Walk the block bounded by Preston Road, Mockingbird Lane, Livingston Avenue, and Douglas Avenue this summer and you will run into construction fencing near the corner where Douglas meets Mockingbird. If you shop or eat at Highland Park Village on any regular basis, the first reaction is usually confusion. The Village is supposed to look exactly the way it has always looked. Spanish Mediterranean facades from 1931, tile and iron work that photograph the same in any decade, storefronts that read less like retail and more like fixtures of the neighborhood itself.
That confusion is not an accident. Highland Park Village has been expanding in small, careful pieces since Ray Washburne, founder of the Mi Cocina restaurant chain, and his wife Heather Hill Washburne bought the property in 2009 for $170 million. The fencing on Douglas Avenue right now is the newest chapter of a pattern the Village's own architects describe openly: their stated goal, after a decade of projects there, is to "make it seem like we were never there."
The Permit Behind the Fencing
In April 2026, Highland Park Village LP, the ownership entity managed by Gillon Property Group, filed plans with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to add roughly 10,500 square feet across two of the complex's seven buildings, according to reporting from The Real Deal. Building C, which fronts Douglas Avenue, is growing by about 3,500 square feet. Building D, at the corner of Douglas and Mockingbird that serves as one of the Village's main entry points, is adding roughly 7,000 square feet.
The filing initially estimated the project at $25 million. Days later, the number dropped to $11 million, a revision People Newspapers confirmed directly from the TDLR paperwork. Building D currently houses Highland Park Village's own management offices alongside tenants that include Dior, Beretta, and Oscar de la Renta, plus the restaurant The Honor Bar. Two spaces in Building C are already listed as "Coming Soon" on the property's site, which suggests at least part of the new square footage is earmarked for storefronts that have not been announced yet.
The filing set a start date of June 1, 2026, with completion by June 1, 2027, which means the fencing on Douglas Avenue right now is a project that has already been underway for about two months.
"Our primary goal is to make it seem like we were never there."
That line comes from OMNIPLAN, the architecture firm listed on the current filing and the same firm that has handled Village renovations for years. It is worth sitting with, because it explains why a shopping center can be under near-constant construction and still feel frozen in 1931.
A Small Addition by Village Standards
A 10,500-square-foot addition sounds significant for a National Historic Landmark until you set it against what OMNIPLAN and structural engineer Datum Engineers already built onto Building G in an earlier phase of work: a new third floor adding 19,000 square feet, a 6,100-square-foot rooftop dining terrace, and 21,000 square feet of second-floor office space converted to retail, all completed while ground-floor stores stayed open through construction.
| Project | Buildings affected | New or converted space | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Building G expansion (prior phase) | Building G | 19,000 sq ft new third floor, 6,100 sq ft rooftop terrace, 21,000 sq ft office-to-retail conversion | Complete |
| Current expansion | Buildings C and D | 3,500 sq ft (Building C) plus 7,000 sq ft (Building D) | Filed April 2026, underway since June 2026, targeted for completion June 2027 |
Measured against the Village's own history, the current project is modest, almost routine. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation records show many jobs filed at 47 Highland Park Village are logged simply as privately funded tenant renovations, the kind of paperwork that clears the state's Architectural Barriers review before a single piece of fencing goes up. The construction you notice on Douglas Avenue is usually the last visible step in a process that started months earlier in an Austin filing cabinet.
The Storefronts You Have Actually Watched Change
None of this is theoretical if you have shopped the Village over the past few years. You have already lived through the tenant version of this same pattern.
- The Village Theatre closed on March 16, 2020, ending its run as a two-screen AMC theater. Its space was later occupied by Ralph Lauren.
- Ralph Lauren relocated to Knox Street in 2025, vacating that former theater retail space.
- Café Dior by Dominique Crenn opened February 22, 2025, inside the Dior store at 58 Highland Park Village, next to Peter Millar and across from Chanel. In the same round of changes, Khaite took over the space Starbucks had left behind.
- Carolina Herrera celebrated the grand opening of its new Village storefront in February 2026, marking the debut with a collaboration alongside Dallas boot brand Miron Crosby.
Each of those moves required its own permit and its own quiet approval process, most likely filed the same way the Building C and D expansion is being filed now. What feels from the sidewalk like one continuous shopping center is, on paper, a long series of small transactions that mostly happen in Austin before they ever show up on Instagram.
What to Expect Between Now and Next Summer
If you live in Highland Park or route your errands through the Village regularly, a few practical points from the filed plans are worth knowing now rather than discovering the hard way.
- Fencing will likely stay up near the Douglas and Mockingbird corner and along Building C's Douglas Avenue frontage through the filed completion date of June 2027.
- Existing tenants in Building D, including Dior, Beretta, Oscar de la Renta, and The Honor Bar, have not been reported as relocating. If this project follows the pattern OMNIPLAN used at Building G, where ground-floor retail stayed open for the full construction period, expect business as usual behind the fencing.
- The two "Coming Soon" spaces in Building C are worth watching. When the Village clears space, its recent history suggests it gets filled with names like Café Dior, Khaite, or Carolina Herrera rather than sitting empty for long.
- If your regular walk cuts through that corner, plan a temporary detour by way of Preston Road or Livingston Avenue while the fencing is up.
Highland Park Village has spent almost a century convincing people that nothing about it ever changes. The permit filed in April says otherwise, and so does every storefront swap you have already watched happen there. The Village is not standing still. It is just very good at making renovation look like maintenance.
If you live in Highland Park and want a neighbor's read on what else is shifting nearby, from architecture to market conditions, that kind of local detail is exactly what Richard Noon tracks day to day. Let's connect.
