Three Corners, Three Trajectories: What's Actually Changing in Preston Hollow This Fall

If you drive Preston Road on a Tuesday evening, the neighborhood looks the same as it did a year ago. Same crosswalks, same tree canopy filling back in from 2019, same rhythm of families walking to Central Market. The change is happening inside the buildings, and at one corner, in the argument about whether the buildings should exist at all.

This is a field guide for people who already live here. The three corners residents actually use every week — Preston Royal, Preston Hollow Village, and the vacant seven acres at Preston and Royal — are on very different trajectories in 2026. One is quietly upgrading its tenants without touching its footprint. One is finally reading as a single place instead of a rotating cast. And one has become the loudest zoning fight in North Dallas.

The near-term openings, on one page

Read that table twice. Four of the five items are tenant changes at existing addresses. Only the fifth involves new construction, and that one is stuck in front of the City Plan Commission. That imbalance is the story.

Preston Royal is upgrading its tenants, not its footprint

Preston Royal Village has been rebuilding, in one form or another, since the October 2019 tornado. The Central Market anchor came back. So did most of the smaller merchants. What's new in 2026 is the caliber of operator willing to lease space here, and the clearest example moved into the old Spec's box.

Palladino's Steak & Seafood opened June 16, 2026 at 5959 Royal Ln., in the former Spec's space at Preston Road and Royal Lane. The operator is Joseph Palladino, and the Dallas restaurant is his second location. Palladino first announced the Dallas location in 2025, while simultaneously opening the original Palladino's Steak & Seafood inside New York's Grand Central Terminal. The Dallas location was designed by Rockwell Group, the internationally known design firm that also created the New York restaurant. Executive Chef Sam Hazen runs the kitchen, with Henry Johnson as chef de cuisine.

Two things are worth sitting with. First, a Grand Central operator chose Preston Royal as his second address before opening anywhere else in the country. Second, Palladino was approached by Preston Royal's landlords to open a restaurant at the center, and given his local following and celebrity draw, as well as the large local appetite for steakhouses, Dallas made sense as a second location, particularly at the highly desirable intersection of Preston and Royal. The landlords made the first call. That is not how third-tier retail corners behave. That is how a corner behaves when the surrounding household base is doing the marketing for the landlord.

For a Preston Hollow resident, the read is simple. Preston Royal is not being torn down and rebuilt. It is being re-leased upward, one former Spec's or dry cleaner at a time. If you want to see what the next five years of Preston Royal looks like, book a 6 p.m. bar seat at Palladino's on a weeknight and watch who walks in.

Preston Hollow Village is finally reading as one place

Preston Hollow Village has spent years feeling like a collection of tenants that happened to share a parking lot. The 2026 lineup is what finally makes it read as a district.

Ella at 7949 Walnut Hill Lane is an intimate, American bistro with modern comfort food in a refined setting. It opened on Tuesday, June 17, and the space shares a lounge with Customs Speakeasy. The kitchen is run by Kyle Farr, previously the executive sous chef at Michelin-recognized Sachet as well as executive chef at the beloved and now-closed Bishop Arts spot, Boulevardier. A shared lounge between a bistro and a speakeasy is not a normal shopping-center configuration. It is what a real neighborhood dining floor looks like.

Then comes the fall addition. Exterior signage is up and DuWest Commercial Real Estate has confirmed that Fortune House will open on September 26 at Preston Hollow Village, joining the original location on MacArthur Boulevard in Irving, as well as a three-year-old spot on Lower Greenville — North Dallas marks number three for the authentic Shanghainese eatery. Since launching in 2015, Fortune House has earned accolades, including a "Best Dumplings" nod from DMagazine, thanks to its signature soup dumplings; available in traditional pork, as well as blue crab and black truffle, Fortune's take on the Shanghai classic has handmade dough and pork broth simmered for hours. A xiao long bao specialist choosing Preston Hollow Village as its third address is a data point about where their existing customers already live.

