The developer of the Shops at RedBird wants Dallas to lower the amount of new shopping and dining space it must build at the former mall, after a planned Tom Thumb grocery store fell through. In return, the owner would give the Dallas Police Department rent-free space inside the center.
The City Council is set to consider the change Nov. 10, according to an Oct. 27 memo to the council's Economic Development Committee, which has the item among its briefing memos for its meeting Monday afternoon.
The square footage gap
Under its 2018 incentive agreement with the city, the developer, WCWRD Inc., must finish at least 40,000 gross square feet of new retail, restaurant and entertainment buildings by Dec. 31, 2026. It has built 34,725, the memo says.
When the council last amended the deal in May 2024, the developer expected a roughly 50,000-square-foot Tom Thumb to cover the rest. Tom Thumb ended its lease at the end of 2024 and the store was never built.
The council had approved up to $5.8 million in incentives for that grocery in 2023, according to a staff slide deck attached to the memo, which says Albertsons Companies, Tom Thumb's parent, decided late in 2024 not to go ahead.
The developer is negotiating with two restaurants and a retailer, the memo says, but does not expect any new building to be designed, permitted, built and opened before the deadline. The proposed amendment would drop the requirement to 34,000 square feet and count the existing Foot Locker, about 20,000 square feet, and Starbucks, about 2,500 square feet, toward it.
A second part rewrites the terms for any sale of the project, which would need advance written approval from the city's economic development chief.
A police storefront
In exchange, the developer offered the city a no-cost lease of about 7,219 square feet on the upper level of the main mall building at 3662 W. Camp Wisdom Road for a Dallas Police Department resource center or storefront.
