A Great Hills Summer, With Fences Going Up at the Arboretum
July 23, 2026
July 23, 2026
For twenty-eight years, the Arboretum has been the thing residents drive past without thinking about. That changes this summer. On February 4, 2026, Charlotte-based Asana Partners closed on the roughly 197,105-square-foot open-air center at 10000 Research Boulevard, ending an ownership era that began in 1998 under Washington Prime Group. Sitework starts in the warm months. Completion is targeted for early 2027.
Which makes this the last summer of the Arboretum as Great Hills has known it, and the first summer where a full-service alternative sits five minutes north. Both of those facts should reshape how a resident spends July and August.
Asana's public plan is not a teardown. It is a re-choreographing of the parts of the property that have gone quiet since the movie theater left in 2002 and Saks closed in 2013. The company has said the work will reconfigure common areas to host live music and pop-up retail, add new patios for outdoor dining, replace storefront signage, and improve walkability across the site. The stated ambition is an 18-hour center, meaning morning coffee, midday shopping, and evening programming under one roof of live oaks.
For a resident, the near-term implications are practical:
If you have been meaning to sit under the pond ducks with a book from Barnes & Noble, this is the summer to do it before the common areas are re-cut.
The old logic in Great Hills was that the Arboretum handled convenience and the Domain handled occasion. The 2026 restaurant class at the Domain has collapsed that distinction into a decision about traffic lights.
Ēma opened at Domain Northside on January 31, 2026, bringing the Lettuce Entertain You group's California-influenced Mediterranean menu into a room built for indoor-outdoor summer dining. It is the sister restaurant to Aba, and it is the first serious mezze-and-wine option north of the river that a Great Hills resident can be seated at within seven minutes of leaving their driveway.
Mexican Sugar followed on March 24, 2026, at 11506 Century Oaks Terrace, taking the space with a 1,770-square-foot patio and an agave program built around more than 150 tequilas, mezcals, and sotols. The interior leans modern-hacienda, with a large-scale exterior mural by Austin muralist Ruben Esquivel of East End Eclectic and metal lighting installations by Rae Ripple.
Loro, the Asian smokehouse from Aaron Franklin and Tyson Cole, opened its second Austin location at the Domain on December 21, giving north-side residents a version of the South Lamar experience without the drive across town. Baldinucci Pizza Romana is scheduled to open on Rock Rose Avenue this spring with pizza al taglio on imported Italian flour, aimed at slice-and-go rather than sit-down.
Great Hills used to be a neighborhood adjacent to a food scene. In 2026, it is a neighborhood inside two food scenes, with one of them nine minutes from the other.
The point is not that the Domain has arrived. It arrived years ago. The point is that its 2026 openings finally match the reasons a Great Hills resident might choose it over the Arboretum for a weeknight dinner, and they do so during the exact summer the Arboretum is least able to compete on ambience.
The other anchor of a Great Hills summer sits on the opposite side of Loop 360 from the shopping. Bull Creek District Park at 6701 Lakewood Drive is 48 acres organized around a spring-fed creek, with swimming holes, limestone cliffs, waterfalls, and roughly 3.7 miles of trail on the main Bull Creek Trail. The park was created in 1971 and has been the neighborhood's swimming hole ever since, along with one of the few places in north Austin where dogs can move off-leash in designated sections.
A few things a first-time visitor would learn the hard way and a resident already knows:
The connection to the rest of the summer is timing. The park works before the shops open. The shops work through the middle of the day. Dinner belongs to the Domain or Knotty Deck's patio. A resident who sequences the day this way never sits in traffic on Capital of Texas Highway, which is the only real currency Great Hills has to spend.
The most useful map of the neighborhood this summer is not a directory. It is a schedule.
An early start at Bull Creek, in the water by 8:00 a.m., out by 10:00 before the lot turns over. A coffee and a bag of pastries from the Arboretum on the way back, taken to the sculpture lawn while the construction crews are on their weekend pause. Errands folded into the same trip because the Arboretum's tenant mix is still built for that: books at Barnes & Noble, a rug or lamp at Pottery Barn or Ballard Designs, a return at Soma.
Lunch inside on a hot day at Vida Verde Kitchen, Honest Mary's, or Juliet Italian Kitchen, all within a five-minute radius. An afternoon at home while the sun does its worst. Then a 6:30 p.m. reservation at Ēma for the patio in the shade, or Mexican Sugar for the agave list, or Loro if the household wants brisket without the South Lamar wait. The drive between Great Hills and Century Oaks Terrace is a straight shot up MoPac. On a Saturday evening in July, it is faster than the drive to most restaurants downtown.
This is the argument for staying home this summer. Not staying inside, but staying inside the five-minute triangle formed by Bull Creek, the Arboretum, and Domain Northside. The renovation makes it a slightly noisier triangle for the next eighteen months. It also makes it a more interesting one to watch.
Asana Partners has stated that the tenant mix will be curated to draw more traffic during the renovation, which means new signings will be announced in stages. The company's language about "neighborhood retail" and reflecting the surrounding area suggests a leasing strategy weighted toward local and regional operators rather than a wholesale swap for national chains. Residents who want a say should watch for community programming announcements over the summer, since the reconfigured common areas are built around that use.
The Domain's momentum is not slowing either. Mexican Sugar and Ēma are the first two of what appears to be a multi-year push into scratch-made, patio-forward Mediterranean and Latin concepts on the north side. Baldinucci arriving at Rock Rose this spring will add a fast, casual counter-service option to the same walkable block.
And Bull Creek will do what Bull Creek always does, which is stay cold and shaded and slightly harder to park at than it should be.
If you are thinking about how the shifts in this five-minute radius affect the long-term value of your home, or you are relocating into Great Hills and want a resident's read on which streets sit closest to which anchors, Liz King is available for a private conversation. Schedule a consultation and get a boutique, neighborhood-first take on what the next eighteen months mean for your address.
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