Add to that the arrival of Cantina La Rosa, just opened in Preston Hollow in the former Fernando's space, a new Tex-Mex spot from the owners of Dallas' Smoky Rose, with a menu that features tacos, enchiladas, bowls, a cheeseburger, carne asada and more, open for lunch and dinner. The old Fernando's had been a neighborhood default for a generation. Replacing it with the Smoky Rose team is a signal about who is willing to backfill a legacy Preston Hollow lease at 2026 rents.

The seven acres at Preston and Royal are the real argument

Now the harder corner. The southwest quadrant of Preston Road and Royal Lane, seven acres, is where the actual neighborhood debate is happening.

Developers Leland Burke and Greenway Investments applied for a zoning change in January that would raise the allowed building height at the 5930 Royal Lane property from 54 feet to 325 feet, or 28 stories. This application spurred community-wide outrage — not for the development itself, but for the height. The initial proposal was an $800 million mixed-use project with a luxury hotel, condominiums, apartments, office space, underground parking and public green space.

After a spring of community meetings, the plan was pared back. Developers behind the proposed mixed-use project at Preston Road and Royal Lane have reduced the height of planned residential towers as they continue to seek support for a zoning change at the site; developer Leland Burk reportedly revised plans reducing the project's hotel-condominium tower to 240 feet, or 19 stories, while the apartment tower would be lowered to 210 feet, or 18 stories. The apartment building would contain approximately 175 units, and updated plans call for no more than 150 hotel rooms and 50 condominiums in the mixed-use tower.

Here is what actually changed between the January application and the June revision:

1. Hotel-condo tower dropped from 28 stories to 19.
2. Apartment tower dropped to 18 stories, roughly 175 units.
3. Hotel keys capped at 150, condos capped at 50.
4. Tallest massing pulled toward the center of the site rather than the edges.

Opposition is organized. Opposition to the project has also coalesced around Preserve Preston Hollow, a nonprofit organization formed by nearby residents, with their stated message reading: "No skyscrapers, no rezoning at Preston and Royal." The formal next step is public. The Dallas City Plan Commission scheduled a CPC briefing for 9 a.m. and a public hearing for 12:30 p.m. on June 25, with residents able to attend in Council Chambers on the 6th floor of Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla Street.

A useful way to hold the two sides. The design team argues the site is under-used. The $800 million project would bring in a luxury hotel, condominiums, apartments, office space, underground parking and added public green space to the approximately 7 acres the space occupies, and there is more land area in the four-corner shopping center dedicated to cars than people or buildings. Residents argue the height is the problem, not the density concept. Both can be true. The question in front of the Plan Commission is whether the compromise heights, roughly 240 and 210 feet, are close enough to the neighborhood's line to move forward, or still on the wrong side of it.

Whichever way it lands, the outcome sets the pattern for how the next contested Preston Hollow corner gets negotiated. That is why it is worth paying attention even if you never plan to eat at a hotel restaurant on that lot.

What to actually do with this in the next 60 days

A short list, written for someone who already lives here:

• Book Palladino's on a weeknight before the fall calendar fills. The bar opens at 4:30 p.m. and dinner service starts at 5.
• Put September 26 on your calendar for Fortune House at Preston Hollow Village. The first two weeks at a dumpling specialist are usually the best two weeks.
• If Cantina La Rosa is going to become the new default Tex-Mex for your block, that decision gets made in the first three visits. Go, then decide.
• If you have a view on the Preston-and-Royal project either direction, the CPC hearing is the venue where a written comment or an in-person appearance actually counts.

What this all means for a Preston Hollow homeowner

Nothing on this list changes the fundamentals of why families choose Preston Hollow. Lot sizes, tree canopy, and the quiet residential fabric between the commercial nodes are all intact. What is changing is the quality of the ten-minute errand. When a Grand Central steakhouse operator picks your grocery corner for his second location, and a Michelin-recognized chef takes a lease two miles away at Walnut Hill, the everyday texture of the neighborhood moves up a notch without anyone building a tower to do it.

The tower fight is a separate question, and it will be decided at City Hall on its own schedule. The rest of the story is already open for reservations.

If you're weighing what these shifts mean for a home you own or are considering in Preston Hollow, or you want a read on how a specific block relates to Preston Royal, Preston Hollow Village, or the 5930 Royal Lane site, Wiebe Real Estate is happy to walk it with you. Work With Us.