that store is not expected to open until late 2027. That is the headline everyone in the neighborhood knows. It is also, for anyone trying to understand what the mall has actually become, the least useful data point available.
The Anchor Everyone's Been Watching
There is a reason the Sears conversion gets attention. It is the largest single footprint in the building, it has been vacant for years, and a name brand as recognizable as Dick's finally attaching itself to the project reads like resolution. But a late 2027 opening date means the anchor box will have sat empty for the entire stretch of time covered in this piece, and then some. If you are using "what's happening at the anchor" as your gauge of the mall's direction, you are reading a clock that has not moved.
Meanwhile, the small-format wing has not been waiting on anyone.
What Landed While You Were Watching the Box
Over the past year, Barton Creek Square has quietly filled in around the empty anchor with a run of new tenants that has nothing to do with backfilling a department store and everything to do with testing what an Austin mall can be in 2026:
- Pastissimo, a custom pasta bowl concept next to AMC Theatres, opened November 15, 2025
- Claw & Fun, an arcade of claw machines next to Old Navy, opened November 21, 2025
- Purificación García, a Spanish fashion retailer, opened next to Michael Kors
- A Care Bears playground, built in partnership with Cloudco Entertainment, opened as the first officially licensed Care Bears playground in the United States
- Chubby Cattle, an all-you-can-eat Wagyu barbecue and sushi concept, is landing on the upper level near Nordstrom
- Uniqlo is finishing construction on its first Austin store, a nearly 18,000 square foot, $2.4 million buildout
None of these are anchor-replacement stores. All of them are decisions a national or international retailer made specifically about this property, in this year, while the Sears box sat untouched next door.
A First-to-Austin Flagship Picked This Mall, Not Somewhere Else
Uniqlo's decision is the clearest signal in the batch. This is not a company expanding an existing Austin footprint. According to filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation reported by both the Austin American-Statesman and Community Impact, Barton Creek Square is Uniqlo's first move into the entire Austin market. Construction began in February 2026 and wrapped by early September, with the store set to open later this year. A retailer choosing a beachhead for an entire metro doesn't pick a property at random. It picks the one with the traffic, the demographic, and the anchor mix it believes will validate the bet.
That is worth sitting with if you live nearby. The mall's four traditional department store anchors, Dillard's, JCPenney, Macy's, and Nordstrom, have stayed fully intact even as the retail industry has spent a decade closing exactly this kind of store elsewhere. A first-to-market flagship betting on that anchor lineup, sight unseen against a mostly full Sears box, is a different kind of vote of confidence than a chain simply adding another location.
The Concept That Was Supposed to Open a Year Ago
Chubby Cattle's timeline tells a quieter, more honest story. Back in 2024, the Statesman reported that the Wagyu barbecue concept was expected to open at Barton Creek Square sometime in 2025, in the upper level near Nordstrom. By April 2026, Community Impact was still describing it as a restaurant "coming to" the mall, not one that had already arrived. Somewhere in that gap, an opening date slipped by roughly a year.
That kind of delay is normal for restaurant build-outs, and it is not evidence the mall's momentum is fake. It is evidence that the small-format wing, unlike the anchor box, is moving on a restaurant industry timeline rather than a department store industry timeline. A year of slippage on a barbecue concept is a rounding error next to a vacant anchor that will have sat empty from before this piece was written until sometime after most 2026 holiday shopping is finished.
A National First, Not Just a Local First
The Care Bears playground is the detail that's easy to walk past and the hardest one to explain away. Simon Property Group operates malls across the country, including other properties in Texas. It chose Barton Creek Square as the site for the first officially licensed Care Bears playground in the United States, a partnership with Cloudco Entertainment built around interactive play for children up to age six.
A themed attraction like that is not a tenant filling square footage. It is a marketing decision about which property gets to be the flagship for a national campaign. Simon didn't put that in a mall trying to fill space until something better comes along. It put it somewhere it expects families to already be coming.
Reading the Two Timelines Side by Side
| Track | Move | Announced | Status as of September 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anchor box | Dick's House of Sport in former Sears | 2026 | Under development, expected late 2027 |
| Small format | Uniqlo, first Austin location | Construction began Feb. 2026 | Construction complete, opening later this year |
| Small format | Chubby Cattle, Wagyu AYCE | Originally expected 2025 | Still landing as of April 2026 |
| Small format | Care Bears playground | Undated | Already open |
| Small format | Pastissimo, Claw & Fun, Purificación García | Late 2025 | Already open |
The anchor track has one entry and a finish line more than a year out. The small-format track has five entries, and four of the five are already resolved or nearly there. If you are trying to predict what this mall looks like a year from now, the second row is where the evidence actually lives.
What This Actually Means If You Shop Here
None of this is a case for or against the mall. It's a case for looking in the right place. If your read on Barton Creek Square has been "still waiting on Sears," you're not wrong, but you're tracking the slowest-moving piece of a property that has otherwise reinvented its small-format wing in about a year: a first-to-Austin apparel flagship, a themed play concept that beat every other American Simon property to a national partnership, and a dining concept still working through a year of slipped timelines.
The anchor will get its moment. Late 2027 will arrive. But if you want to understand what kind of mall this is becoming, the answer has already been written in nearly 18,000 square feet of Uniqlo, a Care-A-Lot floor stencil, and a barbecue restaurant that took longer to open than anyone expected. The anchor box is a lagging indicator. The small storefronts around it are the ones actually setting the pace.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like Barton Creek offers day to day, alongside its long view on property value and lifestyle, Leslie Gossett can walk you through both. Let's Connect.